Once Upon A Time In Mumbai is a tale set up in the 70’s when Mumbai used to be Bombay, when the dreamland used to be the homeland of smugglers and gangsters but within them there was a man who ruled over them yet he loved Mumbai, he loved its people who were destined to end up in poverty and toil.

The film is in way salutes the serenity of 70’s, the lighting effect romances with the dressing and looks of the cast, the surroundings mesmerizes you with its simplicity and dialogues leave you spell bound as soon as you meet the eyes of Sultan Mirza (Ajay Devgan), the prodigy who sets up the celluloid brewing and you are left asking for him in every frame.

It has been said that your good doings can save you many a times in life but not always, your bad days keep following you until they revenge with your life for your deeds. Crime is crime even if out of that you do great services to poor and needy. And the same happens with Mirza when he leaves everything into the hands of Shoaib Khan (Emran Hashmi), a delinquent son of a cop who saw Mirza growing from dock to the peak of crime and powerful world and wants to be no lesser than him, if not better him. Shoaib’s shrewdness and clever attributes drove him to manage what Mirza declined to bow to save Mumbai from the sickness of poverty and dejection.

Shoaib reaches where he wanted to, to his ambition of becoming a “DON”, even if it asks the price of his inspiration – Mirza – and he decides to kill him, when Mirza was in an election meeting. Many would debate over the ending of the film, a man so powerful like Mirza ended up so grossly in the day light in front of the people he always helped and the culprit swiftly made out his way to the King’s seat of Crime. However, it is a real fact that in the war of evils only the powerful and shrewd wins and Shoaib was an example of this anti-climax!

If you go with your head intact on your shoulders to watch ‘Kambakkht Ishq’ you will come out as a loser. Sometimes i wonder how senseless movies work so well in Indian cinema- Bollywood?

It’s a bad news! Not only for Aamir Khan’s fans but also for a nation which is waiting with abetted breath for the year’s most awaited film Ghajini.

The Madras High Court today stayed the release of the film which is slated to open in theaters on Thursday.

The stay came after A. Chandrasekharan, the producer of the Tamil film of the same name, on which the Hindi remake is based submitted a stay plea on its release.

But court has granted leave for appeal. It will be interesting to see, how quickly this matter gets solved, as the court is going on winter vacation from Wednesday.

Interestingly  Ghajini has been already declared a hit after its advance bookings skyrocketed, trade analysts believe the film will sweep a gross of 100 million only from the north India.

There is nothing bigger than Badshah [Shahrukh Khan] in Bollywood. Neha Dhupia once said,” In Bollywood only SRK or sex sells,” and he has proved it so many times. Once again he comes to rescue Bollywood at a time when it is weeping blood on the box-office.

A lot has been talked, predicted and hoped about the most awaited film of the year ‘Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi’. Being King Khan’s only release of the year it becomes obvious that expectations and market predictions would go on rise. True! The charisma named Shahrukh holds them all. Opinions and criticism were all over the place. Some were scared; while some had the confident that SRK will take the Yashraj banner to the safe shores. And from its first show he looks taking it to the safer place.

The first show of the day and observation of the crowd gives the feeling that Shahrukh with debutant Anushka Sharma have won the heart of the audiences. A full house, with comments and whistles on every frame of SRK tells the whole story and without any doubt ‘RNBDJ’ with its first show is going places.

Those who have been confident & doubting over the fate of ‘RNBDJ’ will be either pleased or surprised, the way it opened and receives positive response.

Let’s talk something about Anushka; the Bangalorean block looked awesome while sharing the frames with ‘King Khan’, her innocent smiles, perfect comic timing and good dialogue delivery for sure will be imprinted all over your heart once you leave the theater.

Before concluding, I will say ‘RNBDJ’ is a winner and you can hear ‘Haule Haule’ in your surroundings in the days to come.

Cricket is like a religion running parallel to every Indian’s faith. In this cricket crazy nation a film which talks about the sport is expected to attract huge audiences to the theaters. But I must say in cinema cricket based films have flopped big time, be it Kumar Gaurav’s ‘All rounder’ Aamir Khan’s ‘Awwal Number’, or Kunal Kapoor’s ‘Hattrick’; surely ‘Iqbal’ and ‘Lagaan’ can be considered as exceptions because of high performances and an engaging drama.

