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Tag: Anand Tiwari

  • Go Goa Gone: A well executed experiment

    Go Goa Gone: A well executed experiment

    MUMBAI: Ever so keen to try something new and define a new genre that the Hindi film audience is not familiar with, the filmmakers at times come up with a new idea that works. While Hollywood has been dishing out zombie movies for over 70 years now and has a repertoire of 100s of them in its archives, the Hindi film industry seems to have awakened to this genre only now. So we have the second zombie movie of the year in Go Goa Gone. Indian (more specifically Hindi movie) audience generally does not like ‘yuck‘ stuff so the two wise things that the makers have made sure while making Go Goa Gone is that, the title nor promotion material hint at zombies. The other is that, it has been made into a comedy.

    Producers: Saif Ali Khan, Dinesh Vijan, Sunil Lulla.
    Diretors: Raj Nidimoru, Krishna DK.
    Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Kunal Khemu, Vir Das, Anand Tiwari, Puja Gupta.

    Kunal Khemu, Vir Das and Anand Tiwari are buddies sharing accommodation and employed at the same work place. All three have different philosophies of life. While Khemu is happy go lucky and believes in living life on day to day basis, Das is a romantic who lives like Khemu but wants to live normal life while Tiwari is a serious kind who has no vices and is sincere about his work. Tiwari is due to go to Goa on office work and the other two decide to tag along. No sooner are they in Goa, Khemu and Das are out hunting for female company when Das meets Puja Gupta who tells him about a rave party, organised by the Russian mafia, taking place that night on an island off Goa. The boys decide to gatecrash.

    At the party, alcohol, drugs and women are in free flow. Soon, a new drug specially acquired from Siberia is introduced for those who can afford it. The boys, obviously, can‘t. Next morning, the rave party is over but it has left a strange sort of after effect, all those who took the new drug have turned into zombies who, when hungry, seek human beings for food. The trio has now turned into a foursome as Gupta has joined the group. They are being chased by zombies, first by a few and later by scores of them. That is when the Mafioso, Saif Ali Khan emerges as their saviour; because he organised the rave and also introduced the drug, automatically he has become an expert on zombies overnight. According to him, there are 1399 zombies on the island since that is the number of guests he had invited and the only way to finish them was to shoot them in the head. To this end, he has already come prepared with all kinds of guns including a bazooka!

    The first half of the film is racy with many witty one-liners coming from Khemu and the film so far rests on the three boys and the girl. Khan comes on the scene much later. The second half is all about continuous race to outrun zombies and some yucky scenes of zombies feasting on human bodies which may not be to everyone‘s liking.

    With an acceptably limited duration of 110 minutes, the film has been well scripted with some enjoyable moments. Khemu‘s being the author backed role, he emerges the best with able support from Das and Tiwari. Gupta makes her presence felt. Khan‘s role is more like a cameo where he plays a superman like gun wielding Delhi born Russian Mafioso. Musically, Babaji ki booty is catchy. Photography is good with zombie scenes well executed. Direction is handled deftly.

    Go Goa Gone is a fair entertainer but not everyone‘s cup of tea with its odd combine of wit vs gore and may end up just being an experiment. 

     

    Gippi: Modern day Ugly Duckling

    Gippi bases its theme in the age old story of The Ugly Duckling written by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen in 1843. This is story of an ugly duckling born in a barnyard who is subjected to much abuse and insults from others around him till he grows up into a beautiful swan. The story has since been adapted in various formats like opera, film, drama and animation formats.

    Producers: Hiroo Yash Johar, Karan Johar.
    Director: Sonam Nair.
    Cast: Riya Vij, Divya Dutta, Doorva Tripathi, Arbaz Kadwani, Jayati Modi, Taaha Shah, Mrinal Chawla, Aditya Deshpande, and guest app by Pankaj Dheer and Raqesh Vashisht.

    Gippi– Riya Vij is a 14 year girl in the ninth standard who is fat, poor at sports and struggles through her studies. In fact, she has nothing going for her. However, there is one thing she is good at and that is to dance to the tunes of Shammi Kapoor‘s songs. Not that it is much use to her when she vies for attention; let alone boys not even many girls want to be her friend. Her total friends list includes Doorva Tripathi and a boy who has a crush on her. Vij is always made fun of and made to look small in front of other classmates by the top ranker, slim and well turned out class prefect, Jayati Modi. Modi excels in sport, always gets 90 per cent plus grades and is presentable; in fact everything that Vij is not, but aspires to be.

