Kaminey

.....Camera, Action !!!!! Oh you forgot the lights Mr. Vishal Bharadwaj? Ssshaahid Kapoor and Faahid Kapoor along with Priyanka Chopra and an unknown cast were so costly that you could not rent out the lights for shooting? Oh no...may be your Oscar winning Guru Mr. Gulzar or mercurial singer Sukhvinder proved too costly.....? What a shameful movie after a brilliant Makadee and dark yet dramatic Maqbool and Omkara.

When one comes out of the hall at the interval or at the end one is fearful of almost losing eyesight because of the complete darkness on the screen and in the hall for hours. In fact the brightest scene in the movie is the Dhen Taen Naan song which has the camera moving along with psychedelic colored lights of the dance floor where the hero and his violenr gangster 'brother' are dancing. The song has a good tempo but is almost impossible to view without damaging your retina. And people said that Babel had one or 2 scenes with jerky camera and psychedelic colors bad for the eyes !!! This entire movie is bad for the eyes and can give you a violent headaches if you are not used to the unnecessary profanity, blood and violence.

Shaahid Kapoor is good in his 2 roles and it seems Priyanka after Madhur Bhandarkar's Fashion has gone back in time and is shown entirely in cheap get-ups as if from the movie Chandni Bar. Rest of the actors were as it is unknown; they may have been good but I could not read most of their expressions because the screen was so dark and most of them had wierd facial hair.

Strangely the film has dialogues in Bengali, Marathi as well as some south American language yet for Bengali and Marathi there are no subtitles which could have eased some pain in the eyes that the film was meant on giving.

A word on the great Gulzar who seems to have helped get the great RDs numbers introduced in the background in some scenes. But it is strange that he chose to write for this dark, dirty, profane, almost idiotic movie whereas we have always associated him with clean thematic and topical cinema. The words of his songs are still good, the music also is OK and popular but not brilliant. I am sure the great Gulzar must be regretting this movie as one of his works

And yet again critics at Times of India have swayed with the director's name and his previous movies to give this TRASH of a movie 4 star rating......Times of India is losing its credibility ... in fact I am sorry Mr. Imtiaz Ali but Love Aaj Kal was 10 times more brilliant.

However the title was most apt and people were seen coming out and heard saying "Vishal, you ........."

Rating * * * * *

Love Aaj Kal

It is a mish mash of recent movies and nothing else. I am surprised that critics at esteemed dailies like Times of India instead of trashing it have given 4 Star ratings !!!!

Mix Hum Tum, KANK, Bachna Ae Haseeno and Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na in little measures and you get this movie - wow - so simple to make a movie these days. The movies today are mainly made for the confused NRIs.....and this is yet another attempt at the same. But even Hollywood sensibilities have not eroded so much; if a bride has to run away she does that before marriage not after it.

The son of a star Indian cricketer and the daughter of an Indian badminton star - Saif and Deepika are good and watchable together. But I think in the first few scenes the Brit Saif does not look too good, his real age shows on the screen. In fact the restrained Saif (Veer Singh) from 1965 is more expressive without talking too much whereas the Brit Saif of the 2009 is, at most times, too talkative and irritating. Deepika looks hot in a few scenes and has given some good emoting scenes also - she has done the best that her role had in the lost story line. The new comer Gisele Monterio (as Harleen - The love interest of Veer Singh) looks good and refreshing. Good to see a lot of real old-time actors from Delhi Doordarshan in small blink and you miss roles as Harleen's family. A great actor like Zutshi has been wasted in a tiny role as Harleen's Sikh father.

But the highlight is the great Rishi Kapoor who as almost the narrator of the story compares Love today with that yesterday. And of course if love is meant and shown to be mad, crazy and forever then the real hero of the film is the good looking Rahul Kapoor who predictably has to be the most mature and stoic.

Director has tried to cash in on good locales from the British country side and beautiful scape of San Francisco. But if the intention was to show that love is different in today's time and it has become more practical then the climax has been messed up. It is very very Bollywoody predictable; except that the last shot of the narrative brings a smile seeing a very special screen appearance from a very endearing personality of the Indian Silver screen from about 30 years ago.

Overall this is a shame from the maker of his great first movie Jab We Met.

Rating : * * * * *