Ek- The Power of One- Totally drives you powerless
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Looks like somebody has come forward to bail out K Sera Sera, the well known production company and thus one gets to suddenly see a flood of movies from their stable getting a release in the last 2 months which were otherwise lying in the cans. So after Chal Chala Chal & Kisse Pyar Karoon which released last month, this week saw the release of Ek- The Power of One. A straight remake of the Telugu blockbuster Athadu, it’s a typical masala movie, one which reminds you of the masala entertainers of the 70’s & the 80’s but then that’s also the problem with the movie. You just don’t feel connected to the movie at all.
The movie begins with Nandu (Bobby Deol) and Shekhar (Pradeep Kharab) who join Jackie Shroff’s gang at a very young age. During a particular assignment Jackie Shroff is captured by the police & so Nandu and Shekhar branch off on their own. Years later they’ve grown up to be sharp shooters. Anna Saheb Mhatre ( Sachin Khedekar) is the leader of opposition who wants to be the CM & so he hatches a plan to get himself shot at an election meeting to win public sympathy. Nandu is assigned the task. But before Nandu gets to shoot Anna, somebody else shoots & Anna dies. Now the police is behind him and thus Nandu is on the run.
On a train to Punjab, Nandu meets Pooran who is on his way home after 18 years. When the police who are following Nandu fire at him, Pooran gets killed instead accidentally. Thus Nandu ends up in a village in Hoshiarpur and takes refuge in Pooran’s large Punjabi family. Nandu is mistaken as Pooran by the family and is whole heartedly welcomed. The family consists of a grandfather (Kulbushan Kharbhanda), the eldest bua (Zarina Wahab), his childhood sweetheart (Shriya Saran) etc. The case of Anna Mhatre’s murder is entrusted to a CBI officer (Nana Patekar playing to the gallery) and he ends up landing at Hoshiarpur and meeting Nandu for the investigation.
So does Nandu manage to get away from trouble? Does the family get to know the truth? Who had shot Anna Mhatre? The rest of the film tries to answer all these questions. Athadu was a very slickly made desi version of The Assassins and was quite successful at the box office. In comparison though, Ek comes across as a very pale copy. While in Athadu Mahesh Babu as Nandu conveyed a lot through his eyes, Bobby Deol is wooden throughout. Nana Patekar in an attempt to bring in comic relief is quite irritating. The emotions hardly work and the romance is almost non existent. Shriya Saran does not get any scope. While in Athadu the climax was brilliantly shot (quite similar to The Assassins) here it is at best average. All said and done the movie is a yawn fest- watch it at your own risk.
Tags: bobby deol, Mahesh Babu, nana patekar, Shriya Saran
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Sangeeth Sivan has done the impossible, for the first time, i hated Nana Patekar on screen. And this from a hard core fan, who has watched Tirangaa and Krantiveer umpteen times, for the first time. As for rest of movie, Rubbish, does not even deserve a post.
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it’s been a long time since Nana has done something significant…I think after AT 56 & Apaharan he has gone into hibernation…
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salman’s tumko na bhool payenge had similar story though it had added drama of memory loss
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Chal Chala Chal? Kisse Pyar Karoon? Ek? Was K Sera Sera on a mission to make the most outdated, cliched, crappiest films of the new millenium?
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Sethumadhavan, I think your review presents this film in a more dignified way that it deserves, judging purely by the story. It took less than 5 minutes to read and yet I cringed 10 times. Mistaken identity, fuck again? Man make an effort to come up with SOMETHING at least!
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@ Kathi Mahesh Kumar- yes Athadu worked majorly due to Mahesh Babu.But I felt Prakash Raj & Sonu Sood were also good in it.
@ Ratnakar- yes Nana was unbearable
@ Jitaditya- you are right about Nana.I dont have any expectations from his unreleased Horn ok please either.
@ Aman- yes the similarity between Tumko Na Bhool Payenge and Ek is very strong due to the friend turning foe angle.But I think it had a strong influence of The Bourne Identity in addition to The Assasins
@ Tony Mera Naam- yes the movie makes one really cringe.I dunno why people continue to make such movies.And yes K Sera Sera seems to be in a spot of bother.They have some good projects in the pipeline but again some of them seem to be on hold & may need a bail out.
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Nana has given a good performance in Bharati Raja’s Bommalattom recently..Even though it was touted as a multilingual movie,I don’t think Hindi version has come out..
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Bobby Deol cant act. K Sera Sera’s bad days started after good-bye with RGV. Nana was fooled by the original. Whose the director of this cult?
@jitaditya – Nana with Prakash Jha is worth a watch. Lets wait for ‘Rajneeti’ – coming in the year end.
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@ Sharath- yes Nana was good in Bommalattam.I dont think the Hindi version will will see a release anytime soon.The Tamil & Telugu versions also haven’t really done too well at the box office.
@ Sridhar Mayur- Oops! the movie was so bad I forgot to actually even write about the technical crew of the movie.Its directed by Sangeeth Sivan & music is by Pritam.
Actually seeing Nana in this I felt his role in Welcome was award worthy
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@Sridhar – As if RGV has been churning master pieces – LOL. But seriously this movie did not have any decent promotion also.
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DK- will not comment on RGV here.But your point about the promotion of Ek is quite right.Actually the movie was lying in the cans & suddenly it looks like someone came forward to bail out.Thats why the promotion was bad.But even otherwise nothing much would have happened.With lacklustre songs & hardly any great moments what would they have promoted?
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@DK – K Sera Sera and RGV made money out of Sarkar, so the combo worked for both. RGV might not have churned master pieces but got some money out of SR and Phoonk. So, look who was the loser. RGV has now combined with UTV(excellent producers) and Madhu Mantena(producer of Ghajini) for his next too films. One of them could be a hit and these films would not be as mediocre as the films K Sera Sera has been producing, quality wise.
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@ Sridhar- apart from RGV’s movies K Sera Sera also had 2 solid hits- Golmaal ( 2006 ) & Partner.
But now they look to be in trouble & have either been bailed out or expecting bail out.
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Tumko Na Bhool Payenge is a rip off of “A Long Kiss Goodnight” with Sallu playing Geena Davis’s role.
regarding “Ek..” i suggest you guys opt to watch a subtitled DVD of “Athadu”.
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Bobby Deol is the luckiest man in the world.Even after giving zillions of flop films and the whole world knows he cannot act,he still keeps on getting lead roles.There are so many talented actors out there waiting for just one lead role to prove their worth.
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Andy- Tumko Na Bhool Payenge has elements of A Long Kiss Goodnight & The Bourne Identity ( the memory loss part) and The Assasins ( friend turning traitor).
Anindya- yes you are right, Bobby Deol continues to get so many projects.In fact quite a few others like Fardeen Khan,Zayed Khan,Dino Morea etc also fall in the same category
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@sethu – “A Long Kiss Goodnight” is the story of a CIA agent betrayed by her colleague, suffering memory loss, living an uneventful life as another person until she realises that she possesses certain “skills” and decides to dig into her past to unravel the truth.
ditto TNBP.
thats why i feel TNBP is more a copy of “ALKG” than “Bourne Identity” though there are elements of both the films in it.
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Yeah thats why movie’s Ek Minute trailor was enough for me to skip the movie
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