3 AM is a stupid avoidable flick

3 AM - as the name suggests - is a horror movie. Yet, it doesn't have all the ingredients of a conventional horror movie like the creaking sounds of doors. Does that take away the horror quotient of the movie? Yes. Partially. But there are other things that make the movie unbearable.

The movie opens with a few youth trespassing the gates of a Rudra Mills, a deserted compound in Mumbai and being confronted by Rannvijay, who starts telling them his experience of entering the villa with an aim of not dissuading the youngsters from entering the compound.

The protagonists of the movie - Rannvijay, Anindita, Salil and Kavin - all work for a media production house. Over time (and I don't know why these sequences are brought in the middle of a horror movie), it is revealed that Anindita and Rannvijay fall in love with each other on a company trip to Goa and get engaged. And for some strange reason, Anindita films haunted houses and her work starts after 10 pm.

One fine night Anindita decides to go to Rudra Villa for a shoot. Next morning, Rannvijay calls her only to find out from her dad that she has hung herself at the Rudra Villa.  Rannvijay decides to make a video of paranormal activities along with Salil and Kavin at the very site where he lost Anindita viz. Rudra Villa and their travails form the remainder of the movie.

The movie is slow paced and interspersed with scenes of story telling to the youth. What dilutes the horror factor is stupid jokes by Kavin. Come on man! This is not a comedy. You are supposed to generate some amount of tension in the movie. All said, the climax is also very predictable and comes as no surprise. as far as the "chill down the spine" element is concerned, there is barely any such moment in the movie. Special effects add to this factor and this movie is devoid of it.

Anindita Nayar has limited role to play in the movie. Rannvijay does a fair job. Probably, the stand out actor in the movie was the guard at the Rudra Villa, who takes the crew around the house.

One star to this movie. Avoid at all costs.

Desi Kattey is a preachy tale of good vs evil

Desi Kattey traces the story of two young boys (about 14-15 years of age), Pali and Gyani (Jay Bhanushali), who make country guns to earn their livelihood. In the process, they become expert shooters and good friends. Neither do they hesitate to shoot at their employer, who snubs them for the way they deal with customers, nor do they hesitate to fire at the local goon, whom they despise for ill-treating Pali's love-at-first-sight Guddi (played by Tia Bajpai).

The movie goes on to show the two becoming the right hand men of a criminal Judge Sahab, who also has the backing of a politician. However, despite their loyalty to the Judge Sahab, they are fraudulently put behind bars in a booth capturing case by another of Judge's men. They are bailed out by Major Sahab (Suniel Shetty), who has been following them all along appreciative of them being expert shooters.

Having been released by the Major, they go to his home, to take training in professional pistol shooting. It is at this juncture that they meet Judge again and are faced with the predicament of going the right way (with Major) or the wrong way (with Judge). The friends part ways - one going along with the Major and the other going with the Judge (who is now a minister) to become his right hand man.

The movie explores the good versus evil angle, however, the ending in the end is very predictable and preachy. The movie puts to test, the friendship between Pali and Gyani on account of their differing ideologies. While it does a fair job, there is always scope for improvement in the script by stretching the "test of friendship" angle further

Also, the reason why the Major is so keen to groom these shooters and goes out of the way in getting permissions is not ably articulated in the movie. Perhaps a dramatization of his background would have helped create that emotional connect better.

Suniel Shetty's character has not been exploited well in the movie. Jay Bhanushali, Akhil Kapur (Pali) do a great job and so does Judge and Ashutosh Rana (playing the politician). The soundtrack of the movie is good, some tracks are soothing. However, the tracks haven't been popularized by FM radio too much to have much of recall.

Two and a half stars to this movie - makes for a one time lazy watch.

Poor choice of debut for Shaan and Mika in Balwinder Singh Famous Ho Gaya

Two singers making their debut - Shaan and Mika, couldn't have chosen a worse script than this to mark their presence on screen. From the trailers and the movie promotions, one expects the movie to be a brainless comedy, and the movie lives upto that reputation.

