Hindi Movie Reviews

Preeti Sengupta (Tanushree Dutta) is an airhostess living in with her boyfriend Karan Malhotra (Rohit Roy). They share a nice 2BHK apartment in the northern suburbs of Mumbai and are befriended by their elderly neighbor Madhusudan Tanha (Anupam Kher), a struggling poet and lyricist. Tanha is a loner living with his only companion, a Persian cat whom he lovingly calls Shehzadi. Preeti is possessive and has issues with trust. When she mistakenly suspects her boyfriend to be unfaithful, she throws him out of the house but soon realizes she can’t afford the payment on the apartment on her own. On the advice of a fellow airhostess, she advertises for a tenant to share her apartment. Enter Neha Bhardwaj (Neetu Chandra), a modest small town girl asking for accommodation. Very impressed by her simplicity and respectfulness, Preeti believes she has found a perfect roommate. The two girls soon become close their camaraderie leads them to even become companions. Until things begin to go disastrously wrong slowly and steadily. Preeti's seemingly normal life is thrown off gear with a series of incidents that take her by surprise. Is it just co incidence or is someone deliberately causing all the trouble? Is Neha really as simple as she seems? In the grip of mystery, unforeseen and gruesome events and murder at its heinous best, the truth seems shocking as it unfolds. As Neha and Preeti are torn apart by suspicion, deceit and betrayal, the question is will the romance between Karan and Preeti survive or…

Hummy, a Mumbai bird enters a reality show called Bird Idol and becomes a rock star with his band and his brand of music which is so different from bird tweet. Unlike the rest of his feathered friends, Hummy prefers to sing human pop music. But fame is the beginning of his problems, as his parents' past creeps up in the form of the evil vulture Dhamki, thirsting for revenge...

Today, there is hardly anyone who hasn't visited the swanky shopping malls, nightclubs, lounge bars, clubs and other such lifestyle destinations that sprung up across the centre of Mumbai. However, very few know that buried deep below these glittering edifices to consumerism lies the dark, dirty and painful reality of many thousands of mill workers who once worked the cotton mills in this very same area.

Rising and toiling to the wail of the mill sirens each and every day, seven days a week, these workers embodied the true unbridled zeal and unflagging spirit of the city and played a pivotal role in the evolution of Mumbai as the modern day business capital of India. And then it suddenly was as if they never existed. Following the mill workers strike in the mid 80s, these mills began closing down rapidly and the mill workers mysteriously disappeared. What happened to them, and where they went is one of the most shameful secrets that the city of Mumbai will have to bear for generations, one that until now has always been spoken about in hushed whispers.

City of Gold the story of these long forgotten masses not only explores the apathy of these mill workers narrated through the story of one such family, but is also a take no prisoners account of the birth of the true underbelly of organized crime in Mumbai. The film traces the birth of the politics of greed in Mumbai and exposes the unholy collusion between the triumvirate of big business, the political establishment and the trade union leaders who ostensibly were charged with protecting the rights of the mill workers.

In the two decades that followed, the entire landscape of Central Mumbai was changed forever. Land became the currency of growth, and this began the systematic extinction of mills in Mumbai. In a matter of just a few years, hundreds of thousands of workers lost their means of livelihood. Having worked in these mills from generation to generation, this was the only vocation that they knew. Many left Mumbai and went back to their ancestral homes, some others chose to stay back and fight what they soon realised was a losing battle, some took the extreme step of ending their miserable lives, and still some others took to a world of crime.

Truth… as is said, is stranger than fiction. But the truth that the film uncovers is not just stranger but darker and dirtier than any mind has ever imagined. Produced by DAR Motion Pictures and from the Director of dark and realistic films like Vaastav Mr Mahesh Manjrekar, 'City of Gold' takes another trip down memory lane.... just that this time around the result is a much more heart wrenching, soul stirring and shocking film about human avarice and apathy. The film doesn't provide any direct solutions. Yet it shatters many a myth and raises many a question which only the passage of time will provide answers to..........

