MOVIE COUNTDOWN '07

Movie reviews have always been among my areas of interests and wanted to write them since long. And I couldn’t have found a time better time than this, when I've felt like writing about so many movies together. So here it is- a list of MY favourite Hindi movies of the year 2007 along with my so-called “rankings”. I’d like to make it very clear right in the beginning that this is based upon just one, I repeat JUST ONE factor- My personal taste and not on any kind of box-office results or public opinion. But nevertheless, comments are gladly welcome. And please note that this list is in the reverse order of my ranking, so whenever I say “higher up the list”, it would mean technically higher up (a better position), but physically lower down the list here. And there’s no special reason as to why I chose SIX as the starting number, just that I had only that many movies in mind. Anyway now not wasting any more time on my superfluous crap, let me get the countdown show started!

*NUMBER SIX*
CHEENI KUM

A movie with a difference!! I should admit I’d never expected this 64-year-old man 34-year-old woman love story to be handled so exquisitely! No introduction needed for the hero, well Amitabh is Amitabh and he’s lived up to it, to say the least. But Tabu ..?? Wow!! Excellent performance!! Just couldn’t get more natural. You can’t help falling in love with the duo which just takes you through so easily and pleasantly that you’ll almost forget you’re watching a movie. I certainly would have placed this one higher up the list if not for the slightly-boring sequences towards the end. But all-in-all, a great movie and as I said earlier, one with a difference !!!

*NUMBER FIVE*
LIFE IN A METRO

It’s always hard to get real-life into celluloid in a manner that gets the viewers to closely associate their lives with it. Page 3 and Corporate are some films that come to mind, and Metro certainly falls into this category. I’m sure most of the people, esp. in big cities would feel it when they watch this one, thanks to ALL the actors in the movie who make it seem so very natural. It’s a collection of many different tales of people somehow connected together. The movie has its own funny moments, some serious ones, and some that just take you through. Loved the scene where Irfan Khan is bibulously having a conversation with Konkana Sen at the beach! Would have loved to mention all the other actors as well but it would be a pretty long list so will just say all of them have been equally brilliant and a movie worth a watch.

*NUMBER FOUR*
OM SHANTI OM

Termed as the biggest hit of the year thanks to its enormous box-office collection, this movie could have been easily expected to be much higher up in this list. But as I said earlier, there’s just the ONE factor. Anyway, coming to the point, though I didn’t find anything really special about the movie which could personally impress me, should say it’s certainly a paisa-vasool. It had all the ingredients needed to make it a hit as huge. First of all, it’s about the KING KHAN himself, so no comments on that. And then the well-portrayed 70’s replication, the nerve-tickling comedy, the 6-pack abs, the multi-starrer song and finally the so-called twist in the end, all contribute to live up to the hype it had created. Each and every song is a treat to watch and Farah Khan certainly deserves credit for most of the film’s success. People who are ready to keep aside reality, logic, intelligence etc. and yearn for bindaas masala entertainment are those who’ll like this. And the fact that this is such a massive hit proves that we’re all ready to do that!!

*NUMBER THREE*
JOHNNY GADDAAR

James Hadley Chase has been my favorite author till date and is according to me one of the greatest thriller writers of all times. And as soon as I heard that this movie is supposed to be a tribute to this great man, I got really excited about watching it. And I seriously admit that it turned out to be much better than what I expected it to be. Too sad it didn’t make it big at the box-office but this movie is closest to perfection. An excellent script with a gripping plot, well complimented by first-rate performance by the whole crew, this movie is a must-watch for all the suspense-lovers. Neil Nitin Mukesh is my debutant of the year. Sriram Raghavan, the director who gave us Ek Hasina Thi delivers yet another masterpiece and deserves a lot of credit for pulling this off in such a flawless manner. Just like in a Chase novel, the viewer is always made privy to the culprit and his master-plans, but will never know what'll happen next, and in the end will be left completely spellbound. That’s the forte of James Hadley Chase and that’s Johnny Gaddaar for you!!

*NUMBER TWO*
JAB WE MET

“Old wine in a new bottle”. Or I’d rather say “Fresh wine in an old bottle”. We’ve all seen a lot of those guy-meets-gal kinds of love stories in the past and this one’s no different when it comes to the story. But the commonness ends there. Jab We Met is as refreshing as it could get. It’s a love story that takes you to its own world. And I’m seriously out of words to describe the performances of Shahid and Kareena, or maybe “mind-blowing” is the one!!! Both of them have undoubtedly come up with their career-best performances according to me and this movie’s sure gonna do a lot of good for them, I mean, for their respective careers. Shahid with his mature and serious role and Kareena with her bubbly, full-of-life character just leave you asking for more. I’d never really admired Kareena so much before but simply loved her in this! This movie is a sure entertainer for all kinds of people and is one of the most beloved romantic comedies we’ve seen. And it proves that simple love stories still work if portrayed as beautifully.

