Movie Review - Victory

Victory!! An usual movie with an unusual name. I won't say its an old wine in a new bottle...its rather a cocktail (or mock-tail) of old wines in a Pepsi Can.

Let me first tell you the story of this movie, beyond which I shall share my thoughts about it. The story is of a young cricketer from Jaisalmer called Vijay Shekhawat, played by Harmen Baweja. Vijay's life is cricket, dream is to play for the Indian team and his world is his father, Ramlal (Anupam Kher) and childhood friendie, Nandini (Amrita Rao). Vijay was the talent of the century, with an ability to rewrite the cricket history. However, in the first 7 years of his career, inspite being a phenomenal run getter, he was overlooked for Rajasthan Ranji team due to internal lobbying and politics of team selectors. Frustated he decided to give a last try, at an Indian team practice camp in Jaipur, who were looking for local batsmen for net practice. He blasted Indian bowlers of the likes of Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh, Ramesh Powar in the practice and awestruck the Indian coach. He was soon selected in the Ranji team where he scored a double ton, and forced his way into the Indian team touring Australia.

In Australia he scored 3 back to back centuries, hitting the hell out of bowlers, like Brett Lee and Brad Hogg. Vijay's rise into stardom was meteoric. He became the most sorted after celebrity for Advertisers. During this time he met a guy called Andy Singh (Gulshan Grover) was managed Ad contracts of all celebrities. He signed Vijay in for 100 crores. Vijay never having seen so much fame and money in his life could not handle it. He went, what is best known as the "Vinod Kambli" way. His performance dipped, as well as he got injured, which he hid from the selectors and coach, and played on. Predictably, everything was found out eventually, he was ruined and banned for 6 months from Cricket.

The movie follows its predictable course, wherein Vijay realised his mistakes, and put in his heart and soul to make a comeback. The training session picturization was certainly "inspired' from Rocky. He finally managed to make a dramatic comeback, and regain his fame and honour, as Shahrukh said in OSO, "Happies ending".

The movie is like an series of cricket matches, one after the other. It tries its best to leverage the excitement of cricket matches, which was other wise absent in the movie. Not only does the movie try to bank on the cricket 'masala', it also tries to bring real stars, like Brett Lee, Jaysurya, aapna Bhajji, Rohit Sharma et all along side with Harman Baweja, perhaps to give him some extra support. The movie has surely earned a lot of revenue from in-film advertisements of Brands like Airtel, & Reebok who didn't miss the opportunity of getting associated with Cricket even in a Harman Baweja movie.

Harman, tries to look like Hritik, talk like Hritik, Shahrukh and God knows who, and eventually ends up in a mess. Perhaps he shall do better to play the dummy of Hritik Roshan. Plot is predictable, songs are pathetic. Only brownie points in my opinion are the cricketing stars and sweet pretty Amrita Rao of Mein Hoon Na fame.

So readers, unless you are cricket fanatics, please do not waste your money in multiplexes, but rather watch this movie at Home in VCD.

Adieu.

Luck by Chance

Time for a new post. This had been long overdue, and I planned to post a review of DevD on the Blog. But, I have not been able to watch the movie till now. So I decided to post my views on "Luck by Chance", for the time being.

The still image in the blog shows Farhan Akhtar facing someone headon. His face looks a bit nervous, but his eyes are confident and hardened jaws speak of his determination. Who is he facing? He is facing himself in a mirror!

As the story goes, Farhan playing the character of Vikram Jaisingh arrives at Mumbai to fullfill his ambition of becoming a Superstar, soon after passing out from an Acting Institute. Vikram started staying at his aunt's place. Knowing none in Mumbai apart from a couple of friends, Vikram seeks their help to get a break in movies. One of them, is an assistant director in the Bhatt productions while the other a theatre actor.

After some initial share of frustation, Vikram soon discovers that the way to achieving one's goal is not solely effort and luck, but one needs a X-factor, called intelligent manipulation. More importantly he realises that if one has to succeed, he has to depend on himself and not others. And so Vikram, through a series of clever manipulation, uses people around him as ladder and keeps rising. He arrives at his first ever audition, where he finds hundreds of aspirants like him waiting for their chance. A visibly nervous Farhan, goes to the bathroom, splashes some water on this face and gazes straight into the mirror ... his eyes reassuring and determined.

Vikram goes on to play the lead role in his first movie. He takes all right and wrong means to achieve stardom and achieves it fast. He uses his manupulative skills and gift of gab to make new friends, whom he would use as his stepping stone, and fast discarded the used ones - friends and girlfriends.

Vikram never cared for what he loses or gains, till one day he meets a legend in the industry. The Megastar told him a truth of life ... that it's not "Luck" to become "somebody"; but its surely more than luck to have somebody by yourside when you are a "Nobody". And no matter where one goes, or what one achieves, one should never lose those who were around, when not many were there!

I won't spoil the climax, but the movie throws before us the realities of todays rat race life, when everyone is racing to become somebody through talent, luck, effort and manipulations. Some achieves, most do not. But in this race we cannot miss out those who were there for us, selflessly.

Adieu!

Watch out for the next post .. its Dev.D .. coming soon!!!!!

SlumDog Millionaire Review

SlumDog Millionaire... A film which is earning both much acclaim and spat in the recent times. The film is a story about Jamil, who inspite of all odds rises to the limelight driven by his sheer willpower to find his lost love, and aided by lady luck.

The movie through its well knit story telling mode, explores the gray part of India - its poverty, and crime, and its rotten system.

Well, I would not be critical of the fact that the shortcomings of our Nation was exposed to the outer world. Celebrities like none other than Amitabh Bacchan, have been vocal in their criticism regarding this aspect (www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1221514).

However, what I felt, was that the film could have done well to bring out some positive aspects to our system and situation as well. The movie could have perhaps shown that even though crime and underworld is a truth in India, there is also a section of police force which is honestly fighting against it. Although we have poverty, we have a section of society who are sensitive about it, and doing there best to battle it. Although we have a system which is far from perfect, we still have some positives.

Had the film shown, that inspite of Jamil being victimized time and again by the odds of our system, it is also the better part of the very same system which has helped him to emerge victorious in the end.

I guess, had some Indian directed the film, he would have been more sensitive to the Indian sentiments and would have portrayed the brighter India in the film with a more positive story tale.