Teaching is a noble profession. But does it hold true today? Hasn’t education succumbed to modernization as everything else, which is ruled by commercialization and consumerism in this age of rat-race? We read in the newspapers about students being bogged down under study pressures, parents burdened with fees hikes, teachers punishing students inhumanly, some students even dying in such cases or some committing suicides… what state of affairs have we brought our education system to?

Paathshala tries to answer many such questions related to the sanctity of today’s education system. It sheds light on the shortcomings and wrong doings in today’s schools where the high morals and basic ethics associated with the teaching profession seem to have taken a back seat. It’s shameful that even schooling has fallen prey to the pressures of competition and the vices of money-making mantra. Paathshala attempts to challenge such notions that threaten our children’s future and thus our society.

The story begins with a new English Teacher Rahul Prakash Udyavar( Shahid Kapoor) joining Swaraswati Vidya Mandir school, situated in the outskirts of Mumbai Suburbs. Though he strikes instant rapport with students and teachers alike, he realizes that there is something amiss in the school. Slowly his doubts prove true as the School Manager- Sharma (Saurbh Shukla) makes many monetary obligations compulsory on the parents in the name of extracurricular activities. He goes to the extent of punishing the students inhumanly when the new unjustified demands of the school are not fulfilled by the parents.

When Rahul Udyawar unifies the teachers (Ayesha Takia, Sushant Singh, Kurush Deboo) against the atrocities of school management, the Principal Aditya Sahay (Nana Patekar) defends the management decision. This comes as a shocker to the teachers as Mr. Sahay is known for his dedication as an educationist for last 32 years which has built the school’s high reputation.

The situation becomes graver as school management becomes overambitious with its growth and involves media planners in the extracurricular activities. This demands the involvement of students in TV reality shows and many other media PR activities used for building up the school image in public which starts reflecting on the students’ stress levels. The pressure on young minds increases incredibly leading to unexpected and grim consequences.
Caught in the web of commercialization and internal rebellion, the school’s situation becomes so explosive that it finally becomes a national issue.

Paathshala challenges the increasing immoralities and unethical practices in our education system. It analyses intricately the relationship between students, teachers and the education system with sensitivity and sensibility… It reflects the true spirit of an education system.
PAATHSHALA - An Urgent and Desperate eye-opening Mission for our Education System today.

Phoonk 1 ends with the killing of Madhu, the woman who casts a black magic spell on Rajiv’s daughter Raksha. Phoonk 2 begins with Madhu’s ghost returning from the grave to seek revenge on the family. On bagging a new construction project, Rajiv moves with his family to a new place. Raksha and Rohan begin exploring the new place and the surroundings- the lonely beach and then the woods behind the house. The terror begins with Raksha and Rohan finding a doll in the woods and then it progresses to a series of highly traumatising experiences for the whole family.

Manja, the only man whom Rajiv could turn to, meets a gruesome death at the hands of the black magic woman Madhu’s ghost, who has risen from the grave to avenge her own death... to seek vengeance on Rajiv, by torturing his loved ones- his wife Arati and their children, Raksha and Rohan in unimaginably cruel ways. Phoonk 2 captures the fear of a family caught hostage to a murderous, animalistic spirit seeking revenge by brutally terrorizing them. We experience a fear far larger than that of a live evil than when the dead returns to haunt you. It is the fear where every escape route of yours becomes dangerously anticipated and cunningly laid out in front of you. It is the fear that extends to letting go of one loved one to save another. Where every situation takes a sinister turn for the worse, methodically murdering everyone’s hope to live.

Terrorized by the demonic force, will Rajiv give in to the ghost or will he betray his family and give up? Will the family survive as the gruesome and repulsing murders are committed, or do the disfigured bodies, visions, ghostly voices, and unsettling, disturbing incidents drive them to death? Will the ghost live with them till they become ghosts themselves? The choice that Rajiv has to make in the final moments of the film forms a very unsettling and a highly disturbing climax.