Jai Ho Music Review

1. JAI JAI JAI JAI HO (Title Track)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bBaM2WmtIrw

Singers - Wajid, Armaan Malik

Music Composer - Amal Malik

This number is a choreographer's delight as well as DJ's. It gels completely with the soul of the film & most importantly it's youthful. No doubt in Amal Malik & Armaan Malik being roped in. The lyrics are catchy, insaniyat ki raah pe chalo, lets their be beat & let their be faith aur mere sang kaho, Jai Ho. It's a wonderful composition with lots of variations.

Rating - 3.5/5

2. BAAKI SAB FIRST CLASS HAI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PC78DWnnaE8

Singer - Wajid

Music Composer - Sajid-Wajid

The song has been much talked about. The song has heavy lyrics. The video song has had it's impact already, it's the kind of song which takes time to grow on you. An average fare because of the heavy lyrics & the type of dance number it is made to be.

Rating - 2.5/5

3. TERE NAINA MAAR HI DAALENGE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oZjjTEsXVGg

Singers - Shaan, Shreya Ghoshal & Shabab Sabri

Music Composer - Sajid-Wajid

This is a typical Bollywood romantic number. It's in the same lines of Tere Mast Mast Do Nain. Some will miss Rahat Fateh Ali Khan but Shaan's voice grows on you the moment he sings Qaatilana. It has a classical touch & something which listeners have been related to with Dabangg & Dabangg 2. Shreya Ghoshal's voice is heavenly. It is a soft number, composition is good but it's resembles a lot with the previous composition in the same style.

Rating - 3.5/5

4. PHOTOCOPY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RKyua678jVc

Singers - Himesh Reshammiya, Keerthi Sagathia & Palak Muchhal

Music Composer - Sajid-Wajid

This starts with Keerthi Sagathia's voice, setting up the mood straight away. This is a composition for the masses. Not something that would appeal for me, both music as well as lyrics. Himesh tries something different from his usual self.

Rating - 2/5

5. TUMKO TOH AANA HI THA

http://youtu.be/Iz76QXXv-Sg

Singers - Armaan Malik & Marianne D'Cruz

Music Composer - Amal Malik

As a fan, I'm curious how this voice would suit Salman Khan but otherwise, this song is a chartbuster. Superbly composed romantic number & the lyrics are well written, ofcourse it's composed by Amal Malik so it's targeted towards the younger generation. Armaan Malik is a singer to watch out for. Lovely number this is & all it makes you say is "Because I Love You, I Love You Till The End".

Rating - 3.5/5

6. NAACHO RE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ARGdgfEUFSI

Singer - Ujjayinee

Music Composer - Devi Sri Prasad

DSP is back big time. Here's the second chartbuster from the album. I expect this one to be the introduction of Daisy Shah, she's an awesome dancer after all & no wonder if she's introduced with this music number. This is blend of folk, classical & western beats, who else to achieve this other than DSP.

Rating - 3.5/5

The rest 3 are the remix versions of Love You Till The End, Photocopy & Baaki Sab First Class Hai which I won't be reviewing. It will be either good or just be a filler for the album.

My overall rating - 3.5/5

Dhoom 3 - Yeh Bande Ne Toh Dhoom Macha Hi Diya.

Story - Jackie Shroff runs the famous The Great Indian Circus. He has taken lots of loan from the Western Bank of Chicago who are trying to confiscate his property. When they don’t listen to his pleadings he decides to take his life which angers his son Sahir played by Aamir Khan who is motivated to bring down the entire bank. Will Aamir succeed in his plans & how will the cop-duo Abhishek & Uday try to stop Aamir forms the rest of the story.

The Film - Well the movie’s screenplay has been neatly woven. The first few minutes is completely dedicated to form the backbone of the entire film, Jackie Shroff & Aamir’s childhood. This firmly prepares the audience to be ready for what’s there in the next 170 odd minutes. After the initial introduction to the main characters, Aamir Khan makes a grand entry amidst several dollar bills, well outside the screen people showered their appreciation with loud cheers. The introduction achieves what was expected & takes Dhoom 3 to a whole another level compared to what was achieved by its prequels. After this the desi-cops gets introduced, the director chose to go all Dabangg for the desi-fight which looked little dull mainly due to the top class stunts which was shown just few minutes earlier. Then Katrina Kaif makes her entry & she just steals the show with her acrobatic moves & a sensuous striptease. Without wasting more time in introducing the characters, the director gets into business straightaway. The pace is so fast that it’s only the high entertainment that speaks here. The first half ends with a superb twist (although it’s quite easy to figure it out) yet the twist was completely effective.

