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Tag: Abhay Deol

  • Soha Ali Khan joins P&G to help build a P&G Shiksha school in Kolkata

    Soha Ali Khan joins P&G to help build a P&G Shiksha school in Kolkata

    MUMBAI: Having impacted the lives  of over 420, 000 children till date, P&G’s flagship Corporate Social Responsibility program P&G Shiksha continues to march forward with the motto ‘Padegha India, Badhega India. In its 10th year, P&G Shiksha makes the necessary infrastructure interventions by building and supporting schools across the country thereby giving children the access to education.  Supporting this endeavour, Bollywood actress Soha Ali Khan, who has been associated with the P&G Shiksha initiative for many years, paid a visit to a P&G Shiksha School in Kolkata to help paint the school walls and complete the on-going construction activities at the school. P&G Shiksha’s infrastructure interventions are key to enabling access to education to children across the country. The actress turned teacher for the day, involved the children in some interactive learning by implementing several fun tactics. She also engaged them in a rapid fire round, on a wide range of subjects and was very impressed with the confidence, intelligence, wit and exuberance demonstrated by the P&G Shiksha children.

    The actress also shared her vision of empowering under privileged children with access to education and together with P&G Shiksha urged consumers to make the simple brand choice and join the program’s drive by purchasing P&G products such as Tide, Ariel, Whisper, Pampers, Olay, Head &Shoulders, Pantene, Vicks, Gillette, Oral-B & AmbiPur. These purchases enable the company to channelize part of the sales proceeds towards building and supporting schools across the country.

    In West Bengal alone, P&G Shiksha has improved the lives of nearly 5000 underprivileged children through quality education, by building and supporting over 15 schools. With the objective of improving the quality of education and encouraging more children to stay in school in Kolkata, P&G Shiksha delivers key infrastructure interventions that enables access to education and motivates children to learn every day. P&G Shiksha has also been instrumental in the change by equipping schools with necessary amenities from building classrooms to building toilets, thereby bringing down the dropout rate and improving the overall literacy rate in West Bengal.

    Supporting this initiative, actress Soha Ali Khan said, “I have been associated with P&G Shiksha for many years now and today I feel proud and delighted to be a part of this initiative yet again. I truly believe that education is a basic right of every child and it is heartening to see a movement like P&G Shiksha facilitating education for underprivileged children and helping them realise their dreams and providing them a better standard of living. With 42% rural areas in India still not having access to primary schools and 30% of primary schools not having proper toilets; infrastructure is a key issue at schools across the country. I am thrilled that by painting the school walls today I have been able to play a small role in giving these children a bright and colourful future and ensuring they have access to a fully functional school! I encourage all of you to join the movement by making the simple brand choice of buying P&G products, as a part of the proceeds go towards building and supporting schools. Today, at the P&G Shiksha School, not only did I discover a teacher in me, but also had a lot of fun painting the kids’ lives that are the future of India.”

    P&G Shiksha has over the years received generous support from many thought leaders and celebrities such as Anupam Kher, Dr. Kiran Bedi, Anil Kumble, Rani Mukherjee, John Abraham, Abhay Deol, Farah Khan, Arbaaz Khan, Sameera Reddy, Huma Qureshi, Sushmita Sen, Kareena Kapoor, Saif Ali Khan, Sharmila Tagore, Konkona Sen, Neha Dhupia, Soha Ali Khan, Lara Dutta, Preity Zinta, Jacqueline Fernandez, Jatin Das, Shaan, Chitrangada Singh, Soha Ali Khan,  Shruti Hassan and many more.

    P&G Shiksha also allows consumers to share in their support. This can be easily done by buying any P&G Product such as Tide, Ariel, Whisper, Pampers, Olay, Head &Shoulders, Pantene, Vicks, Gillette, Oral-B & AmbiPur and part of the proceeds will go towards building and supporting schools. Consumers can also visit P&G Shiksha’s online partner – Amazon.in (www.amazon.in/pgshiksha) to buy P&G products & support this cause.

    With a motto of ‘Padhega India, Badhega India’ – P&G Shiksha believes that the secret to a brighter India lies in the quality of education of our children.

  • Animal Planet’s new initiative “Where Tigers Rule”

    Animal Planet’s new initiative “Where Tigers Rule”

    MUMBAI: Animal Planet will bring the country’s attention on India’s majestic animal – Tiger – with its special month-long programming initiative WHERE TIGERS RULE.

