The most popular pair of Bollywood, SRK and Kajol are back. The director with ‘Hit movies’ formula, Rohit Shetty is back with SRK, after the huge success of Chennai Express. The movie stars Shah Rukh Khan as Raj/Kali, Varun Dhawan as Veer, Kajol as Meera, Kriti Sanon as Ishita and Boman Irani as King.
The movie starts as Raj as an owner of a garage and Veer as younger brother of Raj. As a masala Bollywood would have it, Veer meets Ishita and feels attracted to her. He offers her help and starts finding ways to meet her. They fell in love eventually and decide to tell their family about their relationship. Turns out, Ishita is the younger sister of Meera, the ex of Raj. Raj and Meera had ‘love gone bad’ 15 years ago, so they refuse to accept this relationship of Ishita and Veer. The second sequence of the movie starts with the flashback of the love story of Raj and Meera. Raj is a son of a mafia and smuggles gold. Then there are a couple of twists in the story which I won’t spoil.
The screenplay of the movie tells the story in a linear way which looks like an attempted shot at suspense. It is not. The story is so predictable that after the first twist (which appears after 55th minute), you can very well predict the whole movie.
So this must have the been the conversation of SRK and Rohit Shetty when they were discussing the script of Dilwale
SRK: So what is the script of Dilwale?
Rohit Shetty: We have you and Kajol Ma’am and some fancy cars. Why do we need a story?
SRK: But we have to show something to the audience for 2 hours.
Rohit Shetty: All right, we will make you the son of a mafia, Kajol ma’am a daughter of a mafia, put Varun and Kriti for support and some fancy cars. Is that enough?
SRK: That’s all? The movie needs to be better.
Rohit Shetty: Okay, let’s put Boman Irani, Varun Sharma, Johnny Lever and Sanjay Mishra for comedy. That makes it 300 crores.
SRK: But what about actions scenes?
Rohit Shetty: Oh I have that covered. I will blow some fancy cars which is enough to blow the mind of the audience. I will have you beat the crap out of 50+ people and put the theme music at the end of that scene to make audience believe it.
SRK: What about romance? I’m known for that.
Rohit Shetty: Don’t worry about it. The music of the movie is amazing, we have some amazing locations. Besides, I have shamelessly copied the 2 minute Ted-Stella date scene from How I Met Your Mother. Our audience is fool, they will think it’s original
SRK: Excellent! That’s gonna make 500 crores.
Rohit Shetty: Kudos bro, we’re the man!
The movie is so bad that if you put any other actor instead of SRK and Kajol, I bet you’d make an excuse of going to the washroom and escape from ventilator like people do after meeting an ugly blind date.
The cast has done an appealing job. SRK, best actor in Bollywood, is superb in his role. Kajol is excellent, she is delight to watch. Varun has done a decent role and Kriti is cute. Sanjay Mishra is a great actor and has done a hilarious acting as he always does. Boman Irani is a gem of an actor but hasn’t been used properly.
Music of the movie is beautiful. Camera and location team has done excellent jobs. Overall, the movie meets what is expected from a Rohit Shetty movie.
Final Verdict: The movie is limited to hardcore SRK fans and who enjoy Rohit Shetty movies. For others, it’s just another evening spent in a movie theatre with friends/family. 2.5/5

American Sniper is a beautiful movie. It is enthralling and emotional. It tells the story of Chris Kyle, the best sniper, who went to Iraq and Afghanistan at the request of his country.
The film shows us how war affects the minds, bodies, and hearts of the people that experience it. It shows us the effects on not just the soldiers but on their families. I saw no attempt to justify the politics of the war.
It's not a story of a war. It's not a story of a great battle fought by America. It is a story of a man. A man who was a sniper. Snipers are labelled as cowards by some people. This story shows how a life of a sniper is. How they stay in dangerous territories just to save the lives of their fellow soldiers. It tells the story of both sides. Clint Eastwood, my favorite actor/director knows how to show you the both side of a story. He did it in Flags of our Father and Letters from Iwo Jima.
Bradley Cooper, take a bow lad. He was brilliant in this movie. He made the character real, human. I was moved by his role and portrayal of Chris Kyle.
If anything, American Sniper should be seen by every American so that next time the people's government decides to send young men and women off to war, the American people will have a better idea of what they are sending those young men and women into and will demand a stronger justification for the war.
God Bless America. Thank you veterans!

If I could erase my memory of last 3 hours, I’d do it. I mean it.
Welcome was a splendid movie. It had amazing characters. Uday-Majnu were hilarious. Ghughru was one superb character. Akshay as Rajiv was cute. RDX was badass. Let’s not talk about Katrina. The plot was perfect. The dialogues were so funny that it’d make you fall of your seats.
However, the sequel of this beautiful movie couldn’t do justice to these amazing characters.
After 8 years, we got to watch Welcome Back. The story starts as Uday and Majnu are struggling to live a decent life, without crime. Uday finds out that he has another half sister (Shruti Hassan) who needs to get married. Majnu takes the responsibility of marrying her to a good, decent man.
The trio of Uday-Majnu-Ghunghru is still funny and the only thing worth watching. John is average. You can’t expect more from his. Acting is not his strong suit. He plays Ajju Bhai, don of Mumbai.
Shruti Hassan is so pathetic that whenever she appears on screen, it’s the best time to go out and buy popcorn/coke, take a leak, or make out with your girlfriend.
There are few punchlines in the first half of the movie which will make you laugh. The action scenes are pathetic. John Abrahim fights an army of goons with a piece of cloth. How is that possible? Well, this was supposed to be a silly movies, so you have to bear those physics defying action.
Movie gets worse in the second half. Coming back to the theater after the interval was my biggest mistake. The second half of the movie is shot in exotic locations, the palm island, Dubai etc and has flaunted it beautifully. The scene in graveyard is good, we’d get to see Anil Kapoor singing “Ae Ji, Oh Ji, Lo Ji, Suno Ji” after a long time. But still, this is a crappy movie. Even fine actors like Nasruddin Shah fails to impress because of the stupid script of Welcome Back. btw, what the hell was that “Mazaak tha” thing?

