Mission Istanbul Review

Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Sunil Shetty, Zayed Khan, Vivek Oberoi, Shabbir Ahluwalia, Shreya Saran, Nikitin Dheer
Director: Apoorva Lakhia

One of India's most respected journalists, Vikas Sagar (Zayed Khan) receives an offer he cannot refuse from Owais Hussain (Sunil Shetty).

Owais is the head of an Istanbul television news channel. He offers Vikas a very high salary package with all the frills if he accepts a position within his company.

For Vikas, this offer couldn't have come at a better time. He is going through a messy divorce with his wife Anjali (Shriya Saran) and needs to get away from the stress of it all.

So Vikas accepts Hussain's offer whole-heartedly. But little does he know that one decision will change his life forever.

Well settled into his new role, he decides to voice his plans to quit the channel and move on to newer pastures.

But to his surprise, he learns from the Turkish commando, Rizwan Khan (Vivek Oberoi), on how others who quit the television channel got mysteriously killed because they knew too much.

So will this journalist be able to survive the onslaught where others have fallen prey?

Ek The Power Of One Preview

Cast: Bobby Deol, Chunky Pandey, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Nana Patekar, Shreya Saran
Director: Sangeeth Sivan

Nandu (Bobby Deol) is an assassin by profession. Somehow he gets wrongly accused of a politician's murder.

Whilst on the run from the police, he boards a train where he meets Shehar (Pradeep).

Shehar is returning home for the first time after 14 years.

As they converse, Nandu gets to know all about his joint family and the imminent wedding of Shehar's cousin. This is the main reason he is going home for.

The twist comes when the police catches up with Nandu on the train. In the shootout that follows, Shehar accidentally dies.

Deeply shocked by the incident, Nandu goes to Shehar's family home to return his belongings to his grandfather and also break the news of his grandson's death.

But when Nandu arrives at Shehar's family home, he is mistaken for Shehar himself.

With no time to explain what had happened, the family members get him involved with the wedding preparations and celebrations.

Preet (Shriya Saran), the daughter of a family friend becomes fascinated by Nandu. In no time she falls in love with him.

Meanwhile, police inspector Rane (Nana Patekar), is given the responsibility of tracking down the killer and he is close on Nandu's trail.

Will Nandu be able to come out of the crisis unscathed? Will the family come to know about his real identity? What would be the fate of Nandu and Preet's love story? And who is actually the real killer?

Ek - The Power Of One is a Bollywood Masala movie full of family emotions and suspense starring Sunny Deol in the lead role.

Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra, Jaya Bachchan, Kay Kay Menon
Director: Goldie Behl

Drona is a compelling modern tale of one man's journey through the labyrinths of mystic myths and legendary legacies.

As good and evil clash in this contemporary fantasy fable, a fascinating journey unfolds into a world of mythical heroes and malicious magicians with cunning curses.

It is a world, where spells can turn flesh to cold stone.

It is a world full of thrills, magic and adventures.

Directed by Goldie Behl, Drona introduces yet another superhero onto the Bollywood celluloid - Abhishek Bachchan.

According to reports, Drona is going to be even bigger and better in terms of special effects compared with Rakesh Roshan's Krrish.

Dhoom Dhadakka Review

Starring Sammir Dattani, Shama Sikandar, Shaad Randhawa, Arati Chabria, Anupam Khe, Satish Kaushik, Gulshan Grover
Rating: super-atrocious

By the time Sammir Dattani and Shaad Randhawa get into drag, this criminally unfunny comedy has dragged on way past 'bad'-time.

Maybe it's in the air. Everyone uniformly hams through this acutely painful piece of cinematic travesty.

There's so much screaming and ranting across the length and breadth of this outrageous ode to idiocy that you wonder if the producer-director intended to provide earplugs for all those bravehearts who would sit to the end of this slapdash hectic and haphazard comedy of terrors.

No earplugs, what we get are shrill banshee ring-tones of risqué ragas sung at a ear-splitting pitch, and phallic jokes about not a single danda in the cellphone.

