Luck By Chance — Movie Review

The second BIG film of both Farhan and 2009 , Luck By Chance , is out now and the film stars a lot of big names of bollywood in special appearances apart from Farhan and company . The film also has some good actors like Konkana Sen Sharma , Rishi Kapoor , Juhi Chawla , Saurabh Shukla and Dimple Kapadia . The film has been directed by the debutant director Zoya Akhtar . She has also decided to start with Direction and I hope she has no plans to shift to acting just like her brother has . As soon as the promos of the film were on air , expectations started to rise and people were expecting a good film in the beginning the of the year after the disappointing 2008 . CC2C has already dampened the spirits to an extent and I decided to watch this one for a change .

The film has been publicised as a Film on Film Industry and no film except OSO has worked which was based on Film Industry . Luck By Chance , according to me is more of a Love Story that has Bollywood as the set-up . The film’s story is nothing but a little bit of Raju Ban Gaya Gentlemen and a little of Fashion and a little of some other films . Nothing so new about it that we don’t know . People know about the compromises and sacrifices that one has to make to land up a career in the glamour world . When I saw the film’s promos I was expecting to see the struggle of the lead character and quite opposite to it I got to see him getting too lucky too soon without much of a Hard work . It stresses more on his love and relationships angle rather than his journey towards stardom .

It is a slow film from the word go and on top of it, it is a full length feature film of close to three hours . The slow pace makes it pretty unbearable for an average cinema goer who expects some entertainment at a fine pace . The film is very much on the slower side and what could have been a good film of two hours has been made into a longer slower one . I am sad to say this but people started walking off without even watching the end of the film in the theater . The reason being the length and slow pace of the film . The story was also pretty much predictable and nothing in it to hold the audience for such a long span . The same was the case with Khoya Khoya Chand but it was expected from that film since it had a backdrop of the sixties . It was also a visually much more interesting film and had some really nice music .

The so many guest appearances also couldn’t help film and were just like a small pills of excitement . The guest appearances barring that of SRK were all dull and felt quite out of the place . It almost felt like they were forced in to make the film a little popular . The people who did guest appearances in OSO would have been happy after watching the film and I am sure the same won’t be the case with this film . I don’t know , I felt like Zoya was pretty confused while making the film or maybe pretty much influenced under the Director brother and Writer father . The dialogues by Jaaved sir were also no good and the film in any case lacked the entertainment quotient . The film has a very Serious tone and lacks humour and maybe this is what will hit the film most apart from its length .

Zoya didn’t use actors like that of Saurabh , Juhi and Rishi to their max . They had very small roles and that too were not that entertaining . Comparing this film to Jaane Tu which also had several such actors and Abbas in that film very well used all of his cast members . The script by Zoya herself was very weak and didn’t had enough to hold the film . I don’t want to be too harsh on the film but honestly speaking it was a boring film for most of its length .

The story revolves around Vikram Jaisingh and Sona Mishra who are both talented and hard working but it is because of their destiny that they land up in different places . Konkana goes the hard way and Farhan goes the smart way . The film revolves around the successes and failures of the lead couple and their love story . The story as I said earlier was very much predictable and had nothing that excited me . The script of the film also doesn’t justify its name and has hardly underlined the luck factor that much .

The music was good but again not used to its maximum and in any case both Konkana and Farhan don’t have that magnetic personalities to hold the songs on the screen . Though Farhan does a good job acting but as always he has very limited to offer and if script is not good he cannot take matters in his own hands . He is not a superstar material and he should not opt for acting as a full time job . He is a fabulous Director and I don’t get it why doesn’t he stick to that . Konkana is a good actress and she performs as expected . The only surprise was Isha Sharvani who looked quite glamorous and did her part well . She made her presence felt and was part of some entertaining scenes . Hrithik did his part well and his song has been well used for the publicity . Aamir’s guest appearance was the worst of them all .

The technical aspects like cinematography and art direction were good . Zoya’s script and Direction both were pretty average and were not exciting at all . She should wait for a stronger script for her next attempt . Overall , I was pretty disappointed with the film as I had a lot of expectations from both , the film and zoya . I hope it makes enough on the box office so that it doesn’t lose much .

Film Rating : Two and Half Stars out of Five ; a slow and pretty much predictable film .

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Slumdog Millionaire — Movie Review

The film that is probably the strongest contender for this year’s Academy Award , Slumdog Millionaire , has finally released in India and now we get to know what is the hype all about . The fact that it is a great film is already proved and it has already got a nod of approval in the form of the Golden Globes . So in this review my stress would be more on the point that why do we , the people of India, need a film like Slumdog Millionaire . A film like SM is obviously not made for the sole cause of entertainment and most of the things that are depicted in the film are known to an average educated person in India . So then why do we need such a film ? The answer to that question , in my opinion, is because we who are fortunate enough and educated take these things for granted and are comfortably passive about it . We just ignore the so called truth of our society and live in our own world . And a film like SM reminds us that though we are part of the Developed sections of our nation , still there are some sections which are completely ignored and practically impossible to live in .