The second half starts trying to balance it out from where the first half ended. To be frank, the romance angle for Aamir & Katrina was completely half-baked but Vijay Krishna Acharyaseemed to have learnt from his previous mistake & cleverly turns the entire love story to be told from Aamir’s point of view while creating ample opportunity for Aamir to prove his acting prowess. There’s not a single dull moment in the entire romance track because of the enduring performance by the lead star. At this point, it completely becomes a one man show with Aamir overshadowing Abhishek & Uday where their characters struggle to get enough screen space. But the writers had reserved the best for the last, while the second half tends to lose its pace, it’s the smaller twists & ofcourse entertainment quotient that takes the film a notch higher enough to match the rollicking first half. The entire pre-climax episode justifies the long run time & the impact of the high-octane chase scenes in the pre-climax support big time in building the climax.

Performances - It’s Aamir Khan’s show all the way. He is at it’s best, be it the bike stunts, tap dancing, the acrobats, the romance or the dramatic scenes. He just showed why he’s among the best. Abhishek Bachchan repeats his Jai act very confidently. Though the screen time is low he makes full out of it. Uday Chopra, I felt some of his scenes were edited out, well it turns out to be in the best interest & it did pay it off. He’s responsible for the lighter moments in the film. Katrina Kaif shines in her role. It’s not an author-backed role so all the concentration was on her looking the best & giving her the best dance moves. She just proved why she’s one of the best dancer-heroines in Bollywood. Jackie Shroff does his part with conviction, the opening act has a lot of contribution from him & the kid, Siddharth Nigam. Tabret Bethell was hardly present in the film, like I said, the scenes involving her & Uday might have been edited out.

Techincal Department - Dhoom 3 is a visual delight. Full marks to the cinematographers & the vfx team. The action is top class. Dhoom 2 lacked bikes whereas Dhoom 3 makes the best out of the bikes. Music gells well with the film’s mood. Screenplay was not great but the writers cleverly induced entertainment in high doses. With the first half revealing the main twist, there was nothing much to hold on in the second half as far as story goes, the way the movie held up on its own without being a drag, the credit goes to the director & his hard work shows in the second half.

Final Words - Don’t miss this film, watch it for its shear entertainment.

Krrish 3 - There goes another superhero film from India which ends up being just another “attempt”.

Krrish 3 - It doesn’t hurt to have a wee-bit of innovation added.

The story is very simple, there’s a bad guy who wants to do way too many bad things just because he’s a super intelligent evil scientist in a superhero flick & asusual the superhero’s job is to stop him at any cost.

First half - The movie’s screenplay is more like straight onto your face. The writers make it a point to deliberately feed the audience what they’re trying to show in the film, no matter how simple it is. Here, papa Rohit stays himself but also fills in the shoes of Rekha’s role to fill that void of “Sentiment”. It starts with the introduction of the villain where he clearly explains his intentions. Then it shifts towards the current day scenario of our superhero & his marital life. Ofcourse it’s followed with our superhero’s actual life that is fighting crime & saving people. The pace is extremely slow since there’s nothing much to tell in the screenplay here. Pre-interval portions succeeds in creating some interest among the audience.

Second half - Post interval the movie dips further in it’s pace but few interesting twists & episodes are added here. It was nice to see the inspirations taken from many Hollywood films didn’t affect the film from being desi at heart. Here, the performances gets more effective adding fuel to the slow pace. The events that leads to the climax & the entire climax itself is almost effective but the vfx lacks that punch to call it one of a kind or even a landmark. The climax tends to be dragged unnecessarily which hinders it’s impact very badly.

Performances - Hrithik Roshan is asusual top-notch. He steals the show as Rohit Mehra. He rocks as Krrish. He’s very good as Krishna too but that’s more focused on the emotional scenes which if it had more variations then it would’ve been more impactful to the screenplay.

Priyanka Chopra is good but her character didn’t demand much. Vivek Oberoi was very inconsistent & the blame should go to the writers who didn’t shape up his character well. The better way to put is to say Vivek was under-utilized knowing his acting calibre. Rajpal Yadav was wasted. The Maanvars were again under-utilized, you wish there was more to them than what was shown.

This one actress deserve a special mention. Kangna Ranaut, she was just superb in every scene she featured in. It was a top notch performance to match the level created by Hrithik’s performance. Her role has more variations & she blended in perfectly in all of them.

Direction - Rakesh Roshan is old school. He was totally influenced by the 80′s films, the bad thing was that him being inspired both Western films & Indian films of the 80′s. His direction is same as that in Krrish but atleast it was somewhat effective compared to Krrish 3 despite being an average film.

VFX - It was good & bad. The good because few episodes were indeed very well crafted but most of the time it just didn’t give the feeling of anything close to be called a landmark. Atleast they should’ve concentrated more on the glass crystals while breaking all those glasses of several buildings. Too bad that we’ve seen too much of Hollywood’s superheroes flicks that these small things seems unacceptable.

