Language: Hindi
Year: 2000
Actors: Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Paresh Rawal, Tabu, Om Puri, Kulbushan Kharbanda, Asrani
Director: Priyadarsan
Producer: A.G.Nadiadwala
Story: Anand Vardhan
Music: Anu Malik
Lyrics: Sameer
Screenplay & Dialogs: Neeraj Vora

A first class story, fine acting and well crafted dialogs make a rare combined appearance in this Bollywood comedy.

A remake of the Malayalam movie Ramji Rao Speaking, Hera Pheri features Paresh Rawal, Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty and Tabu in key roles.

Shyam (Suniel Shetty) comes to the big city from the village to get a job at the bank, where his father used to work before his death in a fire accident. Unbeknownst to Shyam, Anuradha Shivshankar Panikar (Tabu), a daughter of another ex-employee, is after the same job. Although Shyam initially resists Anuradha’s efforts to get the job since he desperately needs it, he gallantly steps aside after realizing the dire situation of Anuradha and her mother.

Another unemployed youth Raju (Akshay Kumar) is Shyam’s roommate and Babubhai (Paresh Rawal) is his indebted landlord and owner of the dilapidated Star Garage.

As Shyam, Raju and Babubhai ponder their miserable plight, an unusual opportunity presents itself in the form of a wrong-number call they get from the kidnapper of a young girl asking for ransom. Seeing in the call a way out of their financial predicament, the three hatch a plan to call the grandfather (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) of the young girl and ask for double the ransom, pay the real kidnappers half the money, keep half and restore the child to her grandfather.

Although Suniel Shetty, Akshay Kumar and Tabu more than do justice to their roles, it’s Paresh Rawal’s performance as the boozing, slow-witted, kind hearted landlord that steals the show by a mile.

In a rare for a Bollywood movie, there’s never a dull moment in Hera Pheri as the fast-paced narrative keeps the viewer continuously entertained.

Denewala and Jab Bhi Koi Haseena are two of the better songs. - Copyright Rekha Inc.

Film: Raaz
Starring: Bipasha Basu, Dino Moreo, Malini Sharma and Ashutosh Rana
Director: Bhatt Brothers
Music: Nadeem-Shravan
Rating: 3/5 (Good)

It has been a long time since we had a good Horror flick made in Bollywood. Taking inspiration from movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer, What Lies Beneath and Hitchcock movie, this movie turns out to be one of the better-made movies of 2002.

Mahesh Bhatt who is credited with the unique distinction of working with the maximum number of new comers whether actors, music-directors, songwriters gets the best out of Dino and Bipasha.

Not at all confusing as the movie revolves with few characters, the continuity of the movie is brilliant to keep you gripping throughout the movie.

The story is about a young troubled couple Sanjana Dhanraj (Bipasha Basu) and Aditya Dhanraj (Dino Morea). The couple is almost on the verge of a divorce when they decide to take time out and spend more time with each other in their Ooty bungalow. Ooty, however turns to be a nightmare for Sanajana as she can feel a spirit calling her and later she even sees the spirit’s face. Aditya does not believe her, but her friend based in Ooty does, who introduces her to Prof. Agni Swaroop who is a Professor of supernatural sciences, who also unconditionally believes in spirits. He is passionate towards exploring truth beyond science.

The rest is to be seen in the film. The ambience for creating horror has been aptly created to make the movie interesting. Some of the scenes are shot amazingly while there are few ones which have the audience in splits.

Bipasha rocks in this movie, brilliant acting – she manages her role very well. Dino too is good while Ashutosh once again gives a splendid performance.

Malini Sharma the girl from the “Kya Soorat Hai” video too is impressive. She will be interesting to watch for in the future.

The music score done by Raju Rao of this movie is intelligent. Some songs are great while other songs in this movie are average, nothing that you will hum after you are out of the movie hall except for two or three tracks.

Overall a nice flick and enjoyable viewing.

Language: Hindi
Year: Released on November 10, 2006 in the U.S.
Actors: Shahid Kapoor, Amrita Rao, Anupam Kher, Alok Nath, Seema Biswas
Director: Sooraj Barjatya
Producer: Rajkumar Barjatya
Story & Screenplay :Sooraj Barjatya
Dialogs: Aash Karan Atal
Lyrics & Music: Ravindra Jain

By God, Vivah is a horrible movie even by the low standards of Bollywood.

The birdbrained folks who brought us Vivah should be marched to the guillotine without mercy for subjecting us to this torture of a movie.

Director Sooraj Barjatya, who in years past, gave us such fine movies as Maine Pyar Kiya and Hum Aapke Hain Koun, has turned up a heap of manure with Vivah.

Vivah has absolutely nothing going for it - What it lacks most of all though is a decent story.

Like most Hindi movies, it focuses on love and marriage but gives both the most superficial treatment.

B-Grade Bollywood stars Shahid Kapoor and pretty face Amrita Rao hardly set the screen on fire with their desultory performances. Anupam Kher and Aloknath are all right but then not even Marlon Brando can salvage a movie with an infantile story.

The main characters never really take on lives of their own because the movie is built on such a weak scaffolding.

Delhi-based Prem (Shahid Kapoor), son of industrialist Harishchandra (Anupam Kher), gets engaged to Poonam (Amrita Rao), niece of a small businessman Krishnakant (Aloknath) from a town called Madhupur. Soon, the two are unable to think of anything else but each other as they wait for the Big Day - their marriage.

But Poonam’s stepmother/aunt Rama (Seema Biswas) is upset with all the expenses that her husband is incurring for the marriage. She feels her daughter Choti is getting shortshrifted in the process.

Besides the stepmother has always been cold to Poonam because the young girl is prettier and fairer than her Choti.

However, Poonam is close to Choti and on the eve of her marriage when a fire breaks out in the house she saves Jiji at the cost of severe burns to her body.

The hospital scenes towards the end are bizzarely inept.

The music is of a piece with the rest of this horrid movie - awful. Moments out of the movie, we found it hard to recollect a single song.

It saddens us when veteran directors like Sooraj Barjatya fall so low as to make movies like Vivah. What prompted Sooraj Barjatya to make a horrid film like Vivah is hard to tell. But what we can surely tell is that Vivah suffers from a total lack of imagination.

Hollywood directors have lately given us two solid movies in The Departed and Borat. Bollywood clowns have given us two duds in Umrao Jaan and Vivah. Go figure.

Even in the era of silent movies, Hollywood movies were not as bad as Vivah.- Copyright Rekha Inc.