Movie Review: Dabanng 2

When the first movie ended, Chulbul Pandey(Salman Khan) had avenged his mother's death and ended with loving and caring family. In the sequel, Chulbul gets tranferred to Kanpur in order to achieve greater things in his professional career. According to him, Kanpur being a bigger city has much more to offer in terms of challenging work. As we know Chulbul, challenging work has to do with bigger and more ruthless thugs. In Kanpur, he meets Bachcha bhaiyya(Prakash Raj) and his brothers. When not locking horns with the gang of villains, Chulbul finds time to romance his wife(Sonakshi Sinha) and play pranks on his father(Vinod Khanna) and his brother(Arbaaz Khan).

The first time director Arbaaz Khan launches us straight into the action with the stylish opening credits which is built on the still photographs from the first part. This put us into the right mood for watching the sequel. After an interesting 25 minutes which relies on funny one-liners, beautifully choreographed yet unbelievable stunts and Salman Khan, the movie loses steam because of a fundamental flaw. The story telling in terms of script lacks flow and is devoid of any twists.

The movie tries every trick to cater to the fans. There are songs for the sake of songs, intended-to-be-funny scenes abruptly to show off camaraderie in the Pandey family and lack of a diabolical villain. You will also find the shirt coming off in the final action sequence. If there is any consistency in this enterprise, then it is only in one factor, namely bad acting. All of them are in a race to outdo the others in bad acting. Even the normally entertaining Prakash Raj puts in one of his worst performances. To add to the woes, the voice used doesn't suit him.

Skip it. If you end up watching this, make sure you are out of the theater after the initial 25 minutes.

Language: Hindi

Genre: Action

Rating: *

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Movie Review: Argo

When the American embassy is attacked in 1978 following the Iranian revolution and subsequent escape of the Shah, six embassy officials manage to escape the furious mob by walking into the streets and ending up in the Canadian Ambassador's house. Later, CIA manages to get them out of the country by constructing a story of Hollywood crew on location scouting. Ben Affleck bases his latest directorial venture on this true story to bring out an interesting and gripping drama on the screen.

Tony Mendez(Ben Affleck) is part of the operation which is trying to rescue the six American embassy officials taking refuge in the Candaian Ambassador's house. CIA has no concrete plans for the rescue. The only plausible plan is the one in which the embassy officials can pose as a crew on a location hunt for a movie. In order to make this plan work, Tony has to recruit help from Hollywood in the form of John Chambers(John Goodman) a makeup artist and Lester Siegel(Alan Arkin) a movie producer.

Ben Affleck quickly sets the action in place after providing a primer on the whole confict using voice overs. He keeps the viewer engaged with the fast paced drama on the screen. He has also an excellent supporting cast. Ben uses not only photography techniques reminiscent of the era but also the famous TV clips from the same era. The tension is captured brillianty during the US Embassy seige in the initial reels. However, the drama during the escape from Iran seems to be far fetched and also a bit forced for the thrills.

Performance wise, the movie belongs to Ben Affleck's Tony Mendez and Alan Arkin's Siegel. Ben Affleck effectively underplays his role making it more enjoyable to watch. Alan Arkin gets the best lines and provides the best humorous scenes in the movie.

Go for it. Although it tells only the American angle, it is still good to watch for foming our own opinion about the crisis.

Language: English

Genre: Drama

Rating: ***

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