Planet Bollywood Movie Review: Johnny Gaddaar

PB

“Every film has a beginning, middle, and end, but not necessarily in that order.” – Jean Luc Goddard

Read once again the writer’s name above. Trust me, I didn’t choose it that way. Guess some things are just meant to be.

GN: “Who is your favorite actor?”

NM: “Amitabh Bachchan”

Read More

Times Of India Review: Johnny Gaddaar

29 Sep 2007, 0045 hrs IST,Nikhat Kazmi,TNN LINK Johnny Gaddaar (thriller) Cast: Neil Mukesh, Dharmendra, Rimi Sen Direction: Sriram Raghavan Critics rating: /photo.cms?msid=2412930 WHEN a guy dedicates his film to James Hadley Chase, you know the battle is already half … Read More

Movie Review: Johnny Gaddaar

LINK

After an impressive debut in Ek Hasina Thi, director Sriram Raghavan is back with his next outing, Johnny Gaddaar. Without building up any suspense, let me proclaim, that Johnny Gaddaar is one of the finest Bollywood thrillers to hit the big screen. My days of kvetching that Bollywood film makers cannot make good thrillers are over. Sriram Raghavan has arrived!!!

Movie Story

The story revolves around a gang of five men – Vinay Pathak, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Dharmendra, Zakir Hussain and Daya, who gather Rs. 2.5 crore to give to a corrupt inspector in return of some valuables worth a fortune. Seeing the huge sum of money, one member of the gang decides to betray his Gang and decides to keep the entire sum of money for himself. Then begins a game of deceit, murder and revenge.

Johnny Gaddaar boasts of an impeccable script ( that is half the battle won) , paramount amount of twists and turns, and most importantly it does what an ideal thriller should do: It involves the audience in the film. The movie tells you the Gaddaar at the very outset and it is up to you to see the clues given and stress upon your grey cells and enjoy this taut thriller. Just when you realize, ok this is the path the movie is going to take, you are exposed to a new lane. A lane more racier than the one you were treading before. The remarkable twists and turns of Johnny Gaddaar and particularly the ending of the film will have you smile on the cruel works of destiny.

Read More

Indiatimes Movie Review: Johnny Gaddaar

LINK
28 Sep, 2007 06:32 pm ISTlPraveen Lance Fernandes/INDIATIMES MOVIES
Cast: Dharmendra, Neil Mukesh, Zakir Hussain, Vinay Pathak, Rimmi Sen, Govind Namdeo, Daya Shetty, Ashvini Kalsekar.
Director: Sriram Raghavan
Music: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Rating: ****

If Farah Khan claimed Main Hoon Na to be a tribute to Bollywood films of the 70s and 80s, Sriram Raghavan pin-points to one of the finest storytellers – Vijay Anand. In fact before the title credits, he pays tribute to Vijay Anand and author James Hadley Chase, a pioneer in the thriller department. Clearly Sriram is a person who had been exposed to films like Jewel Thief , Teesri Manzil and Johnny Mera Naam and their influence is evident in the film. No, Johnny Gaddaar is not a plagiarized or partly inspired film. This is a film which stands out on it own thanks to a well written script.

/photo.cms?msid=2412381 Shashadri (Dharmendra), Vikram (Neil Mukesh), Shardul (Zakir Hussain), Prakash (Vinay Pathak) and Shiva (Daya Shetty) have to come up with Rs. 2.5 crores between them to purchase heroin worth Rs. 5 crores from a corrupt police-officer (Govind Namdeo). Once they get the money, Shiva is given the responsibility of delivering the money to the cop. But he doesn’t make it. Rather his dead body is found. Who killed him and robbed the five of their money? Was it one of them or did someone get air about their plans? No- that’s not what the suspense is about. In fact the audience comes to know exactly who the Gaddaar is but the beauty lies in the fact that the rest of the gang-members and the cop don’t know it. If we saw the desi-version of Reservoir Dogs in the form of Sanjay Gupta’s Kaante , it revealed the snitch in the very end. But that is not the case here. Unlike all other thrillers that we are accustomed to witnessing, this one is completely different.

