The New York Experience
It was like a normal day for an I.T. guy chaos, pressure and unhappy ever demanding Management, friend of mine whom I had mentioned about New York, although he is not a film freak (as he addresses me) like me but he has developed a good taste of movie, what will happen when you make them aware with classics like Junoon, Naram Garam, Garam Hawa, lekin, Ijaazat, ek doctor ki maut and ek ruka hua faisla, Satya, Gulaal , Black Friday, and many of my foreign movie collections.
For me I religiously watch at least one unwatched foreign movie in a week which is the bare minimum count normally its more then that. So coming back to my friend I had told him about Kabir khan, his debut feature – Kabul Express- and his forthcoming venture (New York) which I was looking forward to. It being a new release even he was quite charged up and at 2 pm today (Doha Local Time) he said there’s GCC release of this movie today till then I was not aware that the official release in Mumbai (india) is tomorrow so it didn’t count much to me anyways we rushed for the film as our office hours is still 2:30 pm, so we started moving by 2:10 Pm managed to get the parking and reached a Dark cinema hall and there was cop and car chase scene that was showing on the screen as my friend went a head he saw the frame and took it for a English movie and told me this is wrong screen we are in but I was sure we were at the right hall and the movie was based in US so you are bound to see some FBI or American characters so I thought we will stand by the doors to see either Nitin John or Katrina, 2 minutes no sign so went out confirmed it was thee right screen and we see Nitin Mukesh Grilled in Hollywood kind investigation room with Irfan Khan and then flash back of three friends …college scenes …which in turn reminds you so many movies i.e. Main hoona, kuch kuch hotha hai etc etc ..
And you realize this is nothing but a regular highly clichéd stuff from the chopra camp… Kabul express thak bach gaya but kab thak bachega Kabir khan, so you have all the known clichés without disclosing much about the movie for me personally there is noting new about the movie.. The most critical and key part of the screen play is not convincing and others are highly predictable. Photography is good there is some direct lifts of scenes from movies like CRASH and The Air I Breath. coming to performances Nitin Mukesh carries his role with Panache and required emotions’ and antiques excellent performance John for change also plays his part well, but nothing new about his performance his character and performance reminded me of ZINDA, ,, and also there is scene which might remind of Sanjay Guptas AAtish where Aditya Pancholi ( Nawab the character ) is devouring his meal on a piece of paper which was done pretty well, so over all it’s a film with all the required masala specially appealing for NRI market. Irfan does not need a mention his performance is just a passé, and for Katrina apart from her accent nothing is convincing about her performance.
Tags: john abraham, Kabir Khan, kabul express, katrina kaif, neil nitin mukesh, New York
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
I’m as dissatisfied by your post, as you were with the movie!
the quality of PFC posts are going down drastically. this one here is not readable even. I love this place. but seriously, some quality control measures, yaar.
Thanks Tanul! i promise you, once you watch the movie u will be more dissatisfied than my post.
Gopi- i know the kinda language, or form that i used is not as polished as you expected! reason?? well i am not a professional writer for starters and as this is just an individuals opinion about his watching a movie, so i never intended to chalk it out nicely make multiple drafts and make it more appealing, i just sat down and wrote whatever i felt that’s it. so YAAAR chill!if you cant comprehend even such a badly written post how you gonna understand better post YAAAR!! well quality is not only in writing but also in reading,understanding, and so on….
The movie was excellent. PERIOD.
Seems like the editors @ PFC have gone on a strike after the Hindi film distributors and multiplex owners’ strike.
well done nosinz.i appreciate your observation.i agree with your views.gopi please do not discourage people from expressing there thoughts.
Taran Adharsh is totally swept off his feet by this movie. Rediff has bashed this movie badly. You are bashing it too. So For and Against count is 1:2 right now. I am counting and will decide to watch the movie based ont hat. Thankyou. More guys keep posting pls.
the movie is totally awesome… but i think PFC editors will now pass on anything that is anti Yashraj/anti big budget movies.
@ the author : go and wash your face
I didnt get the review at all. what are you trying to say or what are you trying not to say? taran adarsh has gone gaga over the movie, so in my book – it probably sux. gada hain saala wo. and rediff trashed the movie.. and with each website has its own damn opinion. I’d definitely stay away from this one – coming from a yashraj banner, it would have to be much more than a few reviews to get me into the hall and spend $ 10.00.
I’ll hang on until ’sankat city” comes by, thats one movie..i want to watch.
Thanks MAALKAMAL! I am Glad you got my point and have agreed to my opinion.And I also admit that this is not a professional review any case it is just my personal opinion!!
@Nosinz,
Great to hear your opinion and it is as important as anyone else’s. Do not take the criticism to heart, but see how you can improve. I must admit, the people who criticized you seem more like rediff commenters since they didn’t give any constructive feedback.