    Things are not so great for Vij at home either. Though her mother, Divya Dutta, gives her and her brother, Arbaz Kadwani, the best possible upbringing while managing her beauty parlour, her father, Pankaj Dheer, is about to marry a gori ma‘am; a fact, which while making her mother always sad, deprives her of a male support at her crucial growing up years.

    It is at Dheer‘s engagement ceremony that she meets a senior from her school, Taaha Shah with whom she bonds well but makes the mistake of taking his casual friendship as a budding romance. The realisation comes with humiliation in front of all her classmates at a party that romance was the last thing on Shah‘s mind.

    Finally, the cause to face up to her small world and be accepted for what she is comes when she is challenged by Modi to contest school head girl elections against her and win. Shaky at first, Vij takes up the challenge. She succeeds in conveying to other students that she is not perfect, nor are they and hence she is one of them. The underdog wins.

    Is there an audience for Gippi kind of a film? Who does it cater to? An acceptable teenage story is generally about 16 to 19 and usually romance. Not many would identify with a 14 year school girl‘s problems however good the intentions. Story and direction by Sonam Nair are routine. Performances are generally average except those of Dutta and Kadwani. Old Shammi Kapoor songs provide some relief.

  • Azaan: A montage of post-World War II espionage films

    Azaan: A montage of post-World War II espionage films








    Producer: JMJ Entertainment P Ltd, Alchemia Films.
    Director: Prashant Chadha.
    Cast: Sachin Joshi, Candice Boucher, Ravi Kissen, Arya Babbar, Dalip Tahil, Sajid Hassan, Sami Gharib, Aly Khan.


    MUMBAI: Most films in recent times may have been accused of having poor scripts, pilfered and plagiarised from western ideas; Azaan is the ultimate of such films. It has no script at all. It is just a sort of a montage of a number of post-World War II espionage films transposed in to the electronics/cell phone era.


    There is some sort of anti-India plot hatching somewhere or the other as the film makes it look and one Mr Azaan with the hand of God playing behind him feted to be the saviour. The film is also a sort of a travelogue without a planned itinerary. Wink and the hero is in some other country (the film has been shot in eight countries including India).
     
    Azaan Khan is an ex-army officer. Despite his mixed parentage of an Afghani father and Indian mother, he swears by Mother India and he has been enlisted by RAW (the Indianintelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing), nothing less, the head of which is some woman for whom a perpetually skewed face passes as acting.


    Azaan Khan’s brief is to find and eliminate a sinister enemy called Doctor (Sajid Hassan), who plans to destroy India with biological weapons through a virus called Ebola. Doctor has the backing of a powerful enemy of India–hinted at as being China. The other tracks are those of Azaan Khan’s younger brother suspected to be a terrorist and the love he finds in Candice Boucher.


    Azaan is all about action and special effects which to an extent helps camouflage lead actor Sachin Joshi’s acting limitations. Candice Boucher looks pretty but is removed from the proceedings just as suddenly as she was brought in. Ravi Kissen is economical with his expressions, using just one throughout. Rest are okay. The script is episodic and there is nothing linear about the narration which, coupled with poor direction, puts paid to any hopes of an interesting action film.The director seems to be fulfilling his fantasy of shooting a ‘Hollywood like’ film. Songs are all in the background and offer no foot-tapping numbers.


    Azaan is a waste of a huge budget befitting a star cast film.


     


    Jo Dooba So Paar: It’s Love In Bihar: A low-budget earthy comedy


     









    Producer: Andaaz Production.
    Director: Praveen Kumar.
    Cast: Anand Tiwari, Vinay Pathak, Rajat Kapoor, Sita Ragione Spada, Pitobash Tripathy, Sadia Siddiqui, Dadhi Raj.


    For low-budget earthy comedies, the Hindi belt hinterland seems to be the preferred location. The television and computer may have now exposed people in the interiors to a lot of what others are exposed to but some things or people still can hold this audience in awe. Jo Dooba So Paar: Love In Bihar is the coming of age of a local young man.


