Tag Archives: Bollywood

Movie Review – Maska

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TL;DR – A nice story that does tread some well-worn ground    

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

Maska. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

So to set the scene, we open in on Rumi Irani (Prit Kamani) who is living in his late father’s shadow. Like all things, he is fated to take over the family business which in this case is the Café Rustom an Irani café in Mumbai. His mother Diana (Manisha Koirala) cannot wait till he can take over the café and breathe new life into it. However, one night Rumi won the Mr Firozsha Baag and in it, he discovered his dream, he wants to become an actor. Of course, it does not hurt when he discovers that at his acting lessons not only is this his passion but one of his classmates Mallika Chopra (Nikita Dutta) might be his soul mate.

One of the things I like about Maska is how is it is about breaking out of the bubbles of our life. I once heard that tradition is just peer pressure from dead people and in this film that is both a metaphorical point and also a literal one as he sees an apparition of his father Rustom (Javed Jaffrey). It is about balancing the expectations of your past with the realities of the future.

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Movie Review – Chopsticks

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TL;DR –  A film that feels ripped right out of the 1990s that you would look back and muse that it has not aged well at all.     

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Chopsticks. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

There are times when you sit down to watch a film and you revel in the chaos not knowing where it will go next. Then there are times that in the first five or so minutes you can get a rough sketch of each major plot point that is about to come. Well, today, unfortunately, we look at a film that is a latter with a story that feels like it would have been dated in the early 2000s let alone now.

So to set the scene, we open with Nirma (Mithila Palkar) who is a Mandarin translator and who is apparently named after a laundry powder brand. She is buying her first new car in her life but her number plate ads up to 11 rather than the preferred 9. On the way home, she takes her mother’s advice and goes to temple and has an attendant park her new car, and it should come as no surprise that there was no attendant and she just gave her keys to the guy that stole her brand new car. While she is at the police station she is told of someone who can help her, who goes by the name Artist (Abhay Deol), and she gets more than she bargains for.

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Movie Review – Gully Boy

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TL;DR – A story about finding your voice through rap in the slums of Mumbai hits just about every beat perfectly.    

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a scene over the first part of the credits

Gully Boy. Image Credit: Excel Entertainment.

Review –

It has been a while since I have watched a movie about becoming a music superstar that had any kind of weight and substance behind it. Usually, they are content just to ride on the fact that people know the music very well, and as long as you drop those classic songs every now and again people will lap it up. Today we get to look at a film that doesn’t just rest on its laurels and call it a day, it instead focuses deeply on what it is to come from nothing and try to make it in a very competitive world.  

So to set the scene, we open in Mumbai, India, specifically the Dharavi slums on the outskirts of the city, and we start immediately in a moment of tension when Aftab (Vijay Raaz) brings home a second younger wife, much to the annoyance of both Murad (Ranveer Singh) and his mother Razia (Amruta Subhash). Murad is working hard at school, working hard on keeping his relationship with Safeena (Alia Bhatt) on the quiet, but he has a real passion for rap. In his quiet time, he watches videos on YouTube and works on his own lyrics. However, he doesn’t have the confidence to take it to the next level, which is when MC Sher (Siddhant Chaturvedi) gives him the push he needs.

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