‘Meera Bai Not Out’ revolves around a cricket enthusiast Meera [Mandira Bedi] who teaches Mathematics to school students and is a die-hard fan of Anil Kumble. She is thirty and single who befriends only with society boys to play gully cricket. Her mother [Vandana Gupte] and brother [Mahesh Manjrekar] are hell bent to find a groom for their cricketing maniac Meera.

Then enters Dr. Arjun Awasthi [Eijaz Khan] who treats Meera’s injured boys team for free, soon she realizes that there is more in life than dreaming about Anil Kumble or Team India and falls in love with Arjun…

Many people will have an impression about ‘Meera Bai Not Out’ of being a ‘cricket film’ but it is not. Though it has a cricketing enthusiast as its protagonist and even title suggests the same, it is misleading. A good part of the film is devoted to the love story which lacks the red cherry.

The film gets engaging towards the pre-climax when Meera turns away on her ‘match-making’ day to stadium leaving everyone stunned.

Is Anil Kumble thinking about making Bollywood his next home after retiring from international cricket? I am not sure. But I can say he will give it a second thought after audiences’ reaction to this film.

On the acting front Mandira acts her part well. Eijaz looks good and could go further if given opportunity; Mahesh Manjrekar doesn’t really have scope to show his acting skills except towards the end. Anupam Kher tries to copy his own act of ‘DDLJ’ but an actor of his efficiency looks a waste here, well here Anil Kumble do need a mention whose onscreen appearance is somewhat passable.

Finally; I will not suggest watching Meera Bai Not Out this weekend.

Very few of the adaptations from theater to cinema went right [Othello- Omkara and Macbeth- Maqbool] others became a sordid tale. ‘Maharathi’ being a successful Gujrati play which ran for 700 shows since 1987 in Gujarat makes its big-screen appearance but lacks the intensity when it comes to engaging the audience on the silver screen.

Paresh Rawal, who played an unsuccessful actor-conman in the play which he has directed, essayed the same role on the big screen but he still seems to be under the hangover of its theatrical success.

On the other side of it ‘Maharathi’ being a thriller fails in engaging the viewers and in the end director and writer looks in hurry to wind-up the whole affair in a tizzy and that bombs the whole plot.

Subhash [Paresh Rawal] is a small time actor who has been trying unsuccessfully from 10 years to get a chance in the films. He saves a life one night and takes the injured man back home. Subhash is surprised to see the affluence of Adenwalla [Naseeruddin Shah]. Subhash then hired as a driver for Adenwalla which doesn’t go well with his wife Mallika [Neha Dhupia].

Subhash soon realizes Mallika want to kill Adenwalla. While Adenwalla goes insane with her wife’s hunger for money and decides to kill himself and commits suicide!

Subhash finds a chance in this to get rid of his middle class mediocrity and poverty; he joins Mallika to acquire all the money and property of Adenwalla. They together chalk out the plan to go further, for this they take help from family lawyer Mr. Merchant [Boman Irani] who gets a care taker to be a witness to Adenwalla’s presence in the house as an ailing man.

But when everything looks working out for them, enters ACP Gokhale [Om Puri] and inspector Borkar [Vivek Shauq].

Now you must be finding the story very engaging but the biggest problem with ‘Maharathi’ is its limping script which leaves the audience with full lot of question. If Naseer wanted to teach Neha a lesson why would he committed suicide? Why not kill Neha? And can you imagine a person to donate all his money to a stranger who he hardly knows?

Barring some well-executed sequences, the film derails on its script part that is the lacuna with ‘Maharathi’ and for the fact it bothers the audiences or else it could have been an engaging thriller.

The film has an excellent star cast and the way it was promoted expectancies are inevitably higher. On the performance front Naseeruddin Shah lived up to the expectations. Paresh Rawal as ever hits the chord; Boman Irani looks good while Om Puri would have been better if given a better role. Neha Dhupia is passé.

Overall the film has nothing much more than its star cast…just a passable weekend treat!