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bol bachchan
Release date: 06.07.2012
What: Rohit Shetty reworked Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Gol Maal to come up with a howlarious entertainer of mistaken identities and laugh-out-loud gags. Bol Bachchan vroomed its way to the Rs 100-crore club, notching up Rs 106 crore at the box office.
Thumbs up: A pitch-perfect Ajay Devgn, Abhishek Bachchan as Abbas Ali, the one-liners — especially Devgn’s English dialogues, Himesh Reshammiya’s music.
Thumbs down: Loud, lacks logic.
t2 review: Perhaps the best thing Bol Bachchan does is to bring back happy memories of Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Gol Maal. That itself is quite an achievement, of not setting another classic on aag.
Verdict: BLOCKBUSTER
gattu
Release date: 20.07.2012
What: The story of an orphaned urchin’s determination to make his dreams a reality, Gattu made it big in the festival circuit but failed to charm the box office.
Thumbs up: The bittersweet premise, Mohammad Samad as Gattu, small in scale but big at heart.
Thumbs down: Absence of famous faces, lack of publicity.
Verdict: flop
kyaa super kool hain hum
Release date: 27.07.2012
What: Two down-on-luck best friends devise ways and means to make a quick buck in this blatantly vulgar cringe fest.
Thumbs up: Some belly laughs, the peppy Dil garden garden ho gaya.
Thumbs down: The double-meaning dialogues and sexual innuendo, lack of a real plot.
t2 review: Not a single scene is over without dialogues that sometimes rhyme, sometimes suggest and sometimes simply spell out the unmentionables. Where even innocuous signboards read “Cumless Bhai” and “La Whore Da Dhaba”.
Verdict: semi-hit
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jism 2
Release date: 03.08.2012
What: A cop hires a stripper to bait an assassin in this skin fest that marked the Bolly debut of porn star Sunny Leone and was directed by Pooja Bhatt.
Thumbs up: Sunny Leone the seductress, Calcutta boy Arkopravo Mukherjee’s soulful music.
Thumbs down: Disjointed script, lacklustre performances.
t2 review: That day is not far when the world will be divided into two kinds of people — the ones who saw Jism 2 and the ones who didn’t. The people from the first category would not dare to come out in the open but they would all remember the horrors of the night.
Verdict: Average
krishna aur kans
Release date: 03.08.2012
What: Om Puri, Juhi Chawla, Manoj Bajpai and Anupam Kher
lent their voices to this animated take on the age-old enmity
between Lord Krishna and his wicked uncle Kans.
Thumbs up: Some fun moments, Shantanu Moitra’s music.
Thumbs down: Tacky animation, an item number in a children’s film!
Verdict: FLOP
gangs of wasseypur II
Release date: 08.08.2012
What: Anurag Kashyap’s follow-up to the first film set in the Bihar heartland carries forward the saga of bloody politics and dangerous liaisons.
Thumbs up: Riveting performances led by Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Tigmanshu Dhulia, the hard-hitting premise.
Thumbs down: Too many characters, boring in parts, tacky production values.
t2 review: It seems Kashyap forgot to say cut when the camera rolled and didn’t cut short when the footage flowed. He must have been simply watching the brilliance that is Nawazuddin Siddiqui.
Verdict: average
EK THA TIGER
Release date: 15.08.2012
What:Two super spies from both sides of the border choose love over duty in this Kabir Khan blockbuster that brought together real-life exes Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif. Ek Tha Tiger hit the
box-office bullseye, notching up a record
Rs 32.92 opening. ETT’s total collections stand
at Rs 199 crore, just short of 3 Idiots’s
all-time high of Rs 202 crore.
Thumbs up: Salman as Tiger and Katrina as Zoya, their action sequences, the breathtaking locales — Dublin to Havana to Istanbul.
Thumbs down: Neither too stupid nor too smart, the non-chartbuster quality music.
t2 review: While the logic keeps peeling off with every one of those 16 reels, there is at least an underlying hint of respect for the fans of the star. The film sure doesn’t patronise the fans of its stars but can’t help playing safe to pamper them.
Verdict: blockbuster
shirin farhad ki toh nikal padi
Release date: 24.08.2012
What: Debutante director Bela Bhansali Sehgal came up with a quirky over-40 romance that marked the acting debut of Farah Khan.
Thumbs up: The unusual premise, the out-of-the-box pairing of Farah and Boman Irani, some fun moments.
Thumbs down: Flaccid in parts, Jeet Gannguli’s music.
t2 review: Shirin Farhad populates its world with such people but the love story at the centre strays every now and then to wear that oversized Bollywood wig. The quirky charm is lost and the epic proportions never reached, often leaving the film lost somewhere in the middle.
Verdict: flop
from sydney with love
Release date: 31.08.2012
What: A small-town girl makes new friends and discovers love when she goes to Sydney to study. From Sydney With Love marked the Bolly debut of Calcutta model Bidita Bag.
Thumbs up: Too few.
Thumbs down: Too many.
