The Intern, Turned out Pretty good!

Pic Source: IMDB

I have obviously loved this movie so much that I couldn’t wait to drive back home and start writing about it. This workplace comedy is a must watch, with a very strong script and excellent actors. The fact that Nancy Meyers also has scripted this movie was of no surprise; her direction has no gaps in the onscreen visual interpretation.  The casting of the movie couldn’t have been better, with Robert De Niro who is surely an actor par excellence and Anne Hathaway is indispensable too, although she had apparently replaced Reese Witherspoon, who was originally casted to play her role.

Robert De Niro must have this particular role close to his heart, with his own popular quote “You'll have time to rest when you're dead”; he plays the role of Ben Whittaker a widowed, retired 70yr old ex VP of a company who is looking to make his boring life more meaningful. Ben lands an internship at an e-commerce startup run by Jules Ostin(Anne Hathaway) under a senior internship program. The character of Jules is that of a perfectionist feminist CEO who is trying hard to run her company on one hand and keeping her family together on the other.

The story highlights the passion for work of the two central characters of the movie and beautifully showcases nuances of work cultures of two different generations. I must add here, there is a bit of the exaggeration though, depicting an overly glamorous startup setup (or maybe I am jealous, everyones' got a MAC, including interns), however, this bit is innocuous to the central theme of the movie. It is refreshing to a watch a movie that has no unnecessary infusion of romance, the relationship between Ben and Jules is that of two people who have similar values. Ben finds his purpose by helping Jules center/ balance her life and achieve her goals without sacrificing her passion.

The  comical plots of this movie are hilarious, especially the one where Ben and a group of interns housebreak in to Jules mom’s house to delete an email from her computer. The secondary characters of this movie are well characterized and give you many laughs and awws!.The funny feminist comments and dialogues of Jules took my heart away. I must mention, this movie wasn’t patriotic, or had an heroic ending, yet there was a huge applause from the audience as the movie ended. Truly well made! 

Welcome Back ! Nothing much has changed since

Pic Source:IMDB

You have been welcomed back to a classic slapstick comedy, but hey! I was a bit surprised by the script, it is almost the replica of the first, with an identical plot. I understand this was a sequel but it just feels like 2 versions of the same movie made with minor differences. The dialogues, one-liners and the comic timing of Anil Kapoor and Nana Patekar  makeup for the trite script to some extent.

Anil Kapoor, Nana Patekar & Paresh Rawal are ofcourse the only highlights. When all elements being the same, they aren’t any better or worse than before, except the noticeable weight loss of Paresh Rawal.  John Abraham fails to create the Akshay Kumar effect and Shruthi Hassan is the most dispensable, not just because she had to only dance a little bit and say a few lines. You can completely ignore the lead pair in this movie.  Dimple Kapadia has been wasted in the movie, a strong actress like her could have had perhaps a meatier/funnier role. I must compliment her dress designer though and I really wished she could have shared it with Shruthi Hasan. I wonder what went wrong with Shruthi Hassan, I understand a movie like this didn’t give her scope to act but she was really way off with her dresses, both garish and out-of- date.

Nasserudin Shah is the Villain in this sequel with idiosyncrasies injected in to his character (including physical) to get the audiences to laugh. The graveyard scene is the most comical and the only saving grace to this movie. The movie gives you a few laughs and well if that’s all you are looking to do, it’s not a bad idea to watch it

Katti Batti- the makeup-breakup delirium to avoid!

Pic Source: Wikipedia

What does katti batti mean? - My first reaction was with the name, I then figured it was the term I heard as a child which meant breaking up and making up respectively. So, well the story of this film is based on the katti batti between the lead characters, Payal (Kangana Ranaut) and Maddy/ Madhav (Imran) and when the reason of this Katti or Batti is revealed nothing makes sense. The movie starts as a romantic thriller/ suspense, moves on to be being a romantic comedy and ends as a heartbreaking love story. . I feel like I had a meal which had a real mixed up menu – the starter, main course and desert didn’t really blend with each other. Had they perhaps been treated individually or maybe max two genres’ at one time it could have made an impact.

The story is about a couple who is in a live-in relationship, primarily because the female protagonist, Payal, who is bohemian and completely non- traditional.   The movie starts with Maddy’s delirium over why is girlfriend had left him and is almost completely unapproachable and non-traceable. As Maddy is in the process on unveiling her whereabouts and bringing her back in to his life, the director has made interesting switches to flashbacks to confuse the motive of the breakup in the mind of the audience. The hero does find the heroine, however only to perhaps lose her again. 

Both Kangana and Imran, have played similar characters before so nothing exceptional there. The highlight for me was shankar ehsaan loy’s beautiful background score. I could have given this movie a pass, it didn’t really strike a chord with me both emotionally and logically.