Fast and Furious 4

Date seen : 12/04/09

Rating : 4/5

Front man Paul Walker returns for his third run as Brian O’Conner but is absolutely upstaged by Vin Diesel’s Dominic Torretto character. The addition of original cast members Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez, as well as new comers John Ortiz, Laz Alonso, and Gal Gadot, keeps the temperature turned up the entire movie. Surprisingly, there’s actually a pretty good plot twist as well.

FF4 goes right back to its roots by opening with a high speed tractor trailer jacking. The action is of course intense and well played, but the best moment of the opening scene is when Sung Kang’s Han Lue character flashes on the screen. Fans of the franchise know that Han was included in the Tokyo Drift movie, so this seemingly nonchalant transition instantly gives this movie placement on the FF timeline.
Other than the “original parts,” the main thing I noticed is that the movie actually tried to be a movie. It toned down the gearhead speak and didn’t try to establish street cred with a plethora of car terms. That being said, it is still Fast & Furious. The car driving scenes are intense but still have the cheesey cuts to in car trash talking that has been a calling card of the series. The soundtrack is amazing. Worth a watch

Ek: The Power of One

Date Seen: 12/04/09
Rating: 3/5

Ek: The Power of One also does not look as a very promising film.Director Sangeeth Sivan has experimented with Bobby Deol and Shriya Sharan in the film Ek: The Power of One. Bobby Deol had a role which was similar to the ones he had played in films like Badal and Bichoo. He had been hired by a CM aspirant to shape an assassination and gather sympathy from the voters. But the killing happened in reality and Bobby Deol had to hide and fled to Hoshiarpur.He entered a Punjabi House and pretended as the lost son. Over there he got involved with local problems. There were greedy farmers who wanted to grab the land of the relative of Bobby Deol by force. So he got a scope of showing his action skills in that part.The only interesting part of the film involved the investigation carried out by Nana Patekar in respect of the killing of the CM. It has been seen in the past that whenever powerful actors were given smart scripts they changed the mood of the film. The best example can be Om Puri’s performance in Bobby Deol’s film Gupt. He accelerated the pace of the film and countered the aggressive performance of Bobby Deol.The same thing happened in this film. Nana Patekar had created interest in the minds of the viewers from the time he stepped in. The film also got pace and direction. Shriya Saran did well but the script did not have much for her.In a nutshell the film does not have the masala to end up being a blockbuster. Bobby Deol desperately requires a super hit film to remain in the elite list where he was at the time of release of films like Gupt or Soldier. These days action films are not doing well, so in that perspective, if the film does moderate business it is fare for the producer and director.

Firaaq

Date Seen: 13/04/2009
Rating 3.5/5

Shocking, disturbing and thought-provoking, Nandita Das’s movie Firaaq touches a raw nerve. Admittedly a work of fiction claimed to be inspired from thousands of true stories, ‘Firaaq’ (meaning quest, or separation) mirrors the gruesome reality of the Gujarat riots in which many Muslims and Hindus were slaughtered. ‘Firaaq’ provides us a peek into the after effects of the riots by taking us into the minds of the characters that populate its parallel stories. The gravity of the subject is established in the opening reel when a truckload of dead bodies are dumped into a mass grave. A homeless boy Mohsin wanders the streets in search of his Abu. A middle-class housewife Aarti ( Deepti Naval ) battles her guilt of having shut the door on a desperate Muslim woman pleading for life. A Muslim-Hindu couple, Sameer and Anu, ( Sanjay Suri and Tisca Chopra ) grapple with the altered reality of their surroundings and plan to leave the city. A group of Muslim men gang up to take revenge. An ageing musician Khan Saheb ( Naseeruddin Shah ) is unable to comprehend the senseless violence and massacre. Two sahelis, Munira and Jyoti ( Shahana Goswami and Amruta Subhash) manage to stick together in the environment of communal hate and suspicion. With calculated restraint, sensitivity and subtlety, ‘Firaaq’ tells the story of these characters in a bid to rattle the conscience of the viewers and make them realize the horrendous crimes that took place in the Gujarat of 2002. However, it needs to be said that some might find the film one-sided because it repeatedly portrays the victimization of Muslims – be it a cop telling a Sameer Shaikh (Sanjay Suri) to buzz off to Pakistan, or a local resident dropping a heavy stone slab on a man’s head just because he is a Muslim. But all in all, Nandita Das does a fairly decent job of telling a multi-layered story with seamless clarity. The performances are top notch, particularly by Deepti Naval, Shahana Goswami, Naseeruddin Shah and Paresh Rawal , who plays a middle-class, anti-Muslim Gujarati trying to cover up the rape committed by his young brother. Looking beyond the film’s theme, ‘Firaaq’ is a cinematic gem with excellent cinematography (Ravi Chandran), well-penned screenplay (Nandita and Shuchi Kothari) and evocative background score. Despite its somewhat narrow perspective, it’s a film made with conscience and noble intention, as reflected in a scene in which Raghuvir Yadav (a domestic help) tells Naseer that Muslims are being killed. Naseer replies: “Insaan Insaan ko maar raha hai, gham toh iss baat ka hai. A statement that entreats us to see humans beyond their religions, it pretty much encapsulates the soul of ‘Firaaq’. Definitely worth a watch.