Movie Review: Om Dar-B-Dar (1988)


Tadpole | Cycle | Diamond | Typewriter | Dream | Ajmer

Brain-nailing keywords right? Yes you exactly are reading my new blog categorized as ‘Movie Review’. You are not in a humble mistake or any point at stake, this is how strange tags for a movie wonders you make. Will you allow me to add few more plot keywords? LOL Let me try to open your jaw;

Horoscope, Radio, Caste, Sleeveless Blouse, Nitrogen, Googly, Counterfeited Coins, Tourists, Promise Toothpaste, Yuri Gagarin, Potassium Cyanide and list goes on…

After the plot keywords or tags, what if I tell you that this Hindi-movie ‘Om Dar-B-Dar‘ was produced in 1988 and commercially released in 26 years!!! Yes it is very unknown to the moviegoers because majority of viewers are more familiar with popular cinema as compared to parallel and mainstream cinema.

But the movie has its critical prominence and has gained a ‘CULT’ status on the badge. This movie won ‘Filmfare Critics Award for Best Movie‘ in 1989 and even reached Berlin Film Festival. I heard a lot about it and after watching it, I found it one of the most complicated movie Bollywood has ever produced. 

There are 5 characters existing in Ajmer:

1. Om (Aditya Lakhia) is a carefree kid, a daydreamer. He loves tadpoles and has ability to hold his breath for a long. He is slipped from the edge of bitterness and is mentally a normal person who do not want to accept normality.

2. Om’s father (Lakhsminarayan Shahstri) was a government servant. Now he is an astrologer.

3. Gayatri (Gopi Desai) is Om’s sister bound within her limits. She is liberal by nature who wants to ride a cycle and climb Mount Everest.

4. Jagadish (Lalit Tiwari) is from Jhumri Telaiya. Fell in love with Gayatri and teaches her and her father cycling.

5. Phoolkumari (Anita Kanwar) is dark and mitty character who joins Om’s family. She write sex stories and has no money. Looking for work, she type letters for Om’s father.


ODBD is an experimental movie where 5 characters are connected but prostrate towards the fantasies of life. The sketch-frame is so complex that you will not accept the happenings at once but will flow on you. It is rebellious towards the nature, an absolute outcry.

ODBD is a directional masterclass where the movie-making is very advance from its time, you may call it a post-modern movie. Although the background score is pretty intrusive but the usage of camera technique is remarkable. It is a unique presentation of the world where a hatchling runs over the class attendance sheet and tadpoles become terrorists. 

Another impressive aspect of the movie is very powerful and thought provoking dialogues. With all the silence speaking out loud, the scenes are well translated by the dialogues where the director opens his heart and speaks very deep emotions and illusions.

Two of the dialogues which hit hard on brain is when Om speaks his heart out “Mere pass hone ke liye zaruri hai ki mera sapna fail ho jaye” trans. “It is important to fail my dream in order to succeed”. I have to repeat the scene to understand Om’s character which defines a lot.

The other dialogue is where Om’s father is annoyed of the term ‘googly’ and tells Phoolkumari to type a letter to prime minister “please ban googly in cricket and life in general”!!!! Just vow!! Googly and life has a very deep relation if you calculate the nature of both the terms philosophically. Literally it is just a dialogue but practically, it hits very hard.


Songs are way absurd but two of the tracks are of cult nature. ‘Babloo Babylon Se’ and ‘Meri Jaan’ are isolated songs with a natural caricature. By cast, all actors have done above average job but Aditya Lakhiya as ‘Om’ is the winner.

ODBD is a nonlinear-narrative and extraordinary movie produced by National Film Development Corporation on a budget of RS. 10 lakh and directed by National-award winner Kamal Swaroop. His CV includes writing dialogues for Mira Nair’s ‘Salaam Bombay’ and assisting Richard Attenborough in ‘Gandhi’. While watching, his direction will remind you works by Satyajit Ray and Stanley Kubrick. 

This movie is recommended only to whose who are more interested in watching parallel or mainstream movies, well actually ODBD is way passive from that cinema too. Even it is hard for me to come with a better review of ODBD due to the weight of absurdity, confusion and utopian creativity. But one thing is for sure that unarguably it is Indian cinema’s one of the greatest Cult Classic ever made.

Ratings: 8.9/10

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Movie Review: Boyhood (2014)

















Ratings: 9.3/10

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Movie Review: CityLights (2014)


What happens when a poor man from a village looks for a job in a city? What happens when he takes his family and settles down in metro-crowded-noisy city? One can never expect that anything will go absolutely right under his way. There goes a tremendous change in momentum of life and your initial steps are temporary hiccups to accept the changing circumstances over noisy and mad city. Making a movie on it may appeal some positive responses as the viewer takes the movie as something-about-to-happen experience. The movie-makers often make a comedy movie over rural-turn-urban life experience. But some become a socioeconomic subject for critical awareness to make you think how some of us taste such tragic encounters of life-changing gears. Migrated people always have that luck! 

That’s what happened couple of years ago when Sean Ellis made a British movie about a Filipino couples who had a land-migrating life-changing tragic experience from one part of Philippines to the other. The movie was ‘Metro Manila‘ that was Britain’s official entry for Best Foreign-Language Film at 86th Academy Awards last year. 

