Another Most Excellent Review.

I know. I know! I haven’t been updating the blog and I’m not going to get into the whole why-I-didn’t (long time readers will empathize with the me not having the time to do crap all in the recent weeks but I won’t get into that!!) but instead shall type loong article in effort to redeem myself. It’s been a hectic ten days. Ramesh came down to Delhi over the weekend of the 3rd and Deso and Carbon had a birthday and then Aadu decided to visit over the last weekend. And I say weekend under duress really, cos frankly my weekend’s just a Sunday.. all of one day…which in my case in mostly spent sprawled in bed recovering from the ravaging effects of celebrating the fact that it’s the weekend, which as you know, in my case is just a day! Ahhh the complexities of life!

On a brighter note work’s going well. Riti’s been in town for over a week now so its been nice catching up with her. Didn’t get to spend much time with Ramesh during his trip this time but I guess we’ll just catch up some other time. Oh and finally decided that I’m going to be spending New Year in Delhi this year. Unless of course we decide to drive down to Mussoorie which seems to be the only plan that looks even halfway close to coming together.

Also been meaning to post the review of this really disastrous movie I happened to catch sometime last week, ‘Ek Khiladi, Ek Haseena” so here it is..



The movie begins with a very stiff faced Fardeen Khan talking to his soon-to-be-assailant. “Shoot me” he says and as anybody in his or her right mind would, the unknown mystery person does! This is where the movie should have ended or at least where I should have changed channels! But alas the flesh was weak and the blog-review-writing urges had their evil way with me!

So post one slutty number which doubles as the titles the movie then backtracks to show the chain of events that led to the shooting. Fardeen and Rohit Roy are friends who make their money pulling con jobs. After one (rather unbelievable) such job and a quick song Rohit Roy ends up murdered cos unbeknownst to the dynamic duo they’ve ended up robbing Sikander, a villainous don played by our very own Gulshan Grover! Anyways Fardeen must now get 4 lakhs to Sikander in 10 days in order to save his arse..(..the three minutes of the song was when our heroes spent all the money they made out of their little heist)

Ok here’s where Kay Kay Menon makes an entry. He is by far the only value addition the movie has to offer. And by that I mean he is the comic relief, by far the best actor and the only character with any soul. He plays Sikander’s right hand man who is to accompany Fardeen and make sure the money gets home to papa!

But sadly even Kay Kay couldn’t possibly have guesstimated the damage one Koena Mitra could do to this bomb! Mommy, isn’t she too young for botox? Then why doesn’t she have any facial expressions?? She plays a shrink ( the only way I could possibly co-relate the two would be shrink – shrunk – her clothes!!!) who meets Fardeen and his merry gang o thieves as they attempt to collect money at a gambling den. After some more song and dance bits and petty crimes later we find Fardeen and our psychiatrist in a lip lock in a rather environmentally friendly hotel room (…really!! Whoever thought green satin sheets were sexy huh?)


Koena throwing Fardeen her best "Come Hither" look!

So after some more tomfoolery Fardeen now has to use his superfine criminal mind to pull off another heist. This time its 25 crores in 25 days. This is where Feroz Khan steps in. He’s the one they have to hit. What follows is a mish mash of really sordid events that overlap, criss-cross and generally get all knotted up and end with Koena shooting Fardeen with blanks and our heroes walking off with the loot. And me sitting there screaming “OhMyGawdDidIReallySitThorughThisGreatBigStinkingPieceOfShitBomb!”

There’s even one scene where father and son find themselves in an elevator with Anupama Verma where Feroz Khan leans into her takes a deep breath and says, get this..”I love the scent of a woman” …and then hurriedly adds..”Channel?” WTF??

But seriously even all the really bad director’s cuts aside, this is a crappy movie. It turns out the whole band of brigands was putting on an act for Kay Kay’s benefit which leads to the question “Then why were they acting even when he wasn’t around?” And the whole movie lacks soul. The lead actor, no matter how dastardly his deeds needs to have an empathetic audience. That what makes him the hero. That’s what made Satya such a fine movie. That’s what Snatch and Lock Stock and The Italian Job did. Judging by what I saw I don’t quite think Feroz Khan will be even skirting that territory anytime soon..



All in all this film tries to be thrilling and unpredictable and ends up failing spectacularly! My question is the same one that Kay Kay ends up asking after he is forced at some junture of the film to listen to a story about a man and a lion…"Tera point kya hai?"