For someone, who enjoys watching brainless comedies like Humshakals, Housefull 2 et al, it might be a good (not a great though) entertainer. The first 15 minutes (introducing Mika as Balwinder Singh Ludhianawala in Dabru, a village near Ludhiana and Shaan as Balwinder Singh Patialawala in Mumbai) is pathetic. Equally pathetic is the very predictable last 30 minute hospital sequence, a complete melodrama stereotypical of Bollywood movies of the 90s. The entire concept of Anupam Kher getting involved in an accident, a woman kidnapping his only grandson, reappearing in Mumbai 25 years later and being spotted by Kher and simultaneously getting involved in an accident and losing her memory only to regain the same in the ending sequence of the movie is reminiscent of the movies of the 90s. The saving grace is the sequence in the middle, which brings out the confusion involving people having similar names, and has a few good moments that will crack your hips.

While individually Shaan and Mika do a good job, they probably could have chosen a better script to make their debut and made their presence felt. Supporting actors Anupam Kher, Asrani, Vindu Dara Singh and Rajpal Yadav are a saving grace to the movie.

In terms of music, a couple of tracks by Mika are good, but these are misplaced in the movie - one coming abruptly in the middle and the other at the very end having no connection with the movie.

Two stars to this movie. Watch it if you don't have anything better to do.

Daawat-e-Ishq is a satirical take on a social issue

On one hand,  Daawat-e-Ishq raises the contentious issue of dowry and Sec 498 A in terms of the extent to which dowry has become a social evil and the ineffectiveness of Sec 498A in controlling it. On the other hand, it also portrays the misuse of the law by brides for the very sake of extracting alimony and lumpsum maintenance from husbands and their families.

Gullu (Parineeti) is a middle class girl staying in the Charminar area of Hyderabad. Born and brought up by her father Qadir (Anupam Kher), she is a motherless child. Her father has kept aside Rs. 15 Lakh for her marriage and his sole ambition is to "thikaane lagao" her - in his words, However, the amount seems to be inadequate to satiate the dowry demands of various grooms, who come to see her. Frustration of being rejected on grounds of dowry (even by those, with whom she had a love relationship) gets on to her head and makes her resort to unlawful conning by misusing the greed for dowry among prospective grooms,  trapping them and eventually blackmailing them for money threatening potential action vide Sec 498A.

This plan takes the father-daughter duo to Lucknow under fake identities, where they meet Haider family (Aditya Roy Kapoor), who runs a restaurant. The second half of the movie depicts a wild goose chase with a very boring, dramatic and predictable climax of a romcom.

The movie fails to fit either in the purely romcom space or in the pure comedy space or in the serious socially space. Probably the satirical and romantic angle takes the seriousness off the main topic of the movie viz. dowry harassment. The predicament of a girl at getting rejected is understood, but the movie goes overboard showing her resort to taking law in her hands.

Nevertheless, the movie makes for a light hearted entertainment, notwitshtanding the drag in the second half.

Parineeti, Aditya and Anupam have done a fair job in this movie. Music is okay with a couple of good numbers - Meri Mannat Tu and title track. The audience is left mouth watering at the mention and display of various delicacies including Hyderabadi Biryani, kebabs, kheer etc but there is no real "Daawat" for the audience.

Two and a half stars to this movie.

Khoobsurat is a feel good, sweet movie

What happens when a young physiotherapist, bubbly and cheerful, empathetic, no-nonsense girl in colourful dresses enters a palatial house, where there is adherence to rules and regulations, table manners, formal wear, an overdose of peace and quiet and a sheet of dolour, guilt and grief on everybody's faces?

The clash of two opposites is bound to create an electrifying atmosphere and that is exactly what it does in the first half of the movie. Sonam plays the physiotherapist in the movie, who has been hired by the royal family to treat the king, who has been rendered immobile on account of a car accident ten years back, caused by a sports car he had gifted to his other son, who died in the accident. What makes Sonam's job complicated is the fact that the king is in a state of guilt and refuses to be treated. And she is not the sort of person, who would accept defeat, pack her bags and leave.

The movie revolves around how she manages to bring a fresh lease of life into the family, despite facing stiff resistance from the family. Fawad Khan plays the role of Vikram, the king's other son, who is extremely curt and doesn't have time for anything other than business discussions. The build up of the relationship between the two has been covered nicely.

Sonam plays her part well, although one may say that she has probably overdone it a bit. Kirron Kher plays Sonam's stereotypical Punjabi mom. She does her role well, although here too, one feels that her stereotypical role has been overdone. And so has the Bengaliness in Sonam's father been overdone with him pronouncing his wife's name as Mawnju (Manju) and his name as Prawteek.

Fawad, Ratna (Vikram's mother) and the guy playing the concierge services in the royal family (Ramsewak) do a great job.