Slumdog Millionare is probably just like a normal film for people living outside our country but it is a Mirror for people of India . It reminds us of the problems and sections that we still need to work upon and sections that cannot be left ignored if we want to develop completely . We should not take for granted the life that we lead and care for the unprivileged people too is what the film talks of . Though it is basically a Masala story of a Boy’s journey from Rags to Riches with a love angle but what lies in the underbelly of the film is more interesting . The film depicts the life of Slums in the truest possible manner and there is at no point any kind of exaggeration . This happens and we just don’t know because we are comfortable in ignoring it . Even if we do know then nobody cares to even talk about it .

It addresses a range of problems that India faces like Communalism , Illiteracy and Population . And it is the poor people , the people who dwell in slums that get affected the most from the above mentioned problems and they are the ones that pay the maximum price . They have to get into things like prostitution , Beggary , Drugs , Stealing and also Killing just for the sake of survival . These are all the things that the lead characters of the film , Salim , Jamal and Latika get into to survive there way through the tough life of a slumdog .

I won’t reveal much of the plot so that you can enjoy the film if you haven’t seen it yet . The plot anyways revolves around all these problems with a backdrop of a quiz show , “Who wants to be a Millionare” or the KBC . The film stars some of the good actors of our country like Irrfan Khan , Saurabh Shukla , Mahesh Manjrekar , Anil Kapoor and the brilliant kid Tanay Chedda . I’ve mentioned these names before Dev Patel and Frieda Pinto because it is probably these guys who could relate maximum to the story and understand it at much better level than the two main leads . These guys have seen a part of this reality and are well aware of it . There couldn’t have been better people than these that could have played the parts better . So Lavleen Tandon who is also the co-director does her job of Casting very well . Her casting plays a big role in the film and probably she deserves a much more praise than what she is getting . I mean Danny Boyle couldn’t have possibly managed to cast such fine group of actors since he doesn’t know most of them . Apart from these , the lead actors , Dev Patel and Frieda Pinto , also acted very well and it was very refreshing to see good actors on screen instead of Sons/Daughters of already established actors playing the part . Dev does a fabulous job and the innocence of his personality suited very much to the character of Jamal . Frieda’s part was small but a well acted one . The entire cast on a whole was perfect one and everyone did their respective parts well .

The two things apart from Casting and Direction that played a huge role in the film were the Screenplay and the cinematography . Simon Beaufoy does a great job on the screenplay and has kept it as tight as possible . The cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle did a fine job capturing the Mumbai slums even though he is not an Indian . The fifth important thing was obviously the Music by the maestro himself , A.R. Rahman , who kept it pretty simple and right on the money . He added a lot to the thrilling portions of the film through his music and I must say Danny Boyle very wisely used his music . This is not though his best and still he is winning all the awards . Now that he is a well known name internationally I am sure the World will now see what a gem we had all these years . He for sure would get nominated and probably even win more Oscars in future . He does a good job with the tracks O Saaya , Jai Ho and Liquid Dance .

And last but certainly not the least , Danny Boyle , the captain of the ship , who carried the project on his shoulder . He has done what sadly no Indian producer or Director dared to do in past . Still , I wont take anything away from Directors like Anurag Kashyap , Rajkumar Gupta and several others like them who have earlier tried to show this in parts . But it is Danny Boyle who treated the subject with utmost sincerity and honesty . He has made a fine film and there is no doubt about it . Danny Boyle has made sure that though film talks about serious issues like poverty etc. still it has enough entertainment to increase the reach of his film . He has made a film something like Rang De Basanti of Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra which had clear message wrapped in all the masala of an entertaining film . Calling it a masala film would not be right since it doesn’t have all that stereotypical elements . But it is certainly entertaining emotional story filled with emotions that a typical masala film has like romance,revenge,sibling rivalry and love, a villainous character like that of Anil Kapoor and lots of Thrills and action sequences .

Danny and the whole team of the film have managed to create an entertaining cum awakening film that deserves every bit of success that it is receiving . Yes it shows the poverty of India and whats wrong in that ? If we very proudly boast about our growing economic status in the world and the “Feel Good Factor” , then we should also be ashamed of the other side of our nation . There is no doubt that poverty exists every where in the world and it is not only in India but why should we care about the rest of the world anyways . We have a responsibility towards our nation and its a little sad that a guy like Danny has to come and show it to the whole world including us .

Film Rating : Four and Half out of Five Stars ; fantastic entertaining film which is a must watch for all the people of our country .