Dabangg

Actor to bahut hote hain, par Hero ek hi hota hai.
Khans to bahut hote hain, par Salman Khan ek hi hota hai.

You know what I mean, right? :-)
The year's biggest blockbuster - Dabangg. The fearless. With a mediocre story, debutant actress (Sonakshi Sinha), debutant director (Abhinav Kashyap), this movie really did well. And the credit goes to the 45 year old never aging actor - Salman Khan.
In an era, where it is hard to get people to watch movies in theatres, not only did Dabangg change the equations but it also ensured that the theatres were fully packed. Whistles, cheers and vuvuzelas were just part and parcel of the theatre ambience. Impressive!

The sound track collection boasted of a range of songs. Starting from romantic ones like 'Mast Mast Do Nain', 'Chori Kiya Jiya' to nation raging hit 'Munni Badnaam'. The item song was such a big hit that Zandu Balm couldn't help but cash on its popularity. Read more here.

Besides the song, not to mention the love symbol glasses that became a rage. So much to say that, Salman offered free photo edit service on his twitter account.


Story:Chulbul Pandey (Salman Khan), detests his step father, Prajapati Pandey (Vinod Khanna), and brother, Makkhi Pandey (Arbaaz Khan), from childhood. His mother, Naina Devi (Dimple Kapadia) is the bond that keeps the family together. Chulbul grows up to become a corrupt police officer. His encounters with goons makes him Chedi Singh (Sonu Sood)'s enemy #1.

Makkhi steals Chulbul's money to get himself married. He gives that money to his father in law (Tinnu Anand) as Prajapati wouldn't consent to the marriage without dowry. A chain of events later, Naina Devi dies leading to Chulbul leaving the house.

Despite the dowry, Makkhi is not able to get married as Chulbul hijacks his marriage venue to get married to Rajo (Sonakshi Sinha). The movie had a parallel plot of Chulbul falling afer Rajo going on so far.

Chedi Singh comes to know of the animosity between Chulbul and Makkhi, and uses it to his advantage. But how complex can a Hindi movie go. Prajapati gets a heart attack, Rajo's persistent insistence to reunite with family, Makkhi realizing Chedi's intentions - all leads to a happy ending with a not-to-miss climax.

The movie is a perfect masala movie - it has action (the scene: Salman is angry and his shirt tears away giving room to his anger infused muscles), comedy (the scene: one of the goons has a cell phone ringtone of a song from Wanted), drama (the scene: Arbaaz stealing money and his conversation with Dimple), emotion (the scene: Salman's visit to Vinod Khanna in hospital), romance (the song: Chori Kiya Re), suspense (the scene: revelation of Dimple Kapadia's murderer) and style (loads of it throughout the movie).

Screenplay and direction was crisp and rock solid. Choreography was good but not exceptional. Perhaps, this would be the sole reason why Sheila would steal the item song of the year tag away from Munni. Nothing to boast of in the cinematography department either.

In the acting department, everyone acted well. Sonakshi Sinha is impressive for a newcomer though her role is not much. Sonu Sood has proved time and again that he is a great actor (I just loved him in Jodha Akbar too). And what do I say about Salman. I couldn't agree more to what Raja sen says (for once) about Salman on rediff:
You can tell a lot about a megastar by the way he throws his punch.

A Hindi film hero might routinely fell over seven with one blow, but each has their own approach. Aamir Khan, all bloodshot eyes and biceps rippling with the fury of thousands of killed wives to avenge, brings both physical intensity and a sense of inescapable irony to the picture.

Shah Rukh Khan, his every sinew straining with gargantuan effort, bellows like a wounded animal as he metamorphoses from charming lover to crazied aggressor.

Salman Khan doesn't bother breaking a sweat or even trying for realism as he buffets his opponents, effort be damned, smirk and quip steadily in place. The ubiquitous one-liner just underlines how one-sided the battle always is because Salman Khan is larger than life. And he believes it.

This post is just a trailer to all the fun you can expect from the movie. Wikipedia has loads of references confirming the huge entertainment value of this movie.

think M Rating: 4.0/5.0

Amar Akbar Anthony

Masti, Masala, Comedy, Drama - sab kuch toh hai iss movie main. So, what's such a movie called? Classic.


Story: This story is about Kishanlal (Pran) and his family. Kishanlal is released from jail and is dishearted, shocked to find how his ex-master Robert (Jeevan) has never taken care of his family despite Kishanlal being loyal and taken the blame and punishment for latter's deeds. Robert, on the other hand, insults Kishanlal to make matters worse which evokes Kishanlal to rob Robert of some of his riches.

Kishanlal's wife, Bharati (Nirupa Roy), tries to commit suicide to free her husband of more worries, leaving behind their three sons - Amar, Raju and Chotu. Her attempt proves to be futile as fate had something else stored in for her and she turns blind. While trying to escape the bad goons chasing for Robert's goods, Kishanlal has an accident that makes everyone think that he's dead. Another turn of luck and that his three sons are separated too and lost in the big world.

Amar, Raju and Chotu grow up to be Amar, Akbar and Anthony respectively. Amar (Vinod Khanna) is raised by a Hindu police inspector, while Anthony (Amitabh Bachchan) is raised by a Christian priest and Akbar (Rishi Kapoor) is raised by a Muslim tailor.

Now, this is one movie which is not at all deficit of 'kahaani main twist'. Kishanlal kidnaps Robert's daughter and raises her as Jenny (Parveen Babi). Another reason for Robert to seek vendetta from Kishanlal.

Anthony and Jenny paint the town red, while Akbar is head over heels in love with Salma (Neetu Singh) and Amar finds his soulmate in Laxmi (Shabani Azmi). Each love story has its own villain. Zebisko (Yusuf Khan) wants to marry Jenny and won't stand Anthony a second. Salma's father, Taiyyab Ali (Mukri), finds Akbar not so perfect for his daugher. And then, we have Laxmi's step brother Ranjeet (Ranjeet) who molests Laxmi and is jailed by Amar.

Disclosing anything beyond this would be an awful crime. :) It's a Hindi movie and so all ends well as all separated ones reunite.

However, this blog does call for quoting certain popular moments. Or should I say, THE CLASSIC MOMENTS.

* What do I think of when I need to start a song with 'Ma' in Antakshari???
Think, think, think... :D



* Talk about how one should apply dettol on their wounds, then have a dekko here.

* If you feel desolated about losing a conversation/fight with someone with scoreboard of 2 vs 10, you gotta know that this is THE life saving dialogue video from 9th minute.

Something that has always amazed me is the pace of some of these classic movies. There are so many twists and turns. And some of the masterpieces (like this one) have taken every care to make sure that every scene is connected logically and that there's a reason for everything that happens. For example, does it matter what profession does the hero/heroine belong to? Not really, as seen in majority of the movies. Consider Neetu Singh's character in AAA: She's a doctor. And that's for just one purpose: she's the one to overhear Jeevan identify Nirupa Roy as Pran's wife.

Manmohan Desai, the director of this movie did repeat the very same formula after a gap of 4 years - Naseeb. A hard core AAA fan can easily call Naseeb a passe'. However, Naseeb did purvey the famous 'John Johnny Janardhan' number.

Besides making sure that his movie has twists and turns, nothing new to proffer and a cast full of stars - Manmohan Desai also made sure to convey a point that India is a secular country.

The movie had music composed by Laxmikanth Pyarelal. The music department gets a 4.0 rating as well. Now the songs are popular and well known till to-date.

That's all from your very own think-M for now. Happy reading!

think M Rating: 4.0/5.0