    In the film Anand Tiwari is a brilliant school student who usually wastes his talent for wrong reasons, like spreading laughing gas during exams since his friends are not yet prepared to take the exam. He is booted out of the school and his father, a trucker, wants him to join him in running the truck. As is the wont of all such teenagers, Anand Tiwari is at loggerheads with his father, Dadhi Raj, chiding him for all the illegal things he does with his truck and yet expecting his son to do everything right.


    Things get worse between the two when an American girl, Sita Ragione Spada, enters the scene visiting Bihar to do research on the local art and staying with her uncle. She is white skinned, thanks to her American mother. The young man is besotted and it is love at first sight for him. He does not waste time and approaches the girl boldly and offers to be her guide. He is now head over heels in love and the day he decides to tell her he loves her, going to meet her with a watermelon as a gift, he sees her with a white American, kissing and getting cosy.


    This is when the Bihar angle comes in; the girl is kidnapped by a local mafia, her American boyfriend seeks Anand Tiwari’s help to find her but he is too heartbroken and feeling betrayed by her to agree. Finally, of course, it is happy ending and the boy and his father too are on the same wavelength.


    The problem with the film is that it is far too predictable and there are no high points. Direction is okay while the music provides some variety in the form of local flavour. Dialogue is well penned. Performances by Vinay Pathak and Anand Tiwari are natural with good support by the latter’s bunch of friends. Sita Ragione Spada is fair. Dadhi Raj and Sadia Siddiqui give a seasoned performance.


    Jo Dooba So Paar: It’s Love In Bihar is tolerable but not at multiplex admission rates; maybe later on DVDs and TV.


     

  • Makers of Jo Dooba So Paar…to appeal against Censor decision

    Makers of Jo Dooba So Paar…to appeal against Censor decision

    MUMBAI: The makers of Jo Dooba So Paar – It‘s Love In Bihar are peeved with the Censor Board.

    The Board has not only made the makers to alter the theatrical trailer of the film, it has also given a ‘U/A‘ certificate to the film.

    Director Praveen Kumar says that by all this, the Board has been unfair. “If we agreed to make the recommended changes, then why did they give us a U /A certificate,” he asks.
     
    It is learnt that the board primarily had a problem with the two words, `maa‘ and `ghanta‘ from the dialogues ‘aise ande to tumhare maa ne diye honge‘ and ‘Sharmaji knows ghanta‘. Hence they recommended the cut of the two words from the theatrical promo.

    The filmmaker‘s problem didn‘t end there as the Board also had an issue over a line on the posters that reads ‘Bihari in love… is se khatarnaak baat to ho hi nahi sakti‘.

    Not wanting to be let down, Kumar has planned to appeal again as the line is very important for bringing out the essence of the film.

    The film, starring Rajat Kapoor, Vinay Pathak, Anand Tiwari, Sadis Siddque, Pitobash and Sita Spada, is scheduled to release on 14 October.

  • Sony Pictures to release Jo Dooba So Par on 14 October

    Sony Pictures to release Jo Dooba So Par on 14 October

    MUMBAI: Sony Pictures India will release Andaaz Productions‘ Jo Dooba So Par–It‘s Love In Bihar on 14 October.


    The film is an offbeat comedy about a headstrong Bihari youth who falls in love with an American girl, amidst the chaos and corruption of Bihar.


    Said Sony Pictures India managing director Kercy Daruwala, “Jo Dooba So Par is a charming film shot against an unusual setting – the streets of Bihar and features stalwarts of the industry combined with fresh new talent in its cast. We are pleased to bring Sony Pictures‘ strong distribution network, unmatched experience and leadership position over nine consecutive years, to support the film.”


    Avers director Praveen Kumar, “I‘ve made a film drawing upon memories of both growing up in Bihar and falling in love. It has been an enjoyable, if sometimes strenuous experience. One has treaded the comic and commercial while keeping close to the truth (not always hilarious) of these coming-of-age experiences on the part of the planet we call Bihar. And yet, I believe, these experiences of violence and love are universal.”


    The film stars Anand Tiwari, Vinay Pathak, Rajat Kapoor, Sadiya Siddique and Pitobash.