Tag: Randeep Hooda

  • Sleaze takes over script in Jism2

    Sleaze takes over script in Jism2

    MUMBAI: Jism part of the Jism2 is an apt title in that the reputation of its female lead, Sunny Leone, as a porn star and her willingness to shed her clothes in front of the camera makes this film with a banal story idea into a hot proposal in trade, the media and finally the by-now-curious moviegoer. It has given the film great start. 
    Sunny  Leone introduces herself as a porn star at the onset; does not matter that this has nothing to do with whatever happens in the film thereafter. Arunoday Singh represents a secret intelligence force made of a select few whose existence is not on any record; he is chasing Sunny Leone for some prolonged time to enrol her into an assignment. She is willing to sleep with him as soon as she sets her eyes on him but is not sure if she would be interested in his assignment.

    A price tag of Rs 100 million convinces her to take up the assignment but she is not sure again if she should because the assignment is to go back to Randeep Hooda, who she loved immensely once and who walked out on her one night. She only has hatred for him now. That he was equally in love with her is why she is chosen to take up the job. The prospect of getting even with Hooda convinces Leone to go ahead.

    Hooda is holed up in some picturesque location in Sri Lanka. Singh and Leone land up in a cottage bang opposite him. Their cover story is that she is here with her fiancé, a PR man who has some work to finish but the real purpose being to find a hard disc on which Hooda has a list of crimes and criminals. Hooda loves Leone still as much but his new profile as an assassin compels him to keep her away from his troubled life. He is drawn to her again easily enough providing Singh the opportunity to search Hooda‘s place for the disc and to producers to put Leone‘s body on exhibition, not that she wears much throughout the film anyway!

    As Leone gets deeper into luring Hooda back to her, Singh meanwhile falls in love with her and becomes jealous as well as possessive of her. This has now developed into a love triangle. While Singh gets a couple of pecks and kisses, sex with Leone is Hooda‘s domain. The thought makes Singh furious. The proceedings are slow and rather boring with just three characters dominating the screen time and no twists and turns in the story. Songs are the only distraction but they are of a kind that one would rather hear on a system than watch on screen.

    The little excitement, though predictable, happens only at the end, when the cards open and it is revealed that the good men were not really good and the bad man was not a bad man as he was made out to be.

    In the absence of a sensible, taut story, Jism2 has an excuse for a plot. The treatment is routine. In all, there are three decently penned dialogues. The location is beautiful. The film can be trimmed and will serve the purpose of showing Leone and her Jism. Randeep Hooda as at times violent, at times tear shedding lover and at times a loony loner does well. Sunny Leone tries to act; Arunoday Singh does not.

    Besides the casting of a porn star, Jism2 can be called marketing coup of sorts where the producer Pooja Bhatt has more than doubled her investment and the all-world theatrical distribution rights holder, Wave Pictures, already has in their kitty a handsome margin of about 70 per cent. The film has had excellent opening at most places. All this notwithstanding, a couple of distributors, who have paid high price for their territory, will stand to make losses.

  • Do not expect any novelty in the plot

    Do not expect any novelty in the plot

    MUMBAI: Jannat 2 is a cookie-cutter Mukesh Bhatt-Emraan Hashmi film where the hero is lured into petty criminal activities to earn money and aspires to get into bigger crimes to make more money. That is when a woman enters his life and he wants to change for the better.Emraan Hashmi‘s character need not be rewritten since it is the same as the earlier Jannat; he is a petty criminal in Delhi who, under the guise of selling fabric cut pieces, deals in country-made guns. He is picked up by an almost lunatic policeman, Randeep Hooda, who is obsessed with finishing off the business of such guns because his wife, who he loved very much, was shot dead by one such gun.

    Hooda wants to use Hashmi to reach the kingpin behind the origins of this business. Hurt in his encounter with Hooda, Hashmi goes to a charity hospital for dressing; following the cyclostyled Bhatt Brothers script where just names change along with the kind of underworld the film is going to deal with, he falls for the doctor, Esha Gupta. His pursuit finally pays off when she agrees to marry him; now he has to mend his ways, give up illegal activities and make a decent life with her.

    Hooda has different plan. He wants Hashmi to join the arms ring and reach to the top to uncover the ultimate head. As things turn, Hashmi is stuck between two people, the maniacal Hooda and the ring kingpin, Manish Choudhary. While there is no way he can get out of the trap, he also has to make sure his love, Gupta, does not find out the truth.