The story of richest criminal in history. Fascinating Enough? Pablo Escobar was the head of Colombia’s Medellin cocaine cartel. He became the 7th richest person in the world, all by drugs money. Imagine you were born in a poor family, in a poor city, in a poor country, and by the time you were 28 years old, you have so much money you can’t even count it. What do you do? You make your dreams come true. And that’s what caught attention of the Colombian Police and DEA. Pablo donated a huge deal of money to develop his neighborhood. When you run out of ways to hide your money, that’s when you give it to the poor.
Pablo was so powerful that, in his prime, he could change ministers, laws. Or the whole system. He was responsible for more than thousands of murders, which included half of the police force of Columbia, a Presidential candidate and supreme court justices. In the United States, the Mafia makes witnesses disappear so they can’t testify in court. In Colombia, Pablo Escobar made the whole court disappear. He used kill anyone who disagreed with him. Which includes his partners. If you make it to the top, it means you’ve killed your enemies. And sometimes, your partners.
He blew off a plane in an attempt to kill the President. He started a series of bomb blasts, just so that President will agree to his terms. The purpose of war is peace, he’d say. Anyone who spoke of fighting Pablo, died. Brave men have a way of dying quickly. With his power, he brought down the whole country to their knees. Colombians say, God made our land so beautiful it was unfair to the rest of the world. So to even the score, God populated the land with a race of evil men.
Pablo Escobar has always been an area of interest for Hollywood, but no one could execute it. Netflix did. This show is thrilling, informative, factual, addictive and brilliant. By the end of an episode, it leaves you with horror and fear. Show is presented by the eyes of agent DEA Agent Murphy. Like listening to an audio-book, his narration introduces us to every character, every event or an incident and keeps us attached to the story.
It is an unique drama which makes us live the lives of people in Columbia in 1980-90s. Narcos is filled with violence, sex and nudity, foul languages and brilliant quotes. Just to present the lives of Colombians perfectly (and Netflix to generate audience in Columbia), half of the show is in Spanish, so you’ll have to rely on subtitles. This is probably the best show of 2015. My ratings? 4/5

In 2012, Vikram Bhatt took an initiative and decided to make a erotic/thriller movie, Hate Story. Hate Story 3 is the third addition to this franchise. It stars Sharman Joshi as Aditya Diwan, Zarine Khan as Siya Deewan, Karan Singh Grover as Saurav Singhania and Daisy Shah as Kavya. This is a erotic story of lust, revenge and jealousy.
The movie starts as Aditya inaugurating a hospital in the name of his brother who died in a plane accident. He tells a story of his brother, who donated his liver for his childhood best friend Karan. Siya is called for an one on one interview where she is asked about some questions about her past, where she mentions that she was in a relationship with the late brother of Aditya. Aditya runs a successful business. One day, a secret admirer of his sends him an Audi as a gift. Turns out, he was Saurav (Karan) who says he is a huge fan of him. He offers him a no strings attached deal which would help Aditya to expand his business, but when asked about the motive, puts on a bizarre request. “A night with Siya“. Aditya storms out of his bungalow without telling anything to Siya about his conversation with Saurav. Then, Saurav starts destroying Aditya, step by step. Adulterating his cold drink business, then framing him for a murder. Who is Saurav? What’s his motive behind his hate for Aditya? To know that, you have to watch the movie.
Please don’t! Seriously, don’t. This is like a C grade thriller movie. Acting is so poor that it reminded me of KRK Movie “Deshdrohi”. Yes, I have seen it. Kill Me! I had expected a lot from Sharman but he disappointed me. He acts like a teen who just has hit his puberty. Zarine Khan is an expressionless doll, used as a tool whenever they needed some erotic scenes. Daisy Shah couldn’t impress either. Karan Singh did what was expected of him.
After watching Hate Story 1, the least I was expecting is a strong female lead. But the beta version of Katrina Kaif does nothing other than dressing herself in bikini type clothes. And please don’t get me started on this. In that dress, she looks like a female UFC wrestler. The sex scenes are horrible. They’re like the Mallu porn I have seen (Yes, I have seen that too) where there is a fat women in bra and the guys does nothing other than caressing her.
There are few turns and twists in the movie. Predictable ones, except the last one. Music (Meet Bros, Baman and Amaal Malik) is good, with “Tumhe Apna Banaane Ki” being the best, which is a remake. The narration of the movie is decent and keeps the audience guessing who actually is Saurav and what are his true intentions . Camera work is modest at its best. Action scenes are again, like C grade movies.
Final Verdict – This movie has nothing to offer other than some cliche skin shows and intimate scenes. If that’s what you’re looking for, go for it. Read my reviews at: https://themoviesjournal.wordpress.com