Battles to bear hugs

Ab Tumhare Hawale Watan Sathiyo

Director: Anil Sharma Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Bobby Deol, Sandali Sinha, Divya Khosla, Nagma, Ashutosh Rana, Danny Denzongpa, Kapil Sharma

5.5/10

Action, emotion, drama and tragedy. Add Anu Malik?s melodious score and director Anil Sharma almost has a winner of a war movie on his hands. Almost.

Back with his favourite theme after Gadar and The Hero, Sharma presents a tale that has its roots in 1971 ? with shoots stretching to the present day. Retired army officer Amitabh Bachchan (donning a uniform for the umpteenth time this year) finds grandson Bobby Deol unfit to carry the warrior mantle of the family that his son (Bobby in a double role) upheld with his life. The younger Bobby dreams of damsels and dollars rather than the booming guns of battle. Turns out the damsel he?s wooing (newcomer Divya Khosla) was married to Akshay Kumar, who?s been given up for dead, only to return at a crucial time. The death of a comrade in battle and the cross of a bravery medal transforms Bobby, who then tries to be the soldier his grandfather wanted him to.

Unusual love story or not, it sure is an unusual story: a war film, but about peace. And love. And the entire gamut of India?s relationship with her neighbour ? from battles to bear hugs. But Sharma, undecided between war and peace, swings between both, taking the script with him.

Where the ?S? (script) factor fails, the A factor steps in. No, not Amitabh, but Akshay. The makeover king turns in an effortless performance that makes you clamour for more. Not to speak of the ?D? factor ? dhamaakedaar dialogues ? that has the audience on its feet.

Ideal way to warm up on a wintry evening.

Sonali Chakraborty

Spectacularly rich journey to Santa

Polar express

Director: Robert Zemeckis Cast: Tom Hanks, Michael Jeter, Peter Scolari, Nono Gaye, Eddie Deezen, Charles Fleischer

7/10

It?s Christmas Eve and our hero boy, suffering from a crisis of faith, is already on an inner journey of doubts about Santa and magic. So we know, in spite of the hesitation he shows, he will jump into the alluringly gleaming Polar Express, and journey to the North Pole to meet Santa, with the other children like him already on board.

A journey spectacularly rich, full of dangers and mysteries, surrealistic, almost. Children without names, huddled away from their protective warm homes, with just a mysterious conductor in charge and, of course, a hobo on the train top, homeless, like the children themselves at the moment, ticketless, like the little hero girl, whose gold coloured ticket the hero boy manages to lose. And which, in one of the pivotal sequences in the film, flutters through an adventure of its own, through icy air, howling wolves, ferociously chugging engines, with the boy in search of it and the girl, whom the conductor has whisked away somewhere.

A search which brings the boy face-to-face with the hobo on the train top. And we fear for the boy, and all the other children, as the train travels across dangerous mountains and collapsing ice lakes. Their eyes void, facial movements stiff and frozen, almost. Rather eerie, at times. Suits the surrealistic mood of the film, but a little unnatural in a film meant for kids. And may actually be the result of the technique used gone a little awry.

All the characters are digital versions of flesh and blood actors who were filmed and their movements motion-captured and transferred to the animated characters, with the director Robert Zemeckis? favourite actor, Tom Hanks, himself lending his body, voice, face to no less than five key roles ? the hero boy, his father, the conductor, the hobo, and Santa, too. The remarkable fusion of live and animation in Polar Express definitely gives it a new feel, in spite of it being a typical sugar fable reinforcing faith and beliefs.

Deepali Singh

Tollywood tommyrot

Rajababu

Director: Anup Sengupta Cast: Mithun Chakraborty, Jishu Sengupta, Rimjhim Gupta, Tapas Paul, Shankar Chakraborty, Subhashis Mukherjee, Anamika Saha, Nayana Das, Dolon Roy, Deepankar De, Sonali Chakraborty, (Piya Sengupta)

2/10

Yuletide ecstasy takes a massive beating with this blandly garnished Christmas cake Anup Sengupta has baked for us in Rajababu. Mithun, meant to be the icing on the cake, is anything but delicious. And that chic cherry item, represented by K.D. Ramanna?s cinematography, is marred by an atrocious print quality.

In a script as patchy as a clown?s tunic, no wonder that all the crises ?dual parenthood or whatever ? are caused by accidents and resolved by bullets. Never mind if even an iota of commonsense goes for a toss like a salacious item number (Aanchan aanchan kore amaar joubon) passing off as a devotional before a deity. Or, if actors, including Jishu and Rimjhim, look clueless as to what they are actually up to, in sequences where pathos becomes farce and vice versa.

Arnab Bhattacharya

Drowned in the deep

Samudra Sakshi

Director: Dulal Dey Cast: Mamata Shankar, Jishu Sengupta, Tina, Santu Mukherjee, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Anuradha Roy, Arindam Ganguly

1.5/10

Once you are in the theatre to watch Samudra Sakshi, there are only two options open ? to sleep through and to sit through, unless, of course, you decide to walk out rightaway. If you sleep through, no problem. But sitting through will entail the risk of suffering one of the worst possible catastrophes of dealing with pulp feminism. And an abominably amateurish directorial approach to a passe story idea will erode your patience to the point of screaming for help. Jishu again, and Tina, with the kind of roles they play, look like digging graves for their own film careers. Mamata Shankar (and Santu Mukherjee, in part) comes through as the only point of interest.

Arnab Bhattacharya