Other characters like Shardul’s wife Mini (Rimmi Sen), Prakash’s wife (Ashvini Kalsekar), Shiva’s girlfriend Vyjanti all have an important role to play in the film. These subplots are all intertwined within the narrative and they never act as hindrances.

Read More

Salman to join Amitabh,Aishwarya and SRK at Madame Tussauds

LINK

I think the notion of Salman not being in the Top5 or being a leser star than ABJr or Akshay can be put aside now..what say you?  

Read More

Vinay Pathak is of course not an idiot

Vinay Pathak is of course not an idiot
September 29, 2007 7:20:08 PM IST
Joginder Tuteja, Bollywood Trade News Network

Especially after BHEJA FRY, everyone would have expected Pathak to succumb to the temptation of playing dumb, brainless or a twisted comic character. But the ‘idiot’ man from the Sagar Ballary directed film certainly has other ideas as he continues to impress with different acts in each of his subsequent films.

After BHEJA FRY, he was seen in a small role in BUDDHA MAR GAYA as a horny doctor who is willing to take a ‘chance’ and take a romp with a struggling actress (Rakhi Sawant). Though the film came and went on to be a dud at the box office, Vinay’s act didn’t fail to bring in laughs.

Just last week, he was seen in a complete contrast as a cop from Rajasthan in MANORAMA SIX FEET UNDER. As a simple, uncomplicated and a practical man, he came up with a very natural act.

Read More

Quirky item song in NO SMOKING

Quirky item song in NO SMOKING
September 29, 2007 7:43:23 PM IST
Joginder Tuteja, Bollywood Trade News Network

A quirky item song shot on popular ramp walker Jessy Randhawa is currently on air.

Going with the theme of the film, the song is titled ‘Jab Bhi Cigarette Jalti Hi Main Jalta Hoon’. A night club song, it is smoky, haunting and a little eerie. So what’s really different about it?

Well, the quirky part comes from the fact that though the song is picturised on a woman, the voice which is heard is that of Adnan Sami. Now even that may have not been too edgy an experiment but what catches your attention is that Jessy actually lip synchs (Yes, you heard it right!) to Adnan’s words.

Read More

Johny Gaddar Review by Sunny

LINK
Warning: Some plot spoilers included

Johny Gaddar is the latest offering from Sriram Raghavan, the man who gave us Ek Hasina Thi. The film is inspired by some of veteran director Vijay Anand’s works and James Hadley Chase novels. The main protagonist(or should we say, antagonist!) Vikram aka Johny also borrows some of his ideas from the Amitabh Bacchhan thriller Parwana.

The premise is simple yet very different from your average Bollywood fare. Five conmen plan a deal which will make each of them richer by 50 Lakh in 3 days. Sheshadri(Dharmendra) is supposedly the top guy, a la Danny Ocean. He’s supported by Prakash(Vinay Pathak), Shardul(Zakir Hussain), Shiva(Daya Shetty) and Vikram(Neil Mukesh). Vikram however, has other plans; he borrows several ideas from his James Hadley Chase novels and Parwana to double-cross his fellow associates and elope with Mini(Rimi Sen), Shardul’s wife! Vikram’s plan however, goes haywire when he accidentally kills Shiva in the first phase of his plan. After that point, Vikram’s lady luck helps him escape every tryst with destiny untill the climax, where poetic justice is delivered.