Metro Manila was an inspiration movie which reached to the doors of Indian movie industry. Citylights is produced under the banners of Vishesh Films and is official Indian remake of Metro Manila. Hansal Mehta was picked for the direction and the production of movie cost only 7 crore. Cast includes Rajkummar Rao (Love Sex aur Dhokha, Kai Po Che, Shahid), Manav Kaul and Rajkummar’s real-life girlfriend Patralekha. Set up is a poor young family of Rajasthan who migrates to Mumbai for money, better job and better future. Traveling all over from Rajasthan relying on one of close friend who never shows his face are all alone, homeless and self-dependent struggling to settle in crazy-life of Mumbai.


Hansal-Rajkummar collaborates as director-actor for the second time after critical acclaimed movie Shahid. Director put all faith in viewers to promise yet another splendid movie with powerful performances by Rajkummar and Manav Kaul.  

Rajkummar Rao is one amazing Haryana-born acting talent who always mesmerizes you with any role he plays. His characters are challenging. Since 2013, he is in magnificent form and picking very selective movies to bring a lot of critical attention among the movie pundits, journalists and sensible moviegoers. Citylights is his 3rd critical acclaimed performance after Kai Po Che and Shahid. As compared to KPC and Shahid, this role is more tougher. This character is more broken and shattered, and his migration with young wife and little daughter becomes a curse. Lost in the citylights, he is compromised with the naked truth that poverty is a disease and and every honest man is to be stripped. There are many high points in the movie and truly the most powerful scene is when he is drunk and return to his wife.

Citylights is an absolute portray of betrayal and gear-shift morale-collapsing tragic life-story. It is an emotional roller-coaster and depiction of fake-expectation of something called ‘Ray of Hope’ where survival is not in your fate. You are supposed to fell down from your own roof. One of best movies of 2014. Thumbs up for Hansal-Rajkummar partnership!

Rating: 8.8/10

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Movie Review: Gulaab Gang (2014)


When producers decide to produce a movie on a very important subject, they should promise that they will choose an experienced director. The biggest reason why ‘Gulaab Gang’ failed to impress on box-office despite casting Bollywood’s two massive actresses, is the direction. Soumik Sen who wrote flop movies like Anthony Kaun Hai?, Ru-Ba-Ru and Meerabai Not Out, is handed responsibility to direct the movie for the first time in his career. Not only did he direct, but even compose music :S How can producers go for a debutant director when industry has some big names to make socio.political movies like Shekhar Kapur (Bandit Queen), Tigmanshu Dhulia (Paan Singh Tomar) or Rahul Dholakia (Parzania)?

Now before I insult this movie, let me give you brief about actual gang as opposed to what you have to expect or already have watched. The name is not Gulaab Gang but Gulabi Gang and was founded by Sampat Pal Devi when she was 20 years old. She is now a social activist from Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh. This gang was founded to fight against violence against women. This gang is running for past 33 years and is composed of almost 270,000 members according to Hindustan Times and 400,000 members till 2014 according to Al-Jazeera report.

The movie begins with introductory narration by one of the best narrators in film industry. Nope not Raza Murad, not even Amitabh Bachchan nor Gulzar saab. Who are they? I am talking about Anil Kapoor. Yes Anil Kapoor!! :S The jhakaas guy has delivered his voice for couple-of-minute narration. The village is called Madhavpur which actually is in Nepal :S If I call it Madhavpur Ghed, then it is in state of Gujrat but not in U.P. 

Too much fictional work on such an important subject wastes the enthusiasm of watching it. Name of Sampat Pal Devi is Rajjo in movie. She wanted to study but her step-mother didn’t let her. In few seconds, adult Rajjo has her ashram!!! :S For God sake!! Why the origin of gang is ruthlessly ignored?? How come the director just think of making his point to dismiss the logic of ladies in pink saaris holding bamboo sticks. You have to show some piece of origins even if it take 5 minutes.All we know is that they are for protection of women against every violence but what exactly made Sampat Devi form this gang? 

Gang’s main members don’t even look that rural as the reality is. The way the gang members talk, few of them are even showing their sexy bellies put a huge doubt of Rajjo’s motto of running the gang. You won’t believe it but Rajjo’s gang is also a group of dancers, they know the song played in the air and have practiced dance steps to play together. And strong-on-paper Rajjo will all of a sudden present her latkas and jhatkas because Rajjo knows the viewers will enjoy all this. Action scenes are very terrible, some gulabi ladies hit men so hard that they even flew away :P

Madhavpur political interference is the heat which blows off when rivalry of two different faces take another stage. Two faces of coin and two big actresses of same era which is the most important marketing propaganda of the movie dumps with a jaw dropper. Madhuri Dixit and Juhi Chawla share the screen for the first time in 28 years and appeared together only 4 times in the whole movie but sadly there was no heat. Director failed to create magic.