Chee chee.

If lately you've been wondering where the Bollywood comedy has been heading here's the answer.

Comedies can't get any baser or brainless than Dhoom Dadakka. The gags make you gag. The items and innuendoes are embarrassing not because they TRY so hard to be vulgar but because they fail miserably to be sexy.

Vulgarity in this comedy of disembodied context depends completely on how many of the characters are crammed in one line of vision in every scene. They all stand making faces and gesticulating as though trying to attract the lifeguard's attention from a sinking boat.

The double meanings flow in unstoppered abundance mostly from the moist painted trembling lips of Deepshikha who keeps referring to the size of 'bada' things every time she spots a male member of the cast in her vicinity.

Yup, as one character winks, size does matter.

Dhoom Dadakka is a jumbo-sized non-event.

Ha ha ho ho. Before you fall of your creaky bed in comic splendour, let's move on to the main 'coarse' in this pickled over-spiced thaali in a hotel that's probably named Romp Teri Giggle Maili..

The two guys, Sammir Dattani and Shaad Randhawa grimace and giggle, roll their eyes and suck in their cheeks to indicate lies buried too deep for jeers.

Add two girls (Chabria and Sikandar) trying so hard to be glamorous it's pathetic, and you get a brew that's more eek than greek.

The characterizations take the cult of one-upmanship down to the level of a nukkad nautanki, what with every actor getting lost in the confusion of their mistaken identities.

In no time at all, the plot suffers from an identity crisis.

Director Shashi Ranjan who earlier made us laugh with his supposedly serious study of marital stress in Dobara, doesn't know whether to indulge tongue-in-cheek comedy of the Hrishikesh Mukherjee variety (Ab ke sajan sawan mein aal lagey aisi filmon mein) or just do the out-and-out no -fools-stops comedy of the David Dhawan-Anees Bazmi variety.

Eventually the confusions that dominate the plot overpower every sense of aesthetic decency.

In the end-game where the entire cast runs around an amusement part looking for amusement, the two heroes get into drag to tease laughter out of an audience that's long since ceased to be entertained or amused and is down to feeling utterly embrassed on behalf of the cast and crew of this weird brew.

In one chase sequence Shaad Randhawa pees copiously on a street of Bangkok.

You get jailed for dirtying the streets of Bangkok. Alas, there are no laws for desecrating the rules of aesthetics in cinema.

Jimmy Movie Review

By Subhash K Jha

Staring Mimoh Chakbraborty, Vivana, Zulfi Syed
Directed by Raj N Sippy
Rating: *

"Do you think I'm a rejected man?" the villain asks repeatedly after his true intentions are exposed at the end of this tediously-assembled pastiche of the crude bad and the ugly.

Don't know about the poor battered psycho who controrts his face like his pants were just bitten off by a colony of ants. But this film sure looks like a collage of rejected footage from a series of canned films that filmmakers made and forgot to go back to.

The characters don't talk in Jimmy, they scream dialogues which we thought had died with Pramod Chakravrty. And matching their screechy decibel of dialogue is the sound of cars skidding screeching and groaning in and out of the frames with the misinformed celerity of a noisy baraat which has lost its way to the bride's home.

Dulhan ache rot ki? You bet! Jimmy takes us into the kingdom of the dangerously damned. And none as damned as the audience which sits to the end to watch Mithun-da's boy dance on glass, in a manner of slipping.

Mimoh doesn't dance, he glides. He doesn't moonwalk, he trapezes through a field of corrupted corn planted by a screenwriter whose mind seems to have stopped working two decades ago.

How else do we explain the crass and clamorous crowd of crippling clichés, like the over-painted weepy mother, the over-painted giggly girlfriend, her over-panting suitor, the hero's rich friend (Zulfi Zayed, in the think-less part), the gaggles of villains schemers screamers and good samaritans all crammed in one line of strained vision which recalls the worst moments of television from the time when Doordarshan ruled the roost.