The film had all the makings of a taut thriller, but it is marred by lack of pace. The sript was indeed interesting with one accident leading to another and so on and so forth, but it was executed in a very sluggish manner. The director seemed to have lost his vision after the intermission, where he went absolutely overboard with character development and took too much screen time familiarizing us with their personal/family lives. The sadistic outings with Shiva’s girlfriend Vaijanthi were totally uneccesary, and they really left a bad taste in your mouth and stomach. Through the entire length of the film, there was not one scene which thrilled you. The only moment where the script catches you off guard is Sheshadri’s dying sequence, and it was very well executed too. The script meanders a lot!, particularly after the intermission and you just don’t know what the director wants; does he want to thrill you, does he want to make you sob, does he want you to empathize or does he want to tickle your funny bone? Johny Gaddar is a perfect example of a brilliant plot gone awry because of too many distractions. Part of my dissatisfaction might have to do with the fact that I had went into the theater to watch an on-the-edge-of-your-seat suspense thriller, but even if I judge the film as just another movie..it still falls flat on most of the grounds.

Read More

Bollywood’s most paisa vasool lines

How many times have you found yourself rewinding a scene … just to hear that one dialogue again? Sometimes a powerful line has a much greater impact than any other aspect of a movie. The most recent example is … Read More

Raj Kanwar launches Shatrughan’s son

Link

With a string of star kids making a beeline for Bollywood, here’s another one. Director Raj Kanwar who is known to launch many new faces in Bollywood like Lara Dutta, Priyanka Chopra, Shah Rukh Khan and Arya Babbar will … Read More

Deepika Padukone and Karan Johar sizzle up Chivas 25 launch

Link

Read More

“Irrfan Khan plays Shah Rukh Khan in Sunday” – Rohit Shetty

Link

Rohit Shetty is the son of legendary action director and actor Action Shetty. But that is not his only claim to fame. The director, who is all of 33, is one of the youngest and most talented directors around. His journey as a filmmaker began from the age of 15, when he started assisting Kuku Kohli for Phool Aur Kaante . The director is only two films old with Zameen and Golmaal . Now he is all set to come up with his two new films, namely Golmaal 2 and Sunday . So we at Indiatimes Movies spoke to him regarding his upcoming films and more.

What do you have to offer in Sunday ?
Sunday is a comedy-thriller which has dual amount of humour in it. It is a typical 70’s format film. Ayesha Takia plays a dubbing artist who dubs voices for cartoon characters. One fine day she wakes up in the morning and finds that people around her have changed and are behaving very differently. There’s lot of humor and mystery in the film. It has been shot in Delhi. It also stars Ajay Devgan, Arshad Warsi, Irrfan Khan and Anjana Sukahani.

That’s an interesting star cast. What about their characterizations?
Ajay Devgan plays a cop. Arshad Warsi is a cab-driver in the film. Irrfan Khan plays a struggling actor who is trying to make it big since a long time. And as I said, Ayesha Takia plays a dubbing artist who dubs voices for cartoon characters.

Read More

Vidhu Vinod Chopra defends ‘Eklavya’s Oscar entry

Link

The producer and director of Eklavya – India’s entry for next year’s Oscars, Vidhu Vinod Chopra , has decried the controversy surrounding its submission.

‘Eklavya’ starring Bollywood mega superstar Amitabh Bachchan in the title role, tells the story of an aging sentry and the secrets of the royal family he protects.

The choice by the Film Federation of India last week set off rumours of bias on the jury with the maker of a little-known movie which was the other main contender now challenging the selection in court.

Read More

A leaf from Shah Rukh’s past: He courted Gauri for 6 years

link

A new book on Shah Rukh Khan reveals interesting facts from the superstar’s past.

Shah Rukh was bright, naughty, fond of sports but was weak in Hindi either scoring very low marks or failing in the subject says the book ‘SRK: King Khan’ by journalist, critic Deepa Gahlot.

