Ek Main Aur Ek Tu - The Review

I was unfortunate, unlucky, hapless, ill-fated, wretched, etc. enough soul to have to watch this movie..

The story in short: the hero Imraan Khan (Rahul), is a low-confidence, unsure-of-himself sorta soul dominated by his parents (Boman Irani and Ratna Pathak Shah, high-society up-noses but great acting as always).. enter in his life a picturized-as-full-of-life Riana (Kareena Kapoor) who he falls for.. no feelings from her side... and the poor loser (right until the very end) manages only to end up having her as his friend.. i.e. remains a loser until the very end..! storyline's been picked up from What Happens in Vegas, an episode of Friends and is sort of a cliched one..! (piss-drunk guy n a girl end up getting married one night in Vegas and you know what follows then, sparks, fire and ala, but our loser dude ended up getting none, hehehehe)..

actually having been a stock analyst in my eighth year now I have somewhat of a tad-bit-higher-than-normal sense of where I can see stocks at their tipping point and can make out where the next dip starts.. and yes, this movie, for sure is the tipping, no dipping, point for Kareena Kapoor (with bulging arms and baggy-knees, where's the size 0 that the masses enjoyed in Tashan)... there's been a failed attempt to portray her as ultra-cool modern age girl but unfortunately a lingo with words like a***h**e, anal and frank talks about butts thrown in and a mum who smokes on a toilet seat while giving you zindagi ka gyaan doesn't actually make you one..! neither is she in any way as near to the cheerful, bubbly character that she portrayed in Jab We Met...

and Imraan Khan... nothing muct to say, its a known fact in the industry and the public that the dude's got ABSOLUTELY no acting sense..well the family name will have to fade off at some point..! (as did Zayed Khan's, Sohail Khan's, Arbaaz Khan's, etc...)..

the movie does have some funny scenes esp. the one where Soniya Mehra (as Anusha, yesteryear's actor Vinod Mehra's daughter) tries to seduce Imraan..!

This is Shakun Batra's directorial debut attempt following his previous assistant directorial attempts in Rock On and Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na (also with Imraan Khan).. for a first directorial attempt this movie should create his standing in the Bollywood market..

David MacDonald's cinematography has captured some worthy angles of Las Vegas and Amit Trivedi's music (also featured in Aisha, Wake Up Sid and Dev D) does have a potential to be playing on the iPod's and Radio Mirchis for sometime.. nothing lasting though..!

Overall would categorize the movie as a 'perfect under-average' (if you end up watching the movie unfortunately you'll know what I mean)..

Don 2: The Review

A menacing, diarrheatic pot-pourri of SRK's another attempt in vain to regain the smiley-lovable-villian-with-my-arms-wide-open status (sorry mite, Baazigar, Darr, Anjaam days are bygones, mind it !!), Priyanka's sultriness, Boman Irani's paunch and Lara Dutta's 'I'm still thinking what was most striking about her - a complete dud'. What was worse was the disappointing re-emergence of Alyy Khan (aka Diwan, vice president of some bank where the Jr. Akhtar thought adding Z instead of C in Centralbank would make it sound more Doitchuh) post his small but commendable presence in Luck By Chance and A Mighty Heart many years ago..! Oh and by the way Euro notes are printed at 15 locations across Europe, almost each of these locations has its own stencil tablet, so no wonder the way Euro is going, you may not have to take any more pains to steal these, they might just be auctioned off soon.

The movie starts off with everyone's dream prison boasting a high quality of life unlike our desi-Jails (there's an entire movie on it by Madhur Bhandarkar, that enlightner of our darkened souls who talks about the reality of some indian professions e.g. traffic signal beggars), some action comedy by Boman Irani (where he tries to beat the sh*t out of our one-man Khan army, heart-warming/cute..!) and some nice romance by two lady interpol officers - one hot (Priyanka) and the other not so hot sidekick that moves around with her like a loverboy, protector, lifter-from-the-stretcher and also a part-time interpol officer when not trying to hit on poutting "junglee billee"..

The scenes then trott off to Zurich and Germany where our multifacetted hero (who can be a dangerous villian, a passionate lover, a master-mind strategist and a judo-taekwondo-drunkenmonkeykingfu-hotchpotch not to mention a rally-racer who drives while keeping time elaborately announcing now 'times-up, junglee billee') makes up a gameplan to steal euro-note stencils from the Doitchuh ZZZZentralbank with sidekicks like Kunal Kapoor (the Rang De Basanti fame who acts as a hacker) and Nawab Shah (aka Jabbar, who was last seen in the movie Lakshya, also by Farhan Akhtar) thrown in. In the end, he shows a finger to the world, Interpol, Doitchuh ZZZentralbank, Boman + Jabbar and ends with not just stencils but a hastily arranged immunity for a 'the fella jiske piche gyarah mulk's police is slogging their ba**s off to catch him, probably also signed by this ZZZentralbanker Diwan) by having a change of heart and act from being the most wanted villian in gyarah mulks in one minute to a gun-swingging, bad-boy catcher siding with the cops. Of course, side-kicks with pregnant wives (i.e. Kunal Kapoor) and butt swinging vamps (i.e. Lara Dutta, who right up to the end hasn't found her foot in the movie) are amply rewarded with unlimited Euro notes.

I really expected more out of Farhan Akhtar following his Dil Chahta Hai and Lakshya - both of which were to some extent critically well-received - clearly, Don 2 will command nothing close to that. The movie ends up being more style than substance and director's / writer's failed attempt to camouflage cliches with 'I'm cool, with a mysterious smile' quotient. Robbery planning and scenes are direct adaptations of Ocean's Eleven, The Italian Job, The Bank Job and MI making it worse than Vipu Amrutlal Shah's Aankhen (which was a terrible adaptation of Efren Pinon's directed movie Blind Rage).

Music by Shanker Ehsaan Loy is no much ado (e.g. hai yeh maya is sorta okay-ish) while high expectation star-cast like Om Puri have been down-played with Shahrukh already smeared all over the screen during the 150min playtime.

Matthias Barsch has had his second action director attempt in this movie following Aap Ka Suroor and has brought in a a few minutes of entertainment but nothing worth wasting valuable time of your life for..!