Mithun Chakraborty's son Mimoh gets a nightmare launch worthy of being canned for good. What were the people behind this film thinking when they decided to put together a film so tacky and tattered at the edges it makes a mockery of poor Mimoh's star aspirations.

Director Raj N Sippy made some engaging wannabe-Hollywood flicks in the 1970s and 80s, all cleverly adapted from American films but never slipshod.

Ironically Jimmy rips off Hindi films from the 1970s including Mithun-da's gyratory Jimmy-hijinks like Disco Dancer and the Bachchan starrer Majboor.

All in vain. The plot is propelled by gallery of grotesque caricatures.

This is cinema at its worst. Gimmicky and overblown with no hope for escape because you want to watch Mithun's boy trying to make his way out of this film with no exits.

Only Rahul Dev seems to blessed with a twist of sobriety in a film that equates outdated mayhem with pavement delights.

Bhootnath Review

Casts: Amitabh Bachchan, Juhi Chawla, Aman Siddiqui, Priyanshu Chatterjee, Satish Shah, Rajpal Yadav
Guest appearance: Shahrukh Khan, Nouhid Sairesi, Ashish Chowdhury, Neena Kulkarni
Music: Vishal Shekhar, Salim Sulaiman
Lyrics: Javed Akhtar
Producer: Ravi Chopra
Director-Writer: Vivek Sharma
Ratings: **1/2

Nath Villa. Night. A couple enters the villa with an intention of spending the night. But unfortunate for them, it’s the house where Kailash Nath (Amitabh Bachchan), oops, the spirit of Kailash Nath enjoys his days and nights in his airy appearance. Predictably enough, the couple, intimidated with Kailash, zooms away from the house.

Next incident. Mr. Sharma (Shah Rukh Khan), a marine driver by profession, comes to Kailash’s den, with his family. He leaves his family behind at the Nath Villa and plods back to join his job.

While residing in the Nath Villa, Mr. Sharma’s wife Anjali (Juhi Chawla) and son Banku (Aman Siddiqui) experiences strange incidents. In the mean time Banku befriends the spirit of Kailash Nath and names him as “Bhootnath”.

Banku’s presence eliminates all the hazardous factors that polluted Bhootnath’s mind against human beings. One day, Anjali comes to know about Bhootnath being the angel in Banku’s life.

At the same time Anjali comes to know from Bhootnath about the painful incident that made him a spirit. So, to let Bhootnath’s spirit free from the bondage with the earth, Sharma family arranges for a shradh, a Hindu tradition that Bhootnath’s son, Priyanshu Chatterjee, avoided in past.

Ultimately, it’s through Banku that Bhootnath gets his desired freedom from the earthly bondage.

But it’s because of Banku’s love for Bhootnath that the amicable ghost leaves Banku with an option of appearing in front of Banku whenever he wishes from the core of his heart.

Even god changes his mind for the sake of true and honest love. This film is not about the triumph of a child but the success of true love and faith.

It’s the second time where Amitabh is posing as a ghost and his look in “Bhootnath”, though unintentionally, reminds of his look of Gabbar Singh in “Ram Gopal Verma Ki Aag”. If that is some bad news, the good part is that his acting always sweeps away the feeling of looking alike.

At the same time his intimidated being with the presence of his son lets audience recap his character in “Baghban”.

Aman Siddiqui has depicted Banku’s character very well. Juhi Chawla and Shah Rukh’s couple still reminds the same freshness that they show in their very first film.

Writer-director Vivek Sharma has proved his prowess in his

job. His beautifully mingled presentation of entertainment and spirit has started a new vogue in Bollywood. If “Bhootnath” is not so well a children film as “Taare Zamin Par” was, it definitely helps spending few hours in the air conditioned theaters while summer is blazing outside.