Read More

Salman next to Aishwarya

Wax-imum exposure

Read More

Chak De! song gets global response as reviver of Indian sport

Link

hak De! song gets global response as reviver of Indian sport

Indiantelevision.com Team

(29 September 2007 4:00 pm)

Read More

Taran Adarsh Reviews JOHNNY GADDAAR

Praise all over for Neil…
LINK

Whodunits and suspense sagas sound interesting on paper, but not every film-maker can translate them with panache on celluloid. The year 2007 has witnessed a number of suspense thrillers hit the Indian screen, like RED – THE DARK SIDE, RAQEEB, THE TRAIN, NAQAAB, AGGAR and MANORAMA SIX FEET UNDER, but a majority of them sank faster than Titanic because the suspense in the end didn’t measure up to the expectations.

JOHNNY GADDAAR, directed by Sriram Raghavan, belongs to a different variety of thrillers altogether. In JOHNNY GADDAAR, the viewer knows, at the very outset, who the actual gaddaar is, but his partners-in-crime don’t. The gaddaar accidentally ends up eliminating every one in his gang. Just when you think that the gaddaar has removed the obstacles from his path, a gun shot is fired again… there’s yet another twist in the tale.

Write your own movie review of Johnny Gaddaar
Sriram Raghavan compels viewers to use their mind as layer after layer is peeled off, like the late Vijay Anand pulled it off with élan in TEESRI MANZIL and more particularly, in JEWEL THIEF.

Read More

Dharm director sends legal notice to the Film Federation

LOL! Love Talwar’s answer..this girl rocks:-)!!! LINK By Subhash K. Jha, September 28, 2007 – 12:52 IST The pall of controversy surrounding the selection of Eklavya as India’s official entry to the Oscars has thickened. Director Bhavna Talwar and her … Read More

Open letter to Vidhu Vinod Chopra from Sajid Khan

LINK
By Sajid Khan (as told to Joginder Tuteja), September 28, 2007 – 11:03 IST
Congratulations for the selection of Eklavya – The Royal Guard as India’s nomination for Oscars.

I saw your comments about films made by you and others in the recent past and what may/may not be worthy enough for recognition at the heartland of India and at the highest level. I am quite sure that you have made some highly respected films in the past and I am also certain that you have the greatest knowledge of films made across the globe.

I am also absolutely fine if you comment on films made by lesser mortals like me or others who may have had an accomplished body of work behind them. Even if you have deep rooted statements to make about my knowledge of cinema, technique, intelligence, calibre and personality in general – I take all of that in good spirit (and humour). After all it’s a free country (and may I add, democratic too?) and we all have a right to speak out!

But doesn’t that hold true for me too?

Read More

Butts and abs

There’s a rumour going around that the RK banner’s next big hope, Ranbir Kapoor has been bold enough to drop his underpants in his debut film, Saawariya. Apart from prancing around in a see-through white towel (how RK-ish, remember all those RK heroines wet and white?) there’s an unconfirmed buzz that Sanjay Leela Bhansali shot a flash of Ranbir’s bare butt where the towel drops off. The animated but muffled discussion is, will that shot be retained by SLB or snipped by the censors? If it doesn’t make it to the final cut, we’ll never know for sure if it was shot in the first place since everything about SLB’s film is so hush-hush.

One might find Om Shanti Om, the competitor to Saawariya at the box-office this Diwali, vastly different in its approach; everything about OSO seems so open and amiable. For one, everybody knows that it has a whiff of Karz in it — reincarnation and revenge being its two basic points. One also knows that Shah Rukh Khan plays Om, the flop junior artiste of the 70s while Deepika is Shanti, the No. 1 actress of that period. In his reincarnation, Shah Rukh is Om Kapoor, a super star in this birth. And so, Om Shanti Om has the backdrop of the Hindi film industry, with several other stars putting in guest appearances. For an awards function scene, director Farah Khan has shot the usual star attendance and even got a byte from a star wife like Bhavna Chunky Panday!

OSO also has a new heroine and, unlike Saawariya’s Sonam Kapoor who was forbidden to show her face before SLB gave the green signal, Shah Rukh’s co-star Deepika Padukone’s celebrity face was too well-known to be kept in purdah.