    Leading Bollywood actors Abhay Deol and Chitrangada Singh have joined India’s leading wildlife channel Animal Planet to create nationwide awareness on the threats affecting tigers’ survival and the acute role tigers play in balancing India’s ecosystem.

    From the breathtaking landscapes of Sundarbans to the magnificent forests of Ranthambore, WHERE TIGERS RULE provides an intimate look into the mysterious world of tigers. Featuring some of the leading tiger experts like Alphonse Roy, Valmik Thapar, Saba Douglas Hamilton, Dave Salmoni, Simon King, John Varty, Niall McCann, WHERE TIGERS RULE showcases the elusive lifestyle of tigers and raise concern about the grave situation of dwindling tiger population.

    With a few thousand tigers left in the wild, every small effort represents hope for their survival.

    Through this engaging month-long line-up, Animal Planet’s WHERE TIGERS RULE highlights the secret lives of this private predator revealing its behaviour, predatory skills, conflict with humans, habitat destruction, poaching and conservation issues.
     

    WHERE TIGERS RULE will air every night at 8 PM from 1st to 31st March, only on Animal Planet.
     

    Commenting on the initiative, Rahul Johri, Senior VP and General Manager – South Asia and Head of Revenue, Pan Regional Ad Sales and Southeast Asia, Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific said,”Tiger is a symbol of wildlife wealth of India and holds an irresistible fascination due to its secretive predatory nature.  Its dwindling population is a matter of great concern.  Animal Planet through its dedicated programming aims to help viewers understand and appreciate this majestic and endangered big cat.”
     

    Leading actor Abhay Deol says, “Tiger is a supreme predator and is an indication of the well-being of our ecosystems. Saving the tiger is not just a choice, it’s our need.  I am hopeful that my association with Animal Planet will help raise consciousness amongst audience in securing the future of this beautiful animal.”
     

    Actor Chitrangada Singh said, “We are left with very few tigers in the wild and if collective action is not taken, the most iconic animal could be wiped off the planet forever.  Animal Planet’s Where Tigers Rule is a wonderful initiative that will sensitise viewers to understand the importance of this charismatic cat.”
     

    Now in its third year, Animal Planet’s WHERE TIGERS RULE has previously been supported by Ajay Devgn, Bipasha Basu and John Abraham.  The cause also gained affiliation from Olympic gold medalist Abhinav Bindra, filmmaker Mike Pandey and conservationists Belinda Wright.
     

    Some of the programmes in line-up include:
     

    SWAMP TIGER documents the life of the most elusive of cats – the royal Bengal tiger of the Sundarbans. Using elaborate night-sight equipment sensitive to moon and stars, the viewers will watch never-seen-before sight of a female tiger covering a carcass with leaves just before dawn and many revelations that follow.
     

    TIGERS NEXT DOOR takes a look at an intimate portrait of Sita, an Indian tigress and her cubs in the forest of Bandhavgarh in Central India.  The film analyses political changes sweeping across the nation which could mean a better future for the locals and tigers alike.
     

    INDIA – KINGDOM OF THE TIGER is a historical epic depicting India from 1910 to the modern era. The film chronicles life of Jim Corbett, the famed English hunter-naturalist, as he races to save an Indian village from the terror of a man-eating tiger.

    Naturalist and filmmaker John Varty and zoologist David Salmoni are the ultimate friends of these beautiful animals. LIVING WITH TIGERS follows their dynamic and ambitious program which has been developed to reintroduce captive tigers into the wild.

     

    TIGER, HUNTING FOR A HOME looks at some of the issues concerning the plight of Tigers and how their existence or extinction impacts life around them.

  • BO: A bad start to 2014

    BO: A bad start to 2014

    MUMBA: It has been a dull scene at the box office windows all over as even the Salman Khan film, Jai Ho, has behaved way below expectations. The single screens were made to pay high MGs (the demand was “More than MGs paid for Dhoom3!). All stand to lose 50 to 60% of the MGs paid. They had a happy ending to year 2013 with Dhoom3 but have had a bad start to 2014. Also, there is no major film in sight in near future to rest their hopes on.

     

    Salman Khan’s sermonising fare, Jai Ho, has not been able to draw crowds from day one. The audience seems to have a strong antenna about their choice and infer a lot from the publicity campaigns of a particular film. The film had a weak Friday and a Saturday which saw a drop instead of a rise in collections. The only saving grace were the Sunday collections which jumped by about 40% over its opening day figures. With an opening weekend of 57.2 crore, the film has not even managed to cross the mandatory 100 crore mark in its first week which is expected of any major star. The film ended its first week with 82.1 crore. It may just about manage to cross the 100 crore mark which still makes it a loser.