    Hashmi has to tread carefully within the triangle, a process which lacks twists and turns and often becomes repetitive: his scenes with the cop and Gupta, trying to get free of Hooda‘s grip, dodging the suspicions of the kingpin and balancing his act with Gupta.

    It is during first hour while Hashmi plays the tapori along with a sidekick, Zeeshan Ayub, that the film is fun. It gets predictable thereafter due to which the second half of the film loses pace at many places. His chasing Esha Gupta probably needed some more footage to add to the romance angle.

    What has changed from the formula is the location and the kind of illegal activity the film deals with, so there is no novelty to be expected in the plot. Considering this, the film needed to be a little tauter.

    Direction is copybook style. Music, which has usually been the strong point of Mukesh Bhatt films, is not up the mark here. Cinematography is good. Dialogue is mostly street variety with generous use of Hindi bad words. Emraan Hashmi has to play his usual self being a street smart petty conman. Randeep Hooda goes overboard as a cop gone berserk. Esha Gupta, luckily, does not need to show any histrionics and looks mature. Brijendra Kala impresses with mere expressions having few lines to mouth. Manish Choudhary is passable. Zeeshan Ayub shows promise.

    Jannat 2 has opened to a very good response, thanks to the brand equity created by Bhatt banner-Emraan Hashmi-Jannat success combine. However, to make profit for the distributor, the film will have to do much more business than the biggest Emraan Hashmi hit.

    Fatso is neither a comedy nor a romance

    Original ideas are at a premium and inspiration dignifies lifting ideas from the older movies. Fatso finds its roots in a 1968 Hindi film, Jhuk Gaya Asman, which was copied from a 1941 Hollywood film, Here Comes Mr Jordan, which was in turn adapted from the play, Heaven Can Wait. It has since been made a few more times in film (Heaven Can Wait, 1978, and Down To Earth, 2001 as well as for TV). While Jhuk Gaya Asman was about romance backed up with family wealth, jealousies and treachery, Fatso attempts to make this into a modern youth-centric romance-comedy but emerges as a half-baked product; more like a TV episode.

    Purab Kohli, Ranvir Shorey and Neil Bhoopalam are bum chums. Kohli and Gul Panag are deeply in love and are planning their wedding; Bhoopalam has a relationship going with Gunjan Bakshi while Shorey is the one without any ties mainly because he is big, fat and paunchy.

    Life is all fun until one day the three friends are driving on a foggy highway and meet with an accident, killing Kohli. It turns out that there is no heaven or hell; dead people only go to a department where there are hundreds of people lining up for nobody knows what; files are made on them after which they can then live without sleep or hunger or any human feelings. The place is more chaotic than an Indian interstate bus depot. The department realises that bringing in Kohli is a blunder and it was really Shorey who was supposed to be killed in the mishap. After some supposed to be funny (but not really funny) scenes, it is decided to send Kohli back on earth but since his body has already been cremated, he has to get into Shorey‘s body, who was to die in the first place.

    Wanting to make the most of Kohli‘s death, his friend Bhoopalam wants to win over Panag and dump his own girlfriend. As Kohli, in the form of Shorey, knows he can‘t convince anyone of the reality, he keeps foiling Bhoopalam‘s attempts till finally, Panag sees him filling the void in her life and falls for him. While Kohli in Shorey‘s body gets his love back, Panag has found a new love altogether.

    The problem with Fatso is that, it neither succeeds in delivering a comedy nor the moments of romance. Script is rather loose and direction routine. Performance wise, Ranvir Shorey emerges as the best of the lot. Purab Kohli is good; Neil Bhoopalam and Gunjan Bakshi are okay. Gul Panag is her usual bubbly self. Of the rest, Brijendra Kala makes his presence felt.

    Fatso has been released at limited screens with one to two shows a day but finding audience will still be a challenge.

  • Ketan Mehta’s Rang Rasiya to open in May

    Ketan Mehta’s Rang Rasiya to open in May

    MUMBAI: After a long wait, Ketan Mehta’s Rang Rasiya will eventually release in May.


    The film is based on the life of the 19th century Indian painter Raja Ravi Varma.


    Describing the premise of film, Mehta said: “The film is a kind of response and reaction to the climate of intolerance that was sweeping in the country five -six years ago. What happened to Raja Ravi Varma 100 years ago happens today also. If you look at M.F. Hussain, he was hounded, persecuted, prosecuted and thrown out of the country because of his art. He was forced to go on a self exile.”


    Starring Randeep Hooda and Nandana Sen, the film has been produced by Deepa Sahi and Anand Mahendroo.


    After completion, the film was lying in the cans for the last three years.