Rangoon

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My rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Starring: Shahid Kapoor, Kangana Ranaut, Saif Ali Khan, Richard McCabe

The movie is set in 1944, the time of freedom struggles of Mahatama Gandhi and Subhash Chandra Bose, and Work War II. Julie (Kangana Ranaut) is a spoilt actress who used to be a gypse, until she was rescued at 14 by Rusie Billimoria (Saif Ali Khan), a successful movie producer, and now is his mistress. Nawab Mallik (Shahid Kapoor) is a serious, stoic soldier assigned to be her bodyguard, on the trip to Indo-Burma border. In that entourage, is a Indian National Army loyal, carrying a valuable sword from a Maharaja to be given to INA to fund their freedom struggle. Enroute, the Japanese forces attack and Julie with Nawab are separated from others, and fall in love with each other. Nawab takes his responsibility of a bodyguard seriously and successfully returns Julie to the destination, there ensues a series of events full of intrigue, action and suspense.

All the three main characters of the movie are crafted carefully and are immensely intriguing. Shahid Kapoor is one of the most brilliant actors in Bollywood these days, and delivers the role of a stoic soldier shouldering responsibilities way beyond his stature, to the T. Kangana Ranaut's performance steals the show. It is so powerful that it shadows over everything else. And everything else isn't much. The story line, while sounding good off-hand, was killed by poor execution. Eroticism was prioritised over plot, drama over direction. At some points it looked like a spoof of a heist movie. The first half was only a build up to what audience can expect from the second half, and second half was anti-climactic. The dialogues were clichéd, the songs over long, unnecessary background details of characters, made the movie long and tiring. It lost the focus from the love-triangle in a war torn land and freedom struggle and instead, focussed on multiple insignificant things, like bad Hindi accents of Britishers. Vishal Bhardwaj has broken the hearts of many hard-core cinema lovers. He does deserves a mention for creating the sublime music this movie has. All in all, this movie should be missed.

Cocktail

My rating: 2 stars out of 5
Starring: Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Diana Penty, Boman Irani, Dimple Kapadia.

It is about three people who happen to meet each other by chance and end up being friends. Meera (Diana Penty) is a simple girl from India, married to a good-for-nothing guy living in London, who does not want to have anything to do with her after marriage. She meets Veronica (Deepika Padukone), a girl with too much money and a devil-may-care attitude which comes along with it. As opposites attract, they become good friends. In comes Gautam (Saif Ali Khan) who has a fling with Veronica but develops sincere feelings for Meera, much to Meera’s chagrin and Veronica's despair. This all is followed by the sacrifices which are a part of the package and deep introspection by characters about others’ happiness.
The movie is a typical run-of-the-mill kind, love triangle where the bad does the good in the end and the all sacrificing Indian girl finds real solace in the arms of the bad boy she loath initially. There was not a hint of acting from any of the lead actors, the only artist was Boman Irani (as Gautam’s uncle), who lent a bit of charm to the otherwise crude work. If his role had been more, then the movie would have got half a star more. The story was very clipped with much left to the audiences’ innate understanding, which was good in a way. It considerably shortened the pain of watching. The best part about it all was that the Bollywood drama was thankfully less. This one was more practical and a westernised story. The real soul of the movie was the music. Every song can be added to one’s playlist. The styling in the movie was also commendable; in sync with the characters. The direction left a lot to be desired. All in all, something that can be avoided.