     

    The solo release of the week, One By Two is a rank bad film and faced the consequences for being so. Lacking any story worth telling and a coherent script backed by poor handling, it failed to attract even a small fraternity of Abhay Deol fans. At many screens, there was ‘No audience, no show’ status. The film collected 1.4 crore for its first weekend.

     

    Yaariyan, its mediocre content notwithstanding, has made its money. Having collected 32.05 crore in its first two weeks, the film has added another crore to its tally, taking its total to 33.05 crore.

     

    Dedh Ishqiya has run out of steam by its third week. Adding just 80 lakh for its third week, the film’s three week take is 25.4 crore.

  • One By Two: A Lost Cause

    One By Two: A Lost Cause

    MUMBAI: One By Two is formula for an economic date where one shares a single soup with his date with the notion that he will get a little more than the other.

     

    Here, the title is also symbolic of the stories which move simultaneously of two people which become one only at the end. Described as a romantic comedy, the film has these ingredients missing, romance as well as comedy! In fact, the film lacks in a definite concept. What is it all about?

     

    Abahy Deol is a dejected man having been dumped by his girlfriend. However, he is bent on getting her back. He serenades under her balcony when he is not punching a computer keyboard in his office or strumming a sponsor’s (washing powder Nirma) jingle on a guitar. His prized possession is a DVD of a song he wrote for his girlfriend which he hopes to play for her again someday!  If this is an ode to youth today, it is a sad one. His girlfriend has dropped him in favour of her dance guru so that she gets selected for a famous TV dance show.

     

    There is another contender to the said TV show in Preeti Desai, a London trained ballet dancer. What is common between Preeti and Abhay’s ex girlfriend is that they are so determined to get on to the show carrying a prize of 10 lakh that they make it a practice of sleeping  with the guys in charge! In a supposedly contemporary film, prize money of 10 lakh in a TV show must be pittance, especially considering Preeti seems to be well-off with her mother, Lillete Dubey, consuming gallons of Scotch per day. The ground for Lillete to be sauced all day is that she was dumped by her moneybag paramour.

     

    The sequences in the film often have no relevance to previous happenings. Some things just drop from nowhere. The comedy in the film is in noisy passing of gas and other toilet humour, all repeated rather too often. The hero is confused, undecided all his life. When asked to marry a girl of family’s choice, the family being his mother Rati Agnihotri and father Jayant Kriplani, he is okay with it. The suitor is a full blown Punjabi girl endowed with all the Punjabi attributes. And, how does he make his intent of not wanting to get tied down known?  On the Roka ceremony, he emerges out of his bedroom in a worn out boxers and a T shirt; he welcomes the girl’s family with a loud song accompanied by his guitar! The idea of comedy is rather weird!

     

    Instead of a romantic comedy, the film comes out more as a story of two perpetual losers. The film can be called directionless. As for music, the film has a couple of decent tracks in Ishq ki khushfehmiyan… and Khuda na khasta. While the making is economical, the only positive aspect in the film is cinematography by Sameer Arya. Performances are generally ordinary.

     

    One By Two is a lost cause.

     

    Producers: Abhay Deol, Amit Kapoor, Sanjay Kapoor, Vikram Khakhar.

    Director: Devika Bhagat.

    Cast: Abhay Deol, Preeti Desai, Lillete Dubey, Rati Agnihotri, Jayant Kriplani, Darshan Jariwala, Anish Trivedi.

  • Blackberrys Men suit up on the streets of Mumbai

    Blackberrys Men suit up on the streets of Mumbai

    Blackberrys Sharp Nights, the prime property of menswear brand Blackberrys, gave a sneak preview today of their upcoming event. They unveiled the celebrities who will be walking the ramp for this edition, appropriately themed as Progressive. The unveiling saw bare chested men walk past cheering crowds on Linking Road to the brand store where they were then styled in a formal attire from the brand’s latest F/W 2013 collection. As the men lined up and walked down the Linking Road stretch, they kept unveiling the bus stops carrying the Blackberrys Sharp Nights campaign visuals and finally reached the store to unveil the store facade. From walking bare chested to the red carpet tuxedo look, it was quite a transition for these men. Thus, dressing down to dress up to the hilt was the thought behind the activity. It was quite an evening, with music, lights and crowds cheering on the men.