A few simple points: The first paragraph is one huge sentence with multiple clauses and qualifiers. That doesn’t make for easy reading. Try to complete your sentences instead of just leaving them midair with “…”. Writing a draft and reviewing it once yourself is service you do to your readers and it will help avoid simple errors like multiple commas, spelling mistakes, incorrect caps(small caps and large caps) usage.
Anyways, the movie seems have garnered mixed reviews. I guess I’ll wait and read a few more reviews before making a call on whether to see it or not.
More For and against count : NDTV, TOI and some other guy on net reviews to be great movie.
For / Against : 4:3
@Vindows,
Thanks, and I really appreciate your +ve feedback and encouragement. And for my future writing I Would definitely keep in mind all the points/nuances you have mentioned.
When a hardcore commercial flick gets a standing ovation and a huge round of applause at the end of the show, you know that there is something definitely right that the director has done. In this regard, Kabir Khan can take a bow because he has done exceedingly well in making a film that is not frivolous, has a message and still carries enough commercial ingredients to reach out to masses as well as classes…MUST WATCH (****)
-IANS review
obviously it requires some brain to understand a brilliant movie :P
(the movie is totally awesome… but i think PFC editors will now pass on anything that is anti Yashraj/anti big budget movies.
@ the author : go and wash your face
obviously it requires some brain to understand a brilliant movie)
Dear Southern Wind,
Why are you so frustrated. To each his own! if you liked the movie that’s absolutely fine with me. I think you missed the point in my post and if there is something else that you missed then try some fresh cranberry juice!
nosinz:
I would seriously love seeing you improve your writing. You can start with starting to use this thing called a ‘period’.
worse than RNBDJ.
I found the movie average. It wasn’t overlly impressive, a little long, cringe worthy dilogues at times but overall not that bad.
Well nosinz ..since you already bragged about your so called expertise on movies we are going to sound quite amateurish …but anyhow ..from a lay womans perspective it seemed a decent movie tho the end ws long and cliched ..too moralistic actually .but i thought some scenes were reasonably good …. john abraham is as bland as he always wasbut nitin mukesh does a decent job …tho katrina does manage to atleast act …esp in the scene where she watches john outside the window …i think i saw enough pathos there toh a better actresss could hv def conveyed the emotion better ….the last movie i saw was rab ne bana … and seriously this was a treat compared to tht ..so not great but not so bad either
After 8 years of 9/11 our mainstream bollywood has been awakened from its cocoon sized world.Congrats to YRC…and kudos to Kabir Khan for bringing movie like Kabul express and Newyork.
I have seen this movie yesterday only and find it delicately balanced between entertainment and awareness. No great bashing with clumsy dialouge to USA & Jehadist in this movie make it good watch. this film creates an awareness of many things, specially for those who do not know how the police treat terrorist suspects and the permanent psychological damage it can have on people. It reminded me of a good pakistani movie ‘khuda ke liye‘ of similar subject.
For those who want to know about condition of illegal detainess ,watch multiple prize winner documentary ‘The Road to Guantanamo’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Guantanamo
For more scrutiny of movie, few scenes were copied from other movies. Like opening race scene was taken from Oscar winner movie, ‘Chariots of Fire’ and police seacrh of Katrina from ‘Crash’.
In the end, a fine coming to reality type film from our bollywood…Kabir Khan pushing YRC camp forward and Aditya Chopra in opposite direction. Pretty lame on story standard but good scenes captured with camera.
I do not about writing, but it could have been more detailed, yous Said Irfan Khan was passe, i mean he was the star of the movie, followed be Neil.
I felt John was a bit of miscast, Katrina was a letdown.The first half was good, but the second half was dragging, the torture scenes were informative but could not bring lump or sympathy for john.
Newyork was a decent attempt i would say. The film was revealing in some scenes n cliched in most of them. The story was predictable and i could see the climax coming. The most absurd part of the story was kathrina telling neil the reason of her silence about jhon. What crap, I wish kabir khan could have done better (not sayin it all for those who are yet to watch the movie). The dialogues in the climax scene were also lame n sissy.
Now performances. If rated in a increasing order then i would say Katrina<john<neil. Apart from this there was a this guy(firaaq) who commits suicide was far more convincing than john and neil put together.As for irfan i don't have to say it but still he was fantabulous. But the cop in The Mighty Heart was more realistic n less stylish.
Overall it was a very nice attempt by kabir khan
I loved the cinematography, direction and missed a little bit on the script and screenplay part.
Watch it for certain things u should know about suspects and detained asians in US post 9/11.
Better than khuda ke liye in terms of performances.
cheers.
P.S: But watch T4 first.
Its a decent movie with heart in the right place. But since the movie comes from YRF I would rate it little higher as such movies can pave way for offbeat stories. My only grouse is that because of commercialization the whole intent of showing the plight of suspects is lost. But it looks like formulaic way of storytelling can be the only way to bring in moolah for the producer. Its similar to TZP except that TZP had way good story and bridging the commercialization aspect was much better and the actors did their roles far better.