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Shivam, a not-so-young System Architect finishes his studies in States and comes home to humble India replete with poverty and scope for development. He bumps into a geek boy who has just hacked the National Intelligence Database by accident. And geek boy just recently happened to fall head over heels in love with the gaaon ki gori, Parminder. Parminder loves to dance to ‘Jine mera Dil Lootya‘ when Bauji is not watching. Bauji still can’t get over his lost One Rupee Coin absconding since Indian independence. Meanwhile, somewhere in the suburbian terrain, geek boy’s alter ego, Shanmugham is planning a terror attack on HongKong, not to mention an unscheduled national power outage. Maggie Q, Shanmugham’s obscure object of desire, loves to give sermons to atheists when she is not busy with dream sequence extravaganzas, a la West Side Story meets Oriental School of Dance & Philosophy.

Shivam eats his humble software pie with hot Java beans and challenges Luca Gracia(who is confused if his last name is Gracia or Garcia) for the World Heavyweight Championship, a one-of-a-kind boxing event where feather weights compete for Heavy Weight Championship Belts.

In the meanwhile, Bauji bumps into his Eminemish punk daughter, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, who denies falling for Chandu, the friendly neighbourhood rock star-cum- boxer-comes-handy-during-a-cricket-match.

OK, now for the reviews….

Apne
Not bad. Very old school in terms of lame stereotypes. But Dharmendra makes it worth a watch. This is one film where he gets to do his thing after long; you get to see the actor not the star. You see him in wrinkled clothes, in bad shape, in sweat, despair and natural reaction. Someone said it right that this film wisely captures the three Deols in their current phases, and that fact comes across right across the film, even while the film veers onto mediocre side-tracks. Some of the positive aspects of the otherwise not-so-memorable film are: underplaying Sunny’s done to death He-Man, harping on the intricacies of a ‘celebrity’ family(something not commonly seen in films of this genre), underplaying the seeti-worthy lines and sequences and sticking to the not-so-crowd friendly treatment, a reliable title track(the version shot during Dharmendra’s leaving for the US and Sunny on the terrace captures the poignancy just right and leaves a lump in your throat), and not to mention the solid character development and screen time given to them. There are the occasional formula elements present that could annoy someone expecting this one to be a different venture, but the film, like Namaste London, manages to hit a home run with transporting the Punjab ethnicity onto the screen with an innocent fervor.

Shivaji
I finally got to see this film, which is more of an event now. I could sum it all up in only one phrase- a saturation of images. Shankar seems to have lost it. Apart from Rajni’s ever-effervescent and electric screen presence and grandiose action and dance sequences, the film is badly rehashed and replayed Shankar. Same old corruption backdrops, ’save-the-world’ protagonist, US returned revolutionary reformatory approach, and same old high on self-indulgence approach to mint money through pro-popculture narrative. Having said that, the film is a must see for its singularity of courage. The confidence and aplomb with which the film-maker exploits a ’star’ on to celluloid is what makes Shivaji a roaring success with the masses.

Once you drop your logic with the defeaning applause and cheering, it is fun. I wouldn’t be the right person to comment on the film, as I hardly understood any word except the omnipresent ‘cool’, but it becomes an all the more interesting experience for me, observing the mass hysteria around, trying to laugh at the right moments, and cracking the references. I particularly recall the Matrixesque sequences, the brilliantly picturised Style, Athiradee, Ballaiakka & Title song, the quintessential unadultered Rajni fun.

Awaarapan
Awarapan should be seen for a crash couse in “How to screw up a good plot“. A creative demise of the Bhatt enterprise, it does little to give any genetic ingenuity to the ironical name of the production house. The film begins with the typical ‘lonely man’ premise, and is fairly well established with long shots and poised frames. The music complements the mood well. I do not know about the original film from where it’s lifted, but still was pretty satisfied with the adaptation as per the mainstream flavor. Emraan Hashmi was tolerable, quite an achievement that. All the good things in place, it’s a sad thing to see the film going from fairly average to bad to mediocre to forgettable. The second half massacres the initially ignited hope by done-to-death smacks of the Bhatt repertoire- annoyingly sleazy lines, self-confessed evil protagonists revelling in the lack of shaving cream and sense of humor. A special mention goes to the wondrous unprecedented metaphor - Omnipresent Pigeons, that redefine symbolic interpretation of ‘liberation’ in noire cinema.

Die Hard 4.0
Willis kicks cyber-ass.