     

    Through the Sharp Nights concept, Blackberrys has recognized a tribe of sharp men from various spheres of life. The fourth edition of Blackberrys Sharp Nights scheduled on 4th October, 2013 promises a mix up like never before. Themed as Progressive, critically acclaimed Abhay Deol, charming Siddharth Malhotra and stellar performer Aditya Roy Kapoor will strut down the ramp for the biggest ever fashion extravaganza, as they celebrate the best of new age cinema.

     

    To get a chance to be a part of the season’s coolest event, Blackberrys is hosting various activities at their stores, Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/BlackberrysMensFashion?fref=ts and on Twitter https://twitter.com/BlackberrysMens. One can log on to their Facebook and Twitter pages and participate in the ongoing contests to win a fabulous all expense paid VIP trip for two. Blackberrys Sharp Nights (BSN) in the past three seasons, has showcased an interesting mix of celebrities like Arjun Rampal, Farhan Akhtar, Ayushmann Khurana, Karsh Kale, Anushka Manchanda, Imtiaz Ali, Rohit Shetty, Kunal Kohli and Madhur Bhandarkar.

     

    Staying true to its mantra “Go Sharp”, the brand showed the world a glimpse of what they can expect at the Blackberrys Sharp Nights event. Be it bare chested men going sharp with Blackberrys or bringing together sharp men from music and cinema, the brand is connecting to the Blackberrys man who is young, fun, edgy and of course very stylish.

     

    Blackberrys is a brand that defines ‘sharp edged clothing’ with their higher-concept feel. Their cachet of being one of the leading formal wear brands in the India is merited with their tailoring silhouettes and unique twist on style. The brand has evolved since its inception in 1991 with its own individual personality bearing strong concepts that are both perfectly executed and cohesively carried off.

  • Win an all expense paid VIP trip to Blackberrys Sharp Nights Progressive

    Win an all expense paid VIP trip to Blackberrys Sharp Nights Progressive

    MUMBAI: It’s back again! Blackberrys announces the season’s coolest fashion night out and after party. This year Blackberrys Sharp Nights Progressive promises you the best of fashion and music as we celebrate the sharpest young stars of cinema. As the brand launches the season’s collection, Blackberrys brings to you Abhay Deol, Aditya Roy Kapur and Sidharth Malhotra and that’s not all, spinning live music for the crowd will be BLOT and the Dualist!!

     

    Feeling left out? Here’s what you need to do to win a chance to join the party and shake a leg with the who’s who of tinsel town. Like us on FB( we will place the Contest link), answer six simple questions and get yourself upgraded to stage 2; upload three looks for Business brunch, Red Carpet Event & European vacation and invite all your friends to like and comment on your entries. The more comments you get more will be your chance to be the lucky one!

     

    You want to battle it out in Twitter? Get creative and tell us how why you deserve to be a part of Blackberrys Sharp Nights Progressive and tag us using #BBSharpNights. Give us all the reasons you have and the highest number of tweets will fetch you an all expense paid trip to Blackberrys Sharp Nights Progressive!

     

    So gear up for the biggest battle and fight for your VIP ticket to Balckberrys Sharp Nights Progressive!
    Contest valid till the 28th of September. So get started!

  • Chakravyuh: A let down from Jha

    Chakravyuh: A let down from Jha

    MUMBAI: In 1973 Hrishikesh Mukherjee made Namak Haraam, an adaptation of the English film Becket (1964) an all time classic. Namak Haraam was a classic of its time too and since then, every filmmaker worth his salt has dreamt of making his own version of Becket. While many toyed with the idea, no one could put together a script worth half a Becket. Now that Namak Haraam and Becket are faded from memory and unknown to today‘s generation, Prakash Jha has taken the plunge. His latest offering, Chakravyuh, is a rehash of the great classic.

    Earlier, Jha took liberties with three classics: the epic tome, The Mahabharat; the all time Hollywood classic, The Godfather; and Shyam Benegal‘s classic, Kalyug, to make his Raajneeti. This time he tries Becket at his own peril. The film is woven around the Naxal problem in India vs corrupt politicians and trigger-happy policemen. In that, the police have a carte blanche: kill a Naxal when you see one, rape his woman to complete the ‘justice‘. That is how Chakravyuh proceeds.