At last, if not the least, children may well accept the line of Amitabh saying, “Zindegi me jadoo nehi, mehnat se safalta pai jaati hai” (success is all about hard work, not magic). Bingo Bhootnath! - Rajnee Gupta

Jannat Movie Review

Cast: Emran Hashmi, Sonal Chauhan, Samir Kochar, Javed Shaikh, Vishal Malhotra
Director: Kunal Deshmukh
Ratings: ***

More, more, more...The motto of motorised materialism seems to have overtaken contemporary life. Everyone wants the good things in life in the shortest time possible. The acquisitive spirit has seldom been defined with such economy of storytelling as in "Jannat".

Not surprisingly, a lot of Mahesh Bhatt's latest exposition on the excesses of materialism is shot in shopping malls, expensive restaurants and posh stadiums where money flows like unadulterated honey.

And when our hero sees the love of his life staring at a diamond ring he walks into the showroom and breaks the display window.

Get what you want by force and forget those homilies that papa preached at the dinner table about the virtues of honesty. "Honest money means hard work and little reward," says a wry character in "Jannat". He's obviously not read Ayn Rand.

Sanjay Masoom's scathing dialogues scamper across the film's lush skyline to create a language of wannabes who would stop at nothing to get that new villa on the Gold Coast.

Let's then applaud one more moral fable from Bhatt's sensible stable.

"Jannat" tells us to waste not, want 'nought'...By all means covet the zeroes on that pay cheque. But don't forget that if you run after the zeroes your life ends up in the zero zone.

Forty years ago in Hrishikesh Mukherjee's "Satyakam" Dharmendra had refused to succumb to all the temptations of materialism that were strewn in his path to salvation. Lying dying of cancer, he's asked by his wife: "Finally what do you have to say about your life of integrity?"

"I've lived," Dharmendra says at the end of "Satyakam".

Can Emran Hashmi (playing the small-time wheeler dealer who turns into a cricket match-fixer, criminal and moral transgressor) turn around before his gruesome death to say he has lived?

Yes, Arjun (Emran) has loved. At heart "Jannat" is a dark tragic love story. While the girl's innocence and the man's corruptible countenance resembles "Kalyug", the whole dilemma of the beloved being instrumental in destroying the criminal hero echoes "Gangster".

Both "Kalyug" and "Gangster" were superior in content and treatment.

Debutant director Kunal Deshmukh cannot escape the clichés on existentialism that have come to surround Bhatt's cinema...the morally conflicted Shakespeare-meets-James Hadley Chase hero, the independent-minded strong and value-based heroine, the hero's trusted and loyal friend (Purab Kohli in "Woh Lamhe", Shaad Randhawa in "Awaarapan", and now Vishal Malhotra), the ideologue father whose principles are held up to ridicule until the hero discovers the hard way that dad's remedies are the best to deal with ethical ambivalence.

These lingering leitmotifs get a renewed, if not luminous, life in every Bhatt production. But "Jannat" lacks the resonance and staying power of some of Bhatt's earlier films about crime and punishment from "Naam" to "Gangster".

Cleverly and cautiously Deshmukh's film brings in the cricket element, which has audiences ignoring the pitfalls of rejuvenating Bhatt's age-old iconoclasm.

The stock footage of real-life cricket matches are used well and sparingly in the plot. The stress, as ever in Bhatt's saga of our stressful times, is on the clashing colliding crisscross of human relationships.

Emran's father's sequence in his son's luxurious bathroom where he comments on the basket of soaps is a whammer.

But the wheeling dealing in the greenroom and clubs with cricketers of indeterminate nationality behaving like debauched goblins smacks of amteurishness. The murder of the Australian coach turns the Bob Woolmer scandal into a climactic add-on. May his soul rest in peace.

But what stays is the protagonist's passion for money as opposed to his love for Zoya (Sonal Chauhan). The end-game where the engagement ring is juxtaposed against the gun is arresting in more ways than one.

While Emran interprets the over-reaching get-rich-quick schemer's part with a native cunning, one misses that suave and smooth transitions in the character that perhaps a Naseeruddin Shah or even a Shahid Kapoor would bring on the table.

But Emran is charming enough to let the protagonist's journey from a chawl to Cape Town look interesting. He's constantly getting author-backed roles of the angst-ridden social outcast (a garage-sale version of Amitabh Bachchan) which he plays with a fair amount of sensitivity.

