"Aa Dekhen Zara" Movie Review

Aa Dekhen Zara:

Cast:
Neil Nitin Mukesh,
Bipasha Basu,
Rahul Dev,
Bobby Vats

Director: Jehangir Surti

“Can you dance?” asks a Thai crook to Simi (Bipasha Basu) as he provides shelter to Ray (Neil Mukesh) and her from the cops and a killer. She nods and we have a song which has no purpose in the film apart from showing how good the two protagonists are at dance! Of course, there is another side effect. It kills the pace of the movie right when it is at the maximum. To add to this, the film loses on thrill towards the end of the journey. Yet, Aa Dekhen Zara has a very interesting premise for a story.

The film, directed by first-time director Jehangir Surti, starts out well. Out-of-work photographer Ray inherits a camera from his grandfather which predicts the future through photographs. Well, we know it sounds quite silly to have such cameras in the first place, but then, why doubt the power of science. After all, we believed in Matrix, didn’t we? Soon Ray earns enough money to buy his girlfriend expensive wine and a bungalow for himself. But then, he gets noticed too - both by Indian intelligence and a gangster. And now he has three enemies to run away from - the crook, a dishonest intelligence officer and his own impending death. What’s interesting is that the hero, for a change, is terrible at kicking butts. He can’t match up to the villain if it’s a fist fight. Good departure from old days, now we have more human protagonists, who are both grey in character and weak in strength.

The first half sees the story build up with good pace. A stylish editing helps. But the second half slacks because of scripting issues. The cinematography is consistent. Music – both background and playback - is quite a highlight and peps up the mood. Dialogues could have been better if not memorable. Neil Nitin Mukesh yet again comes up with a winning performance. He is especially good with scenes when he does the ‘scared look’. Agreed you don’t get a Johnny Gaddaar everyday in your career, nevertheless, he makes good of this opportunity too. Bipasha looks awesome throughout and does well too. Rahul Dev deserves praise for underplaying his character so well and staying away from typical, exaggerated villains. Sophie Chaudhary, however, is a huge weak link.

Overall, Aa Dekhen Zara is a masala entertainer despite its scientific background. Director Jehangir Surti does well in directing a film which needs to be shot completely backwards because of the photographs which are supposed to reveal the future.

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"8x10 Tasveer" Movie Review

8x10 Tasveer:

Cast:
Akshay Kumar,
Ayesha Takia,
Javed Jaafery,
Sharmila Tagore,
Girish Karnad,
Anant Mahadevan,
Benjamin Gilani

Director: Nagesh Kukunoor

Music: Salim-Sulaiman, Bohemia

"8x10 Tasveer" Movie Review:

Indian directors would make something like that. Well, Nagesh Kukunoor just did that! 8X10 Tasveer is what you wished for. But then, that could also be the weak link of the movie.

To start with, this is a story of Jai Puri (Akshay Kumar) who works for wildlife conservation and wants to stay away from his dad’s capitalist business. He is gifted with a psychic ability to look into the past of a person’s life through any photograph of that person. However, there is a catch – doing that endangers his own life. Jai’s father dies of heart attack and he suspects foul play. Hence, he undertakes a journey to find out how his father was killed. To his help he has a photograph, which was taken minutes before his father’s death, and he has a private detective Happi (Javed Jaafery).

Nagesh weaves in chilling suspense into the circumstances with a great screenplay. He is helped by good background music and excellent cinematography. The dialogues are just about human and very day to day, making the film real even during unreal situations. He also uses special effects well in the narration.

There is a problem though. No convincing explanation is given as to why the murderer kills so many people. There is some background shown, but that does not seem ground enough to kill people.

The film completely belongs to Akshay Kumar. He delivers something unseen from him before. When the actor had told in a recent interview that Nagesh didn’t allow him to do what he usually does, we should have got the hint. 8X10 Tasveer is a rare occasion when Akshay underplays his character. And while you think Ayesha Takia would have nothing to do, she delivers a punch too with a solid role. The scene stealer here is, however, Javed Jaafery who perfects his Hyderabadi accent and OCD to clean anything on sight. The rest of the cast fall in well.

Overall, 8X10 Tasveer is simple, subtle, smart and sleek. Nagesh Kukunoor does well in restricting any kind of melodrama that usually creeps into regular Indian movies. The movie easily shows his capability to handle the genre after handling emotional dramas well in his previous movies. But as pointed out in the very first paragraph, this could very well be the pitfall of the movie. Extremely non-Bollywood treatment may alienate this film from the masses. But people who are exposed to Hollywood at a greater level will lap this as one good suspense thriller.

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