dotmanish Reviews

Things to Do Before You're 30 (2005)

Okay to while away time. Could be avoided.

[6/10 · 14 February 2007]

There's one complaint I've against this movie - it didn't do justice to a whole load of potential stories that could be developed. The story of a man who's stretched between his love for playing football (the 500th match) and his love for his wife. The story of a man whose crush became his step-mother.

The one good thing in this movie is the chemistry between Cass, Kate, and Adam. There's this bond between Kate and Adam that has been played perfectly in the movie, and they have not gone overboard with it.

Overall, nothing great about the movie, though you may smile at the little hilarious scenes here and there. If you could avoid it, you wouldn't miss a thing.

Broken Arrow (1996)

Action, too much of it, SLOWly. Arrrggghhh...

[6/10 · 11 February 2007]

Arrrggghhh...here are my first impressions of the movie:

1. Action-packed - yes. But too much of it. 2. Slow pace - too much footage to show little real script progress. 3. Doesn't look real at all. OK, I know it's a movie. It's fiction. But hey, too many coincides and Good Luck on part of the military officer and park ranger. 4. Stretched out sequences. Seriously, the train sequence could have been shrunk to 7 minutes and nobody would've shed a tear. But hey, they stretched out the sequence to such a long one that it becomes boring.

You can avoid the movie and you won't miss a thing. I guess I had set my expectations too high from this John Woo movie.

The Clearing (2004)

Expected much more from this movie. Disappointed.

[5/10 · 10 February 2007]

This could have been a brilliant movie, if the storyline was well-executed. I expected it to be a slower-than-usual movie, albeit one which would show many shades of the character Arnold (played by Dafoe). The other characters didn't get anything to do in this movie (I blame it on whoever wrote the screenplay, and the one who directed it). Dafoe's character could have been made more complex (which he really was, but the movie failed to show that) to make the movie more interesting.

Of course, as one of the comments in the boards mentioned, it's a movie which they tried to make complex so that users could feel intelligent when watching it. I think they failed miserably at even trying to make it complex, leave alone anything else. Dafoe's talent was way underutilized in this movie.

Ankahee (2006)

Yawn for the first half, Predictable in the second

[6/10 · 27 May 2006]

Yes, the title stands true. I watched this movie with friends. One of them watched till half-time, and went back to catch up on sleep. The rest of us stayed on. It was painfully slow from around 15%th to the 50%th point. Long dialogue sequences. Overacting. And the most annoying thing -- Aftab's inability to converse (especially arguments) without moving this hands in air as in sword-fighting. If he had a sword in his hands, he'd have cut both Ameesha Patel and Esha into million pieces each.

The second half was a respite. Story picked up pace. But now it went into the well-beaten track of Bollywood (won't reveal that in the review, but it's obvious from film's theme). Very much predictable.

Positives: 1. Ameesha Patel looked nice. 2. The movie starts off with an old-age Aftab lying in bed. The portrayal is funny. All us friends went into a laughter spree.

Negatives: 1. Oft-repeated theme. Too predictable. 2. Aftab's lack of dialogue-delivery abilities. 3. Esha looked horrible in most parts of the movie.

Tum Bin...: Love Will Find a Way (2001)

Nice to watch. This movie stood out amidst a rush of masala movies...

[8/10 · 19 May 2006]

This movie is nice to watch. In 2001, when there was a truckload of masala / baseless movies coming out in Hindi cinema, this movie stood out.

You won't find sensitive or masterful expressions on the faces of the actors in this movie, mainly because it was a debut movie for all the leads. However, the story keeps you interested. It's a no-nonsense storyline, with some obvious tricks of trade from Bollywood, but what really captivates you is the honest-guy thinking cap that Shekhar (Priyanshu's character in the movie) wears. There are no super-hero scenes, nor any item numbers - which make it a pleasant movie to watch.

The music is a delight to listen to.

Definitely recommended.

Thoughtcrimes (2003 TV Movie)

Recommended.

[8/10 · 13 May 2006]

Recommended.

The movie has a strange start; the kind I don't get to watch in a lot of other movies. It's blunt, straight to-the-point to what happened, and where the story is going to take off from. I recall watching the same kind in a recent Hindi movie called 'Zinda' (that had a completely different story and theme, by the way).

Also noted by another viewer, one of the aspects that make this movie different is that within the first 15 minutes of the movie, you know that the central character isn't going to discover her strengths on her own; but she needs assistance. Had they not done that, it would have become yet another 'gifted' story. Overall, I liked the movie, and had a good feeling after watching it. There are many loose ends in the story that have been left unexplored, but hey, nobody's complaining.

Navi Rawat has looked great in the movie, by the way.