    Arjun Rampal and Abhay Deol are bum chums. Rampal is one born with the proverbial silver spoon but he uses that spoon to feed his poor, no-background friend, Abhay Deol. No footage or effort is wasted on establishing their friendship, how it happened or the depth of it. The director says that they are great friends who will waste their life on each other so you accept it; period.

    When Rampal joins the police academy (since when did rich boys chose this profession?) he forces his pal Deol to join too. Also in the academy is Esha Gupta, Rampal‘s lady love. They both qualify but Deol is a rebel and is rusticated for attacking an officer. After that, he vanishes from the scene for the next seven years while Rampal and Gupta pass out with flying colours. As the film begins, they are married; he is a super cop now and she heads the intelligence wing! She is in police uniform at all times; he is inevitably in mufti and riding an SUV. That is about as much glamour as you can afford in this kind of a film.

    Rampal and his police keep falling prey to same old ploy where an ‘informer‘ plants the Naxals‘ whereabouts, the police attack and are picked off like sitting ducks by the Naxals. Rampal is hit by a bullet and that is when his bum chum, Deol, suggests he penetrate the Naxals as a police mole to help Rampal defeat them. Deol, having joined the Naxals to help his pal destroy the movement, soon starts empathising with the Naxals‘ problems. He realises that they are the ones denied justice. He takes up the cause of the discriminated and goes on to become their protagonist at the cost of alienating his friend and benefactor, Rampal.

    The equations have changed, friends have become foes. But, sadly, the film has lost its plot by now. There are encounters between the police and the Naxals and the process goes on and on. This film has no story to tell really. From script to execution, everything about it is poor; include the star cast to that which has no draw. What is a principled, educated policeman like Rampal doing protecting his corrupt masters, the politicians? How does the title fit in?

    The cast of Chakravyuh reads like the maker‘s office roll call, consisting mainly of Jha‘s regular faces. It does not matter if they don‘t really fill the bill. Of his main players, Rampal, Deol and Gupta, none has a well-defined role. The only one who steals a march is the little known Anjali Patil. Om Puri and Manoj Bajpayee don‘t help much because of their sketchy characters. And it is high time Murali Sharma changed his expressions and mannerisms. The music is a letdown and the film offers nothing in the name of entertainment.

    Prakash Jha‘s story, screenplay, direction and the very idea of making this film fails to justify why anyone will pay 200 to 300 rupees to watch it.

    Chakravyuh is poor beyond redemption.

  • Chakravyuh premiered at London Film Fest

    Chakravyuh premiered at London Film Fest

    MUMBAI: Prakash Jha‘s Chakravyuh was premiered at the 56th BFI London Film Festival on Friday. It was attended by the stars of the film.

    Directed by Prakash Jha and starring Arjun Rampal, Abhay Deol and Manoj Bajpai, Chakravyuh is a political thriller highlighting the experience of India‘s Naxalite community.
    On the sidelines of the premiere, Prakash Jha said his film‘s inclusion at the BFI London Film Festival was a matter of great pride. “I am extremely happy that the London Film Festival wanted to choose a popular Bollywood film for the festival and they decided to choose mine, which is in the popular genre, but is not really a populist Bollywood film,” he said in a statement.

    “It felt that I am trying to tell this very serious story in a popular manner because it has songs, it has the big actors and a setting which is huge and it also has a cause. I‘m extremely happy that Chakravyuh has been accepted at the London Film Festival. It‘s great,” he added.

    Said Abhay Deol of the film‘s director, “Prakash Jha – he prepares a lot which just makes the process easier. This was one of the easiest films to shoot and what I mean by that is it was so well prepped we could focus on our work. Prakash has his own fan following and he‘s an experienced filmmaker. He takes you to task before you shoot the film so that while you shoot the film you are free to focus on what you need to do.”

  • Prakash Jha to turn political thriller into Graphic novel

    Prakash Jha to turn political thriller into Graphic novel

    MUMBAI: Launching graphic novels based on films seems to be the latest style in Bollywood. After Don 2, Ra.One and more recently, Saif Ali Khan‘s Agent Vinod, now Prakash Jha is planning a graphic novel on his political thriller Chakravyuh.

    This is the first time Jha is delving into the world of graphic novels. “Prakash Jha quite liked the idea of graphic novels. He felt this film has all the ingredients to be converted into a graphic novel. He intends to reach out to the youth of India with this graphic novel,” a production house insider said on condition of anonymity.

