Ishqiya - Vidya Balan's blouse et al

Finally bunked the office early at 7:30PM to come for Ishqiya, to devour Naseeruddin Shah with an open mouth, to laugh with 'Circuit'... sorry Arshad Warsi and to just understand why is this movie seemed different.

Surely it was different. The storyline was kick-ass. More specifically the set in which the movie is shot is very realistic. The house of the widow, furniture, the village, the cars and everything that was selected to be part of set design is simply superb. Production design credits go to Nitin Chandrakant Desai. I wonder how much research must have gone into it. And it was surely entertaining. Recommended for sure.

Naseeruddin Shah is simply great and funny. Story (Vishal Bhardwaj, Sabrina Dhawan and Abhishek Chaubey) is intelligent. Cinematography (Mohana Krishna) is beautiful with some awesome editing. The dialogues are written well & quite funny. The characters are well sketched.. ya the movie has many good points.

But I expect a lot from a movie.

The dialogue delivery was not consistent in the native dialect, pronunciation and way of speaking. Only Naseeruddin Shah could carry it through the movie. Our Vidyadhar Verma - the Sena leader and village leader was ironically the worst. It seemed he is from the Tollywood taking Hindi lessons to enter Bollywood.

The screenplay had some flaws. People peeping through windows with half their heads visible from inside, and the guys romping inside the room don't get to know the intrusion, was a bit too much to digest. I can expect that from a comedy but not from Ishqiya. The police people disappearing suddenly in the last scene was also very glaring.

Vidya Balan was a cute disappointment. She is beautiful, feminine and all but her acting is a fight. She sings a slow number with her Veena. If I had my way, I would have made her dance in that scene. Then it would not have been so clear that she is actually not singing. That she is only lip-syncing. She gave it away big time on that scene. I could only think that Nandita Das would have been a great choice. In fact, that actress from Haazaron Khuwaishein Aisi - Chitrangada Singh comes to my mind too, and would have done a better job, to my opinion.

One point ironically stuck me was Vidya Balan's blouses. In an effort to get into the seductive zone, they have become very city-ish. The cut & the stitching of the blouses were very un-villagelike.

I wonder why that stuck to me as the sore point !! Go and watch.

CRAZZY 4 - Good movie and a great strategy !!

If I am right about what Mr. Rakesh Roshan is planning with his new release - Krazzy 4, he is a genius. He tried to do the same with Krish and now he is trying to do it with a better approach.

Contrary to the reviews, the movie is much better than most of our comedy brigade. If Partner, which was completely trashy, can be a hit, I wonder why crazzy 4 cant be a hit.

It has the best of actors in Irrfan Khan, Rajpal Yadav and Arshad Warsi. Acting was consistent and could beautifully carry the characters without deviation. Humour was not overflowing, stupid and unrealistic. The movie is based on 4 characters and so the humour was because of the nature, attitude and personality of the characters. Situational, genuine and of course very funny.

The movie is definitely worth a watch.

What really caught my attention in the movie is a clear strategy of Mr. Rakesh Roshan trying to introduce this whole concept of crazzy 4 as a brand. He has tried to create brands like 'Fantastic Four', Famous Five, 'James Bond'.

I am really surprised that none of the movie reviews have noticed or written about the same.

I wonder if the strategy would work but he did a good job. Firstly, he along with his director, Jaideep Sen etched the four character with utmost precision and clarity.

Character 1 - Gangadhar (played by Rajpal Yadav) is a Gandhian whose mind is stuck in a time warp. He thinks that the country is still a British colony and we must fight for its freedom. Character 2 - Dr. Chowdhury (played by Irrfan Khan) is an eccentric with an obsessive compulsive urge to keep everything clean and proper. He has the urge to think that he is the captain of the team and be the messiah to keep the society clean and better. Character 3 - Raja (played by Arshad Warsi) is a character suffering from perpetual and spontaneous anger, who cannot control his anger in support of the world view that he has. Character 4 - Dabboo (played by Suresh Menon) is a character who has suffered trauma in the past and is unable to talk and is perpetually scared of the world.

Secondly, the director has shown an emotional bonding between the 4 characters. Even though the characters are not in proper mental state, they understand each other. To top it all, the director has brought in the character of Dr. Sonali who is the Godmother for the crazzy 4. They would do anything for her and also listen to her without question out of respect and love. This makes a team and perfect for branding and making a series of movies on the team.

Thirdly, the movie has a lot of scenes that tries to preach morals and good principles. It is typical for a movie brand to preach high morals without being boring and by being acceptable to the society at large. It is also important that the brand takes relevant issues into consideration. For instance, it preaches patriotism. In one of the scenes, the movie screen-play makes everyone in the scene stand up and respect our national anthem. The scene is so entwined with the story that it is hardly preachy and boring. It also brushes through the issue of keeping our cities clean through the character of Dr. Chowdhury.

Lastly, the movie has a song after the end of the story which clearly tries to put forth 'Crazzy4' as a brand. Hrithik Roshan introduces Crazzy 4 with his excellent dance. The lyrics of the song is cleverly crafted to introduce Crazzy4 as a brand that is truthful, honest, daring and would fight for the good.

Break free gotta get some chhutti... Tod do zanjeeron ko…Break free get ready kyon ki…Aa rahe hain krazzy4; They may be nuts… but they’ve got guts... Woh hai paagal deewane; And they don’t care… if people stare…Laga dein sabko thikane…; They’ll make you drool… they ain’t no fool…Chant hain wo mastane…And if that’s mad… its just too bad…Sach hai ye solah aane; So if you wanna… yeah… yeah…Dil hai deewana… yeah… yeah…1 and 2 and 3 and 4…Swing it with me doston…. Break free gotta get some chhutti... Tod do zanjeeron ko…Break free get ready kyon ki…Aa rahe hain krazzy 4…

Great Song. And I hope it does its purpose. All the best, Mr. Roshan.