Debutant Sonal has much more to do than be the decorative doll she seems equipped to be.

She's the weakest link in the powerplay where the politics of the playing field is extended to an engrossing exposition of greed atonement.

Some of the supporting cast, especially Jawed Shaikh as the cricketing don and Abhimanyu as his silent henchman, come to grips with their characters better than you would expect in a film that has scant space for anyone except the man who would be king.

'Rakhi is insecure dramebaaz'

Calling Bollywood item girl Rakhi Sawant insecure, upcoming starlet Sambhavna Seth has accused her of snatching away a song which was to be picturised on Seth in the forthcoming film 'Mudrank' based on stamp paper scamster Abdul Karim Telgi.

Talking to mediapersons at a press meet here last evening, Seth said, ''Rakhi Sawant is a very insecure person and a 'dramebaaz'. I am not saying this just to malign her. The problem is these days one has to speak for oneself. She knew that I was doing this song and yet, she snatched it from me.

''Above all, the producer should have taken care of that I did not suffer. But I had to!'' Rakhi Sawant was conspicuously absent at the press meet.

However, film's director Shakir Shaikh confirmed that Sambhavna had been signed first for the song 'Ruk zara Mumbai ke bhai'.

''But when Rakhi was signed for another song, she liked this song and we shot it on her which upset Sambhavna.'' Production Executive of 'Mudrank' Rakesh Sabharwal added, ''Rakhi liked the song meant to be picturised on Sambhavna and insisted to shoot for the song herself.''

When asked why they had agreed to it and subjected Sambhavna to injustice, Sabharwal replied, ''When we have a bigger artiste, we have to compromise.

''Even Rakesh Roshan had to depend on Rakhi,'' he said, referring to her song 'Dekhta hai tu kya' in Roshan's home production 'Krazzy 4'.

Sabharwal said, ''Rakhi also knows that she has snatched Sambhavna's song. That is why she's not reacting. In fact, she is not coming to any event organised for the film. I understand she is a busy star but she can't be busy always.''

Sambhavna Seth also insisted that she was a better dancer than Rakhi, a view which was endorsed by Sabharwal. ''Sambhavna has done better than Rakhi in the song 'Give me money, money, Touch me honey, honey'.''

All you wanted to know about Jannat

With cricket being the flavor of the season there couldn't have been a better time for the Bhatts to release their latest venture Jannat. The film starring Emraan Hashmi and newcomer Sonal Chauhan is a love story with cricket as a backdrop. Interestingly serial-kisser Emraan plays a bookie in the film. The music of this film is already a rage with many songs on top of countdown charts. The film also marks director Kunal Deshmukh's debut into Bollywood. Kunal has earlier assisted Mohit Suri on films like Zeher, Kalyug and Woh Lamhe. Considering the craze films and cricket have in India, this film has all the ingredients to hit the bulls-eye. Bollywood Hungama brings you all that you wanted to know about this week's new release Jannat.

Meet the Hottest Bollywood Mummies this Mother's Day

Call her Mom, Mum, or even Ma nothing about her ever changes. She's still about love, care, and concern. No matter which generation she belongs to she's still the best.

You're soft at heart and a great mind reader
You know with a look in our eye what we wonder
To many your God's wonderful creation
But to children you're the best foundation
With your charm and aura, keep us forever
We love you; we know you'd leave us never

On the occasion of Mother's Day, Bollywood Hungama presents the Top 10 Sexiest (read Yummy) Mummies in Bollywood.

Sushmita Sen

When you are single, you look for a companion. Sushmita found her connection in a baby. She is a single mom for her daughter Renee. Beautiful, sensuous, and influential, yet it was no cakewalk for her to finally be called Mother. But when the lucky day came Sush was already on a threshold - threshold of motherhood. Ready like on one before...

