Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

Madras Cafe Starring :  John Abraham, Nargis Fakhri, Rashi Khanna Rated :  6.5/10 From  Vicky Donor  to  Madras Cafe,  not just director Soojit Sircar but also actor/producer John Abraham has taken a long jump — from real fun to a real thriller. As a political thriller, Madras Cafe  scores with its starkly muted colours depicting the futility of war as it also does by the way the much-hyped snoop operation (with all its accompanying pitfalls) has been highlighted. It being the story of India’s IPKF blunder, leading to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi at a Sriperumbudur election rally in 1991, there is a lot you get hooked on to. What makes this one a very watchable thriller is the way the entire operation — as messed up as it was — has been factionalised. It compels you to go back to look for the “real” happenings leading to the real assassination and if you have done that, it goes entirely to the credit of Sircar that you come back to the f...

Jobs Starring : Ashton Kutcher, Dermot Mulroney, Lukas Haas, James Woods Rated : 5/10 The only thing that struck me in this not so big a splash on the modern century’s master innovater Steve Jobs is how much he hopped while he walked. Other than that, there is very little in the film that Jobs himself wouldn’t have chucked out, like his technician friend whom he sacked without a second thought for mediocrity. There is no denying the fact that there is none who can be Steve Jobs so Ashton Kutcher could not have surmounted that barrier of portraying a man whose eccentricities were as undefinable as his penchant for beauty in science. And while the world debates how bad a man this good a visionary was, Ashton has tried his best to bring in the paradoxes of the man everyone grudgingly accords a sainthood in innovation. The film deals with a very constricted frame of his life, dealing with his garage years and showing him living through the ins and outs of Apple Inc. At best it’...

Kickass 2 Starring : Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloë Grace Moretz, Jim Carrey Rated : 4/10 ell, here is a little twist to the tortoise and the hare story, one of Aesop’s fables. Only here, instead of the race between the tortoise and the hare, one has planes and not your average planes — there is Pan Asian champ from India, a biplane, a racing plane and a custom-built carbon fibre plane — and in the midst of all this a crop duster plane who dreams of becoming a racer. Those who have seen the movie Cars will obviously pick on what is right in front of their eyes — that it is inspired by the movie. The faces, the deserted nowhere on the map small town, a veteran plane who is hiding, all are a lift from the film which is a downer. So, despite the fact that it has been borrowed, one is not likely to hear a complaint from the tiny tots who will be watching this one. The colour, the gruff voices of the planes and the brilliantly done animation is sure to kee...

Once Upon A Time in Mumbai Dobaara Starring :  Akshay Kumar, Imran Khan, Sonakshi Sinha Rated : 5/10 Once upon a time in Mumbai, there used to be this inscrutable don who believed in doing maar dhaad  and keeping everything, including his emotions, under control. But he came  dobaara  — and this time, he had the entire  samunder ke baad ki  Mumbai quite under his control. With no territorial wars to fight, no  chhota bhais  to be dealt with and no police running after him, he is virtually out of a job. So vela that he can now indulge in matters of the heart. A don in love, is not worth even half in a fight, many would say. But scripting a  donwallah  love story here is Akshay Kumar and that’s what pretty much saves this rather slow and prolonged film by Millind Luthra. With no rumblings whatsoever in the underbelly, Akshay Kumar has spent time well to work on his don swagger and despite wearing oversized red shades, he sees e...

CHENNAI EXPRESS  Starring :  Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone Rated :  5.5/10 Never mind the gender benders, never mind all that Kathakali in Bharatnatyam land. Never mind the ferocious looking, unkempt, blacker than black Tamilian goondas. Never mind anything. Not Shah Rukh declaring he is 40 but acting 20, not Deepika sporting bear-thick eyebrows and twitching them up every once in a while with all the bokwas flying around her neat and clean. Never mind all that Tamil speaking without subtitles. Never mind! For, this is an action-packed romance where cars come flying at you  more than the expected heartbeats of Shah Rukh and Deepika. Here, romance is a spoof used as an afterthought to maar dhaad. It’s a strange mix really, something that never gets mixed up into becoming a heady concoction. There’s SRK, so there has to be romance. But there’s Rohit Shetty too, so there can’t be much of anything other than over-the-top action laced with some kind of humo...