Verdict: FLOP
joker
Release date: 30.08.2012
What: A US-returned scientist strives to put his obscure village into national focus by making up stories of an alien invasion. Unhappy with the end product, Akshay Kumar had a fallout with director Shirish Kunder, contributing to Joker’s poor showing at the box office.
Thumbs up: A fun first half, a sexy Chitrangda in the Kaafirana number.
Thumbs down: Loses the plot in half two, half-hearted performances from Akshay and Sonakshi Sinha, the ho-hum music.
t2 review: Little surprise then that after laughing with the characters initially, you find yourself laughing at them. What was meant to be a fight for roots and rights turns out to be a ridiculous and redundant exercise.
Verdict: flop
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oh my god!
Release date: 28.09.2012
What: An atheist slaps a case on god in this Akshay Kumar-produced film that talks against religious rituals and blind beliefs.
Thumbs up: The novel premise, stellar acts from Paresh Rawal, Mithun Chakraborty and Akshay, Prabhudheva and Sonakshi Sinha’s moves in Go Govinda.
Thumbs down: Too preachy, loses steam.
t2 review: A direct attack on the commercialisation of worship, blind beliefs and the waste of money in the name of religion, OMG is a novel premise which, however, falls grossly short on execution.
Verdict: OPENED average
raaz 3
Release date: 07.09.2012
What: An actress whose career is on the wane takes the help of black magic to get back at a younger and more successful star in this Vikram Bhatt-directed 3D horror fest.
Thumbs up: A smouldering Bipasha Basu, some genuinely spine-chilling moments, the kissing scenes.
Thumbs down: Lacks a credible plot, not scary enough.
t2 review: Soon it’s a pick-your-scary-scene round at the DVD library as set-pieces from Ring to Grudge are copy-pasted by the Bhatt company. But all in true Ramsay ‘spirit’. So what was scary in the original becomes a laugh-fest here.
Verdict: HIT
barfi!
Release date: 14.09.2012
What: Anurag Basu weaves a beautiful tale of love and friendship between a deaf-mute boy (Ranbir Kapoor) and an autistic girl (Priyanka Chopra) to give us a film that brings both smiles and tears. Barfi! is India’s entry to the Oscars.
Thumbs up: The stellar acts from Ranbir, Priyanka and Bolly debutante Ileana D’Cruz, Ravi Varman’s beautiful frames of Darjeeling and Calcutta, Pritam’s winning tunes.
Thumbs down: The fact that one too many scenes have been directly lifted from
some iconic films.
t2 review: The brilliance of Barfi! is that it’s no story and all storytelling. It’s about a director at the top of his game, orchestrating terrific talent into a bravura crescendo. Only someone who has showed death the door can open windows
to life like this.
Verdict: hit
heroine
Release date: 21.09.2012
What: Madhur Bhandarkar explores the eccentricities and insecurities of an actress in this film set in big, bad Bollywood.
Thumbs up: A powerful performance from Kareena Kapoor, Halkat jawaani.
Thumbs down: Too similar to other Bhandarkar films, an overstretched half two, cliched and stereotyped.
t2 review: Despite its clichés, Heroine remains watchable for the first hour. However, post-interval, it’s all downhill, with Mahi’s slo-mo decline making for an exhausting and agonisingly long watch, culminating in an abrupt ending that doesn’t justify the protagonist’s struggles for the two hours preceding it.
Verdict: average
kamaal dhamaal malamaal
Release date: 28.09.2012
What: A village pulls out all the stops to get their hands on a large booty in this Priyadarshan yawnathon.
Thumbs up: Nana Patekar.
Thumbs down: Mindless, not funny enough.
t2 review: Kamaal Dhamaal Malamaal has all the trademark Priyadarshan touches — the mistaken identity, the rich heiress being protected by goon brothers, the victory of honesty, trust and courage — and is clean and healthy but sadly it fails to entertain.
Verdict: OPENED poor
fast forward to quarter 4
english vinglish
Sridevi makes a comeback in this Gauri Shinde-directed film to play a homemaker who learns English to earn brownie points with family and friends. Arrives this Friday.
AIYYAA
Rani Mukerji returns as a wacky Maharashtrian girl on the lookout for a husband in this Anurag Kashyap-produced film. Releases on October 12.
student of the year
Karan Johar goes back to campus to direct newbies Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan and Siddharth Malhotra in this college caper. The music — led by Disco deewane —
is a hit already. Releases on October 19.
jab tak hai jaan
Yash Chopra’s latest film stars Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma with Shah Rukh Khan as the man in the middle. The biggie this Diwali.
son of sardaar
Ajay Devgn and Sanjay Dutt team up for this mad comic caper set in the Punjabi heartland. Sonakshi Sinha co-stars. Also releases on Diwali.
talaash
Aamir Khan goes serious in the role of a cop investigating a series of murders. Rani Mukerji and Kareena Kapoor also star in this Farhan Akhtar production directed by Reema Kagti. Releases on November 30.
dabangg 2
Salman Khan reprises the role of Chulbul Pandey in the sequel to the 2010 blockbuster. Brother Arbaaz debuts as director.
Which of these films is on your must-watch list? Tell t2@abp.in