If movie has anything to look after for that is only Madhuri Dixit. She brings the soul in Rajjo character. While Juhi Chawla just couldn’t fit in the role nor was she that tough to play the role of antagonist. We have seen corrupt minister or politician a billion times in movies played by men and this lady need no introduction for this role as it is understood that she will bring omen to Rajjo party. In assistancy, Gangor-fame Priyanka Bose and Divya Jagdale did fair job but as I said before, these individuals don’t resemble gulabi ladies. Imagine ladies like Nandita Das, Seema Biswas, Divya Dutta or even Pratima Kazmi being gulabi would bring some realism. Forget all ladies, Madhuri playing Sampat Devi!!! It was just director’s strategy to publicize the movie with Madhuri-Juhi element, the formula which didn’t work. 

Another reason of this movie failing in box-office was the international documentary ‘Gulabi Gang‘ which showed true origins and stories of the gang. Sampat Devi herself was part of the documentary. This documentary released in India a week before Gulaab Gang. With origins understood, a fictional or fake movie was discouraged by the viewers. And I will also recommend the readers to watch Gulabi Gang instead of this failed venture.

Ratings: 3.5/10

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Movie Review: Mary Kom (2014)


Considering the fact, the boxing movies are always a great pleasure to watch like Rocky, Raging Bull, Million Dollar Baby and many more, same expectations are in other movie industries. In Bollywood, I remember Aamir Khan starrer Ghulam had some meat to offer although it was not really a boxing movie. Sohail Khan’s Aryan was Abhishek Kapoor’s first directional success before he went on to make Rock On and Kai Po Che. With a new trend in Bollywood of making biographic movies on sportsmen in India and with major box-office success in Paan Singh Tomar and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, we expect more from last year’s Priyanka Chopra starrer Mary Kom which despite a great box-office success, I found major disappointment.

Mary Kom is legendary figure in Indian sports and world of boxing. She holds breath taking CV with her being 4-times Asian Boxing Champion and 5-times World Amateur Boxing Champion!!! Phewww if that is not enough, then furthermore she is the only woman boxer to have won a medal in each one of the six world championships and first Indian woman boxer to win Gold Medal in Asian Games history which happened in Incheon 3 months ago.  

As the human factor subjects prominence in many many legendary careers of greatest and finest names in sports, Mary Kom is no different as she can easily be labeled with the same line ‘an ordinary person with extraordinary story’. But for the sake of entertainment and gleaming box office success to ensure the producers earn a calculated turnover, a true story is minced and realism is denied. 

Being produced by big-pocket names Viacom 18 Motion Pictures and Bhansali Productions, the director for such an important project is chosen a first timer!! :S Omung Kumar‘s CV is mostly of Art Direction and Production Designing. Name like legendary Mary Kom deserves a perfect bio epic movie with the most bullet details of her personal and professional life. Many chapters were ignored and many were framed into incorrect times and events. Her childhood part is ruthlessly ignored in minutes. Mary Kom as hardly 8-year-old child finds a glove in the beginning of movie and all of a sudden within a minute, 17-year-old Mary Kom is fighting in college :S How can one ignore the childhood part as she came from a very poor Manipur family whose bread and milk was by working slash-and-burn??

Despite a narrative sketch of brilliant husband-wife chemistry in the movie, one character the director failed to present was Mary Kom’s father-in-law, who was a very important figure in her biography. Her father-in-law was murdered by some gunmen back in 2006 and at that stage, Mary Kom blamed his death on herself and almost gave up her boxing career. Her husband had decided to join rebel group to take revenge of his father’s death. What an important phase of her life never screened!!!


The final fight against her old rival is even a joke. No such incident happen such as shown in the movie as the movie sustained its root to recognize from a typical Bollywood movie. Even the event of final fight is confusing whether it was 2008 World Championship or later. If I assume it was 2008, the movie shows that her rival destroys her in first 2 or 3 rounds and then all of a sudden, the character returns in larger-than-life contest to beat her and take the title, whereas in reality Mary Kom owned her 7-1 in the final :S

Despite winning 5 world titles, the proudest moment in Mary Kom’s career was participation in 2012 London Olympics as for the first time in Olympics history, Women Boxing was included and Mary Kom was one of 36 participants among which she reached 3rd and won Bronze Medal. How in the world director never filmed this biggest moment???

If the movie is planned to watch, then there are only two reasons. One is to know Mary Kom’s life which I have reviewed above how it has been screwed. And other reason which actually is the only plus point of the movie is the soul itself – Priyanka Chopra as Mary Kom. If her mental strength was enough tested in Barfi, here she presented her physical element. Extremely tough physical exercises and her body and soul segmented between a life of boxer and wife equally raises the applauds. She surely makes you think of Million Dollar Baby’s Hillary Swank (I am not comparing ok!!). She is strong and fully ready to take on and suffer many punches in life.

In her character, the only aspect where she couldn’t catch Mary Kom probably was her Manipuri Hindi accent. That was missing. She tried her level best but that is the problem when such an important role to the artist is taught by a teacher/director but here actress has over a decade experience in her profession then the number of times Omung Kumar has sat on director’s seat while shooting.

Rating: 4.5/10

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Movie Review: Finding Fanny (2014)




Scintillating and Ravishing…..













Ratings: 8.9/10

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