Malaika Arora Khan

She's Hot with a capital 'H' and a perfect bombshell and the sexiest mom in B-Town. A perfect millennium woman, who has done equal justice to her marriage and children without allowing her work to suffer after she turned Malaika Arora 'Khan'.

Sonali Bendre

The Bollywood diva whom people knew as soft, beautiful, smart and as Sonali Bendre. With little but strong roles in films, she created a buzz and left when she got married to Goldie Behl. Within three years, she became mother to her son Ranvir. Though she did some cameos, the last prominent one being in Kal Ho Naa Ho.

Karisma Kapoor Belonging to the first and the most influential family of Bollywood, the Kapoors, there was a lot of pressure on Karisma as the actor. Overcoming all hurdles, she proved to the world that she’s no less than the men in the family when it came to acting. Marriage and responsibility of baby Samaira have put a temporary stall to her career; but Karisma has not given up yet. Looking great in all her appearances, she still retains her pure and serene beauty and is very much set to make a comeback on the big screen.

Twinkle Khanna Born to the legendary actors (Rajesh Khanna and Dimple) and married to the most happening actor, Akshay Kumar, Twinkle has star stride all around her. After contributing to the filmy world, she entered interior designing and remained there to give time to both, work and her son Aarav.

Kajol She can blow you out with her acting prowess. With age, Kajol has become more beautiful. With a filmy background and being married to an amazing actor Ajay Devgan, films were never faraway for her even after marriage. Kajol has a daughter named Nysa. Managing time around family and work, Kajol still manages to put her 101% in everything she does, like a true perfectionist.

Juhi Chawla

An actress, an entrepreneur, singer, mother, and still kicking, Juhi Chawla is definitely multi faceted. Married to Jai Mehta and with two children, she never bid her career and business goodbye. Rather she continues to manage it quite efficiently. And she still manages to look cute and bubbly as ever.

Raveena Tandon

Bold, determined, and rebellious, playing strong characters, she created her own niche. At the same time, she took breaks and gave entertaining breathers as well. Life never stopped for this single mom when she adopted two children. Mother of the 21st century, she balanced both work and family. Later, she had her two biological kids from her marriage with Anil Thadani.

Mahima Chaudhary

Mahima Chaudhary a product of the Ghai camp made it big with her first film but the rest went kaput. While still trying to revive her career in Bollywood, she got married and soon became mother, a job no one can beat her to. Imbibing her notorious and childlike nature, Mahima's daughter Aryana turned out to be just like her.

Gayatri Joshi

The elegant, classy and beautiful Swades gal, Gayatri Joshi, married Vikas Oberoi in 2005 and had a baby boy the following year. Though she starred only in one film, Gayatri is still remembered for her performance. She was also a much known face in the advertising world and was a successful model before she jumped into Bollywood.

On Ma's Day, we thank and congratulate all the Mothers in the world for being the amazing women that they are.

Meet Shah Rukh's latest girl

It has always been dreams of hundreds of aspiring stars. Even, on the other hand, it has been dreams of many not-so-happening stars.

It's the dream about standing opposite to the biggest star of the nation under the biggest banner of the country. And for Anushka Sharma it all has just become a reality with a magical touch from the biggest production house of the tinsel town Yash Raj Films.

Yash Chopra, Chairman, Yash Raj Films, announced today that the nineteen year old from Bangalore, Anushka Sharma, has been accepted to play the female lead opposite Shah Rukh Khan in Aditya Chopra's third film as director Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi.

With the news spreading around, all the speculations that have been hush-hushed at all the corners of Bollywood media corners have died down.

Yash Chopra, on this concern, says, "We were looking first and foremost for someone who could truly embody the spirit of small town Punjab and we know we have found her in Anushka.

And while she has no previous acting experience, we have seen that unique spark in her that makes us confident that she will be a standout even opposite Shah Rukh.

Rab ne Bana di Jodi will hit the shooting floors on the 16th of May and will hit theatres worldwide on the 12th of December."

The waiting for the most hyped film and probably the most anticipating character is now over but countdown to see Anushka opposite King Khan has just started.