Of course, Shah Rukh Khan’s six-pack abs have also been much flaunted and discussed, making Om Shanti Om seem like an open book where everybody knows everything about it. But the truth is, while Sanjay Leela Bhansali went paranoid with his need for secrecy, Shah Rukh and Farah Khan have been equally secretive about their film. Only, they’ve been clever enough to share all the trimmings (the reincarnation, their new heroine, SRK’s shirtless Dard-e-disco et al) with the public while quietly retaining the essential story of the film. While SLB is obviously holding on to his film and orchestrating every little squeak that is heard about Saawariya, Shah Rukh and Farah Khan have been equally possessive about their film but have done it with such fantastic marketing skills that you don’t even realise that you don’t really know too much about the core story of Om Shanti Om!

Read More

Ranbir Kapoor on Saawariya and more

IBN Interview Link

Read More

Review – Johnny Gaddar

source:withoutgivingmovieaway

Story – brilliant, colors – vibrant, camerawork – creative, sound – unobtrusive, editing – slick, entire team – smart! Sorry, director saahab, I have run out of adjectives, so choose a superlative for yourself and I’ll agree.

What do I say? Where do I start? I must admit, it is the most difficult to write about a suspense thriller “without giving the movie away”. Any specifics that I would like to talk about will contribute to you knowing a bit about the movie. And that would be a crime in this genre. So, here is my attempt at being as unambiguous as possible.

This movie will be talked about a lot for the stylish homage the director pays to the people/styles of movie-making that have inspired him. And for a good reason too. The beauty with which the tributes have been interwoven with the narrative is not something one should write or read about. It has to be watched and applauded. Watch out for the way the subtle tribute to Anand has blended with and become a part of the story.

Acting – one of the departments missing from the list above – is not at its best. Dharmendra deserved far fewer lines considering his dialogue delivery was rather monotonous. Neil Nitin Mukesh is quite flat in some scenes, but overall, he has grasped and enacted the nuances of his character really well. For me, Vinay Pathak was the show stealer. In general, the versatility of this actor is just incredible!

Read More

10 minutes – a short film

The movie

Makes you think.

Read More

Karan Nath in ‘Tera Kya Hoga Johnny’

source:indiafm

Sudhir Mishra is all set to relaunch Karan Nath in Tera Kya Hoga Johnny. He faced the camera for the first time as a child artist in the film, Mr. India. Karan Nath’s career graph nevertheless remained stagnant with films like Yeh Dil Aashiqanaa, Tum, and Sssshhh and Loc Kargil.

However, Sudhir Mishra’s Tera Kya Hoga Johnny brings him again into limelight. Sudhir seems to be confident about his choice and says, “Karan Nath has a great potential as an actor and I fail to understand why anyone in the industry hasn’t recognized it yet.” He also adds, “It’s an actor whose potential when tapped, becomes a star, nobody is born star.”

On asking, what role does Karan play in the film; Mishra says, “Karan’s character is very unconventional. His has his own business, which perpetually runs into loss; he is a drug addict as well. Karan’s effort and the quality of work he puts in will definitely be recognized.”

Read More

Movie review | Johnny Gaddaar | Joginder Tuteja

Rating ***1/2

Johnny Gaddaar – Sriram reinvents thriller genre
Exclusive by Joginder Tuteja, IndiaGlitz [Saturday, September 29, 2007]

http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/hindi/review/9465.html

Remember the theme music of 70s flicks like AMIR GARIB, FAKIRA and TRAIN amongst the more popular YAADON KI BARAAT, KAALICHARAN and of course JOHNNY MERA NAAM, which is considered no less than a cult classic today? When you hear similar music in the opening credit title rolls of JOHNNY GADDAAR, you know that director’s Sriram has his mind (and most importantly his heart) in the right place.

He does pay homage to the ‘masala’ flicks from the 70s but in the style of 21st century. Ab yeh hua naa ek unique combination!

Read More