    It is being said that this graphic novel will be many notches higher than any graphic novel made in India so far. It will be more on the lines of Sin City.

    A graphic design company is working on the novel. They are finalising the sketches right now. It will have all the main characters of the film.

    The shoot of the political thriller starring Arjun Rampal, Abhay Deol, Manoj Bajpayee is complete and the first teaser will be out soon.

  • Shanghai is a boring fare

    Shanghai is a boring fare

    MUMBAI: Shanghai is based on Costa Gravas‘ 1969 French political thriller ‘Z‘, which was based on Vassilis Vassilikos 1966 novel of the same name.

     

    Producers: Ajay BIjli, Sanjeev K Bijli.
    Director: Dibakar Banerjee.
    Cast: Abhay Deol, Emraan Hashmi, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Kalki Koechlin, Farooque Shaikh, Supriya Pathak Kapoor, Anant Jog, Pitobash Tripathy, Tillotama Shom.

    A dream that the local government was selling to its masses in Maharashtra, that of making Shanghai out of Mumbai, inspires the title of the film without much relevance to the theme. A ruling coalition government plans to build an international business park by destroying poor people‘s slums but, as it turns out, it is just another money making scandal involving vested interests in the ruling coalition. Alas, rather than be a paean to the classic novel and film, Shanghai is rather a dirge for them. The film and its script know not where they are going! Till the film is half way through, you don‘t even know who is on which side! To make matters worse, all secrets are open to public including who could be the real culprit.

    Abhay Deol, an IAS officer, heads an ambitious project for his local government, which is called International Business Park; a project being built at the cost of settlements of poor slum dwellers by grabbing their land and resettling them miles away! The park is a prestige issue for the CM, Supriya Pathak Kapoor, and her coalition partner, Kiran Karmarkar; it is their prized trophy to win the ensuing elections. However, there is an advocate, a crusader, fighting for the cause of slum dwellers in Professor Ahmedi, a professor in the US and an author who has flown down to Mumbai from the US on a twin engine propeller airplane! Mr Ahemdi, played by Prosenjit, may be a poor man‘s idol but, from the looks of it, he is quite a debauch, in that, even as he lands in the city, he happens to have a film starlet for company. He has married one of his students and romancing yet another one, Kalki Koechlin; so much for being an idol of the poor masses.

    Koechlin is a crusader standing by her professor in the US, but her father is behind bars for a Rs 400 million fraud. If he is innocent, she does not care to fight for his cause and if he is guilty, she has no status to fight against government corruption!

    Prosenjit defies all bans and protests to carry on with his rally and address the slum dwellers when he is run over by a vehicle and that is where the other lead actor, Emraan Hashmi, steps in, in the same garb and character he has donned in his umpteen previous films but made to look ugly here for whatever reason. He is a street-smart tapori, a videographer covering political rallies as well as shooting porn videos. It is while shooting a promotional video for Kiran Karmarkar that he has unknowingly recorded a plan to murder Prosenjit being discussed on phone.

    Prosenjit is on death bed and an inquiry commission headed by Abahy Deol is set up. His chief mentor in the bureaucracy, chief secretary, Farooque Shaikh, wants him to wrap up the investigation as a judgment error by the police. The police help is not forthcoming either since the police chief is as much a part of the murder plan as well as because some enmity he has with Deol for whatever reasons.

    While the witnesses, including Pitobash Tripathy, who carried out the plan along with Anant Jog, are killed at random in road accidents, Hashmi realizes he has the proof of the plan on his computer hard disk. Deol is shocked to know who is behind these crimes, viewer is not; the suspense is hardly well guarded.

    The script of Shanghai is patchy with characters poorly etched and a lot of things taken for granted or left unexplained; it is also slow paced. Direction is lacklustre; crowd scenes seem tight and look like shot in one go and used at various places in the film. Musically, the one showpiece song, Bharatmata ki jai…, is a mass number which can‘t be expected to patronise this film.

    Performance wise Deol is restrained in keeping with his character. Shaikh puts up one more of his natural acts. Hashmi is good, Tripathy is excellent. Kiran Karmarkar could do with more expressions. Kalki Koechlin does not quite gel in the set up. Prosenjit‘s character is badly sketched and he is consigned into oblivion after a few scenes. Anant Jog, Tillotama Shom and Supriya Pathak are okay.

    Shanghai is a badly made film which is a boring fare. Having opened to poor response, it is expected to only slide further as reports spread.