Music - Good that it had only 3 songs in the film & the title track being played in the background during end credits. None of the songs are memorable. Raghupati Rajav, though easily forgettable has Hrithik & his dance moves as the sole saviour of it. God, Allah aur Bhagwan was used just to add a song straight after the interval. Since, the song follows an interesting fight sequence, there’s not much to complain. The duet featuring Hrithik & Kangna was simply outstanding, can’t say the same about the song. Rajesh Roshan is not in his form.

Special mention of audience response - 

Negatives :

The family which was sitting next to me, they called up their friends right after the show & told them to cancel the tickets. The person who seemed 40+ didn’t stop bashing the film on the phone but I moved on.
The kids in the back row were forcing their parents to leave right in between the climax.

Positives :
The crowd did cheer when Krrish arrives on the screen. Not everytime but in the key scenes the impact was there.
The crowd cheered when the kid asks Kaal ” Kyun Kaal? Phat gayee”.

I’m sharing this just to show that film didn’t go down well with the adults & even the kids seemed to get bored too. And as far as my rating goes, I believe I belong to the people aged between 20-30 & my adult self was disappointed by this film & the kid inside me wasn’t excited by Krrish 3. They needed “dimagwala filter” to save Krrish in the film, wish they had used it to save the film’s screenplay too.

My rating for the film would be 2/5.

There goes another superhero film from India which ends up being just another “attempt”

Boss - The first masala movie of 2013 that actually entertains!

Boss is a Bollywood Action-Masala film starring Akshay Kumar, Mithu Chakraborty and Aditi Rao Hydari in key roles. It is apparently a remake of Malayalam film Pokkiri Raja starring Mammotty, Prithviraj and Shriya Saran.

Plot : Satyakant (Mithun Chakraborty) unknowingly kills a teenager and his eldest son, Boss (Akshay Kumar), takes the blame on himself. He is sentenced to jail. When he serves his time and is released, Boss moves to another city. Meanwhile, Satyakant’s younger son, Shiv (Shiv Pandit), bashes up the Home Minister’s son Vishal who is harassing Ankita (Aditi Rao Hydari), the sister of a top cop (Ronit Roy). All hell breaks loose at this point.

Review : The movie is very loyal to it’s Malayalam original Pokkiri Raja. The story is waferthin & emotional scenes dominates the screenplay. The film is all about our hero actually becoming a hero in the eyes of his beloved father. The first 20 minutes of the film is all about creating the right platform the grand entry of the Boss aka Akshay Kumar. The scenes are apt here & introduces the basic plot to the audience.

20 minutes into the movie Akshay Kumar literally takes over the film & wins over the audience. I, for one preferred Akshay’s entry to happen with that song first & then the action scene followed. It would’ve made 100% impact on me but still it succeeded in creating the right emotions. The entire first half runs in a brisk pace, no boring scenes whatsoever. Here, Akshay dances, Akshay mouths few punching dialogues, Akshay does comedy & right before the interval he performs well in the emotional scenes.

The second half, starts with an entertaining note but the pace falls especially with the songs. Although I don’t blame the placement of Party All Night song since it’s a chartbuster & it didn’t do much damage. The story takes the back seat here & there’s hardly anything happening in terms of screenplay so it’s again Akshay Kumar to the rescue here & the KHILADI moments in the second half really entertains & Akshay never fails in evoking the laughter. The climax, though entertains because of Akshay’s stunts but in real simply drags as it’s way too predictable.

The first half is high on entertainment & the second half drops but still has Akshay in it & he doesn’t stop entertaining.

Cast Performances - Akshay Kumar is the real BOSS & he entertains throughout. It’s been quite sometime since I saw Khiladi Kumar dance & it was worth it. And also it had been really long time Akshay actually lived up to his title KHILADI, some of the stunts really brought the 90′s memories. It was Akshay Kumar at his masala best.

Shiv Pandit was very average. The highlight of Pokkiri Raja was Prithviraj carrying the film on his shoulders ably till the megastar Mammootty takes over. Shiv lacked that quality & the romantic angle between him & Aditi just didn’t work despite them being picturised on one of the best songs in the film. Aditi Rao Hydari is glamorous but as far as her role goes, she had hardly anything to do. Mithun Da was first rate, not a challenging role for him. Danny Denzongpa was superb in his short role. Johnny Lever was completely wasted. Ronit Roy was perfect as the villain & till the end he gave a power-packed performance for that one-dimensional role. The rest of the cast were ok.

My Verdict : In short, it’s Akshay Kumar’s show all the way & this is the first masala movie of 2013 that actually entertains.

My recommendation : Give it a try! Its a must watch for Akshay Kumar Fans and a one time watch for others!

That .5 extra stars is for only for Khiladi Kumar & his way of entertaining.

My Rating : 3.5/5