harsh-kabeer

I think it is Ugly, in the recent crop of Bollywood flicks, that matches the grimness of Badlapur. Whereas conventional Bollywood flicks are painted in colourful palette, Badlapur is done in shades of grey that is never afraid to go dark, but refuses to go white. Its darkness made me swoon on my seats. Its boldness enthralled me. This is the noir Bollywood has been waiting for. In Badlapur, the director has created two main characters that turn the very conventional ideas of protagonist and antagonist on its head and delivery a dark, comic, intense thriller that glued me to my seat in the first half, but falters in the second half where it tries to give intensity to the changing dynamics between the two main characters, but falters because the screenplay in the second half could not throw the same punch it did in the first half. The build up was definitely great and it showed itself in the stronger moments of second half, but as the story veered to its climax, it starts turning the whole revenge story upside down which is beautiful, but could not bring the same intensity and sharpness. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is the star of the movie. He is a phenomenon. Varun Dhawan comes second best. His acting is fine and his acting shows the intensity his character requires, but his voice does not live up to it. Overall, a must watch. Not for those who love the usual Bollywood fare.

What a waste of time! The first half, that was okay de spite many of its flawed and uninspired scenes, was completely undone by the stupid, tension free, predictable second part. Baby does have its few moments of 'awesomeness', but they are few. And they are always destroyed by the clichés, jingoism and melodrama that Neeraj Pandey had thrown in large measures to 'hold' together the movie.

Akshay Kumar rocks in his role. And he is the only one to look forward to. Danny and Anupam Kher are wasted. Danny is Akshay's boss, but he always seems to be the one who seems to be begging for Akshay's help. Anupam Kher's role play more as a comedic entry than a serious, meaty role. Tapee Pannu as a female agent is good and the sequence involving her is the best thing you will watch. Hans Zimmer like music is a pain in the ears. Awful.

I think it shouldn't come as a surprise either. A Wednesday suffered from the same flaws, but since it was done on a smaller scale, the flaws were not so glaring and since it reinvented the genre of a "kickass common man in an Indian scenario" giving voice to the atrocities suffered by a common man, it seemed a hard hitting entertaining movie. But Baby is something that has been done umpteen number of times. So it needed to reinvent the genre itself, overcome the stupidity and jingoism associated with it, but sadly it succumbed. And being a fan of espionage thriller, I am disappointed.

Unoriginal, unfunny, stupid and without any intelligence whatsoever, a pity for a movie whose story relies on a lot of 'intelligence' to crack down the terrorists. Taking its inspirations from multitude of Hollywood movies (heck there is a sequence copied from Dark Knight), the movies feels uninspired and badly done. The second part goes Argo-ish, but it is never able to maintain the tension- a prerequisite for a thriller movie, I would say.

Baby is loud, over the top and utterly stupid.

Finally it comes to an end. No matter how hard Peter Jackson tries to emulate the magic of Lord Of The Rings trilogy, he is going to fail miserably. The story that is already stretched out in the first two instalments hangs by a thread in this edition. The characters may be high on loyalty, love, sacrifice and honour, but none of them really manages to make this movie emotionally resonant. The only saving grace of the movie is the opening scene where Benedict Cumberbatch de spite playing a CGI dragon manages to impress in mere minutes, a feat that the entire movie couldn't in its running time. If you love your Middle Earth, or love the visual panache of Jackson that mixes his dance like choreography of huge action set pieces with some old fashioned fantasy tale about good and evil, then you are good to go. Watch and savour it. But if you seek bit more than the emotional bankruptcy that it serves, then avoid. It is elongated, dull and empty.