**NUMERO UNO**

I never wasted too much time on trying to pick up one out of these two movies, because I always knew I couldn’t. So here it is- a tie for the first slot!!! And no prizes for guessing - Chak De India and Taare Zameen Par.

CHAK DE INDIA

A slogan that’ll always be celebrated and a film that’ll never be forgotten. A movie about a bunch of girls supposed to play hockey for their country with a man who is their coach for this endeavor, a movie without a heroine, without a dance and without much comedy. It takes a lot of guts to venture into this kind of a project. But the end-product is simply spectacular! Shahrukh Khan comes up with one his finest and most unusual works so far and carries the movie on his shoulders like a true hero. All the girls are equally brilliant and deserve to be lauded considering the fact that they all are newcomers. Though there’s no emotional drama, it has the ability to touch your inner soul and ignite that little sense of patriotism. Though the ending was pretty much obvious, I couldn’t believe I was actually getting tensed. Shahrukh’s speech to the girls before the finals and the scene after the match when he looks away with tears in his eyes are some of those special scenes which remind everybody that he’s simply unmatchable! We couldn’t have expected a better tribute to our unsung national game. To sum it up, a movie that has easily made entry into my list of all-time favourites.

TAARE ZAMEEN PAR

A film par-excellence! A film that everybody can relate to (unlike Black, which in spite of having outstanding acting performances, was just too much out of the way for our imagination). The hero of the movie – DARSHEEL SAFARY, well, what to say about this new wonder-kid..?? He makes us laugh, he makes us cry, he makes us think and he makes us feel. I’m sure he’d have left many of the big- time actors gaping at his out-of-the-world performance. And the other man equally responsible for creating this wonderful piece of art, our very own Aamir Khan, the perfectionist. Not to forget the man who penned the story and was initially supposed to be the director- Amole Gupte. A close look at the movie tells us about the amount of effort that has gone into making it into what it’s turned out to be. This is a film which sinks into our heart and is likely to stay there for a long time to come. The scene towards the end where the boy receives his prize and immediately runs to hug his teacher, will remain as one of my all time favourite scenes, one which almost brought tears into my eyes.

*****

So that’s about it. I might have missed out on watching a few movies this year but I don’t think they’d have made it up to this list anyway, so it makes no difference. And by the way, if I’m expected to talk about my choice of the worst films of the year too, well, there’s nothing to talk about them. Just 2 movies come to my mind- Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd and Saawariya.

And as I said earlier, comments, opinions and arguments are gladly welcome.

*************

SWADES

People have their own individual taste be it in terms of movies, songs, books, clothes or anything else for that matter, and we have no right to forcibly alter their likings according to ours. But SOMETIMES, it so happens that we like something SO very much and then realize that people haven’t actually got the real taste of it. That’s when it becomes necessary to tell them how much we liked it!

We all watch a lot of movies and we watch them for the sole reason that we need entertainment. But there are some movies that are made and are supposed to be watched, for reasons other than mere entertainment. Munnabhai MBBS, Rang de Basanti, Lage Raho Munnabhai and Swades are a few of those very special movies that ought to be watched for the simple reason that they’re OUGHT to be watched. (People who haven’t watched EVEN ONE of these, please ignore this blog).

These movies carry along with them, a so-called MESSAGE that needs to be understood by one and all. I don’t want to talk about the first 3 films mentioned above ‘coz there’s hardly anybody who didn’t like them, and that was mainly because these movies had all those extra ingredients necessary to make them a hit. (But still, if you’ve missed out on any one of these by any chance, please do watch it).

But SWADES - well, this movie was never made to make money. In my opinion it’s one of the most meaningful movies made and when I learnt that it was declared a FLOP, trust me it hurt me a lot, not because it wasn't a box-office hit but because of the fact that enough number of people didn’t watch it, and those who did, didn’t like it. It’s a simple movie about an NRI who visits his country after a long time and slowly realizes the grievances of his fellow countrymen and finally decides to do something for his nation. A movie with the same story could have been easily made a hit by just adding a few item songs, a little bit of stupid comedy and a few dances by the leading actors in some foreign locations. But in that case, SWADES would have never turned out to be something as special as it is now and I would’ve never cared to write about it.

I know I'm being quite tardy writing about it now but it so happened that I watched this movie for the second time a few days back and I loved it even more and my urge to write about it became stronger. A few scenes like the one in which the hero visits a poor man and learns about his critically poor condition in life and the scene in which he buys drinking water from a poor lad in the railway station and drinks it – are really touching. If not for anything else, we’ve got to watch this film just to know the darker side of India. Issues like poverty, illiteracy, caste division, etc. are all so effectively brought up in the movie that we actually realize that we have a looooooong way to go. And hats off to ShahRukh Khan for his remarkable performance!

SO, I just wanna say, if you haven’t watched SWADES, please watch it. If you’ve watched it once and didn’t like it, then watch it again. But after reading this, if you happen to watch it again and still don’t like the movie, then please forgive me for the inconvenience caused!