Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

The Intern cast : Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, Rene Russo, Adam DeVine Rated : 7/10 When Nancy Mayers makes a movie it is issue-oriented, largely woman-centric, light, funny, cohesive and enjoyable. The Intern is up on all these Meyerisms and has one more plus point — the vintage presence of an obviously enjoying himself Robert de Niro. Much like the intern he becomes at age 70 just to fill up his empty hours, the film too looks like one of those silly seasons that the actor may have wanted to fulfill while at a loose end. That he turns out to be the star of a film otherwise based on the contemporary topic of woman trying to balance her career and home in the midst of official stress and personal betrayals speaks volumes about the tenacity of De Niro and explains why he is worshipped by the dream merchants the world over. As an intern, he is meticulous, completely at ease with his agedness and a natural father figure to the software web generation. He teaches them the goo...

Cast : Kapil Sharma, Arbaaz Khan, Manjari Phadnis, Elli Avram, Simran Kaur Mundi, Varun Sharma Rated : 5/10 Well, if I was not so much in love with Kapil Sharma on TV, I would have just said  Bababji ka thullu  about his screen debut as hero. Not that he is bad in the film, it is his premise that takes away all from him and his film. Though an Abbas-Mastan banner, and despite the fact that the humour is not loud or sexually oriented, the film comes across as struggler in which nothing much happens despite the long hours it takes in flitting from one to the other to the third wife and a girlfriend of a chivalrous Kapil Sharma who, incidentally, moves around in a swank sky-blue Mercedez sports car and buys four floors of a luxury apartment in Mumbai without batting an eyelid! Of course, we know Kapil as that middle class, largely rural, man next door who has no prestentions. In the film too he has none and that’s great but it is humanly not possible for a stand-up comedi...

Cast : Akanksha Puri, Avani Modi, Kyra Dutt, Ruhi Singh, Satarupa Pyne Rated : 5/10 You’ve seen  Fashion , you’ve seen them all, or so it seems when you sit through Madhur Bhandarkar’s yet another one on the grease behind the glam. To a large extent, the predictability of  Calendar Girls  kills the movie, now that Fashion  has been seen to death. It’s all the same, be it high society, Bollywood or the modelling world. You come, you achieve, you struggle for your next project, you get exploited or you quit and, worst still, you die. Nothing new in this now that we have seen the rise and fall of Priyanka Chopra and  Kangana Ranaut  as  Fashion  girls. To top this, even though Bhandarkar has done his girl scouting well for  Calendar Girls , the absence of a star takes a lot away from the film. Unknown faces from four small or medium towns of India, with a past, leave their middle class moorings behind to shoot in Mauritius as the next ...

Cast:  Owen Wilson, Imogen Poots, Kathryn Hahn, Will Forte, Rhys Ifans Rated:  5.5/10 It’s been a long time since a light, fluffy movie with no rough edges nor punctuated with any deep meaning has hit theatres in India, so this one is, well, funny that way. Owen Wilson, as a serial womaniser (read call girl womaniser who he reforms with his bed pep talk), is also a Broadway director on the side and married to the leading star who is oblivious to her spouse’s bedtime stories. But both are in love, funny to the bone and doing things that they must to keep the funniness of the film alive too. The film unfolds through the shrink sessions of one such reformed call girl who gets a Broadway role in the process. Another matter though that the director is pretty uncomfortable with this development and all the loud mouths keep spilling the beans inadvertently. There is Jennifer Aniston too in the film but she has nothing to do with Owen. But as a hyper shrink angsting about ...

Cast:  Rupert Friend, Hannah Ware, Zachary Quinto, Ciarán Hinds Rated : 5.5/10 Hitman’s  back and this time with Agent 47 and with a lot of action though not many were in the line to savour it. Debutant director Aleksander Bach takes a lot of time to explain the entry of Agent 47 in the reboot film of the 2007 flick but once the laboured explanation is over, the Agent does pretty slick stuff to keep the action going. A result of a secret genetic modification programme led by a Russian scientist, Agent 47 is tasked to trace him down and also to get to his equally “gifted” daughter. But its not just him but also other nefarious beings who are on the trail for obvious purposes. Rupert Friend as Agent 47 in the tuxedo with a red tie, works hard to attract you to him and his action sequences and manages to keep it going to a certain extent. As Litvenko’s mysterious daughter Hannah Ware does well as Katia van Dees who is fighting her own demons of being “modified” and ...

Cast:  Ed Skrein, Ray Stevenson, Loan Chabanol, Gabriella Wright Rated:  4.5/10 Hardly refuelled! Without the deadpan humour of Jason Statham, and his wry but interesting screen presence, there’s no transporting you to the world of thrills where a certain Mr Frank Martin had been picking up packages and, in the process, taking you to speed thrills that made you such a Transporter  fan. But Skrein, the present transporter, is such a let down that the two-bit car chases introduced to give a veneer to a lack of storyline do not give you the satisfaction of being there. Mr Skrein has crooked teeth, pink lips, a daddy hangover and as much emotions as a plastic bucket can have. He looks straight out of a Gillette ad. To top that, he has no worthy package to take anywhere and himself comes across as a transporter who can be easily used and tricked. This was something Statham would have never been party to. In the middle of a vengeance game being plotted by one of the...

Cast:  Nana Patekar, Anil Kapoor, John Abraham, Shruti Haasan, Paresh Rawal, Naseeruddin Shah, Dimple Kapadia Rated:  5/10 Welcome back! Not really guys because this one is a return to a title which originally was quite a runaway hit. The reboot, sadly — and without the towering presence of Akshay Kumar — is just a scream — a plain, simple and meaningless yell from start to finish. Not that the veteran Nana Patekar and the swagger-king Anil Kapoor do not try to save the film with their funny ones but they are mostly too little, too far. Though Paresh Rawal has patented his confused bumbler comedy act, he is the same old in this one and with a much lesser genuine punch. It is a bad choice to have gotten in beefcake John Abraham in place of Akshay as he gives nothing much to the film except botoxed muscles which may ripple constantly in his pumped up body but fail to create any ripple whatsoever in the film. Top that with his miscalculated  tapori  act and ...