On account of all these, the second half feels dragged and the movie could have been made crisper by cutting its length by about 15-20 minutes. Overall the movie is a feel good, sweet movie.

Creature 3D is gripping, until the climax

Creature has borrowed immensely from the "alien" concept of the Hollywood movies, and customized it with a bit of Indian mythology and superstitious beliefs. It is a good attempt at a thriller, and retains attention of the viewer well into the second half.

The climax is where it loses the game and the director has probably stretched it a bit too much - to an extent that the climax is predictable and there is no suspense element remaining.

The movie revolves around a boutique forest resort, which is being inaugurated by Bipasha Basu, the protagonist in the movie. That the financial success of the resort is critical to her repaying the bank loans she has taken and the fact that she is a psychiatry patient with suicidal tendencies builds up the tension in the movie. The emergence of the 'CREATURE' which results in bad reputation and loss of business for her resort and her ensuing battle to destroy the CREATURE forms the rest of the script .

The movie has blended well the apathy of the system (the local police) in taking action to control the menace unleashed by the CREATURE. The police treat accounts of people with utter disbelief and dismiss the CREATURE as nothing but a lion or a leopard.

Bipasha is aided by Arjun Roy in her battle against the CREATURE. A love angle between Arjun and Bipasha looks forcibly created and Bipasha looks a tad too old in the movie for Arjun. Apparently, there is also a history to Arjun Roy and Bipasha and that is revealed in the movie, not that it is of much consequence to the sequence of events in the movie.

The climax depicting the battle with the CREATURE is over-dramatized and kills the tension that the movie had built. The movie makes for a good watch. It is a successful experiment with an extra-terrestrial "alien" concept in Bollywood and the director has done a good job.

Finding Fanny is an experiment gone wrong

The movie tries to be different from the masala Bollywood flicks and also from some of the critically acclaimed movies, but that is where it goes wrong. There is no third category of movies. Movies, typically fit into two buckets - either a brainless masala entertainer or a well thought out acclaimed one. This is neither. The plot doesn't lead anywhere. There is no conclusion, no purpose to the movie. What the director intended to do is highly questionable.

The movie takes you back to the 1980s depicting life in a Goan hamlet. Multiple characters are thrown into the movie - a young widow (Deepika) who lost her husband (died of choking on a wedding cake) on the day of her wedding, her mother-in-law (Dimple), self assumed queen of the hamlet, mother-in-law's precious cat, an old painter (Pankaj) with an eye for fat women, an old postman (Naseeruddin) who is in search of his love of yore and a young lad (Arjun), who was once in love with Deepika. And all of them come together to find the postman's long lost love.

There are those moments in the movie, which make you laugh frantically - some dialogues, scenes involving the cat, the scene in which Pankaj makes a painting of Dimple. But all said, the movie doesn't have a plot to engage you throughout. Nevertheless, music is intermittent and is soothing to the ears.

Also, making jokes out of dead cats travelling in a car and on a man shot accidentally in the head and who gets automatically thrown out of a car into a pond while the other occupants are engaged in a melodramatic conversation is not in good spirits,

Having seen the trailers and going into the movie, one would expect a full fledged comedy, but the movie disappoints on that front. Go and watch the movie if you are a hardcore fan of Deepika. Else, you might give this movie a miss.

Mary Kom is a must watch

- Lot of background work has gone into the script. Attention has been paid to a lot of intricate issues in the life of a woman athelete - personal as well as professional issues. Full marks to the script writer. Personal issues range from reservations of parents to financial difficulties to pregnancy. Professional issues highlight issues with authorities, competing with players, who resort to unfair means. A brilliant take on all that a woman from North East has to go through to succeed.

- Execution has been perfect. The use of North-Eastern accent in spoken Hindi dialogue, the use of north-eastern names etc. adds realism to the movie

- Movie also shows the locales of Imphal, Manipur - a good exposure to those unfamiliar with the north-eastern region of the country. Apart from North-East, display of scenic beauty of Himachal as a location is also rich and the cameraman undoubtedly

- Songs have been well integrated into the movie and is pleasant to the ears.

- Priyanka does a good job. By saying that, I do not intend to take any credit away from her. But the brilliance of the movie ensures that she is not the lone shining star of the movie.

- Some bit of drama has been added in the movie to enhance entertainment quotient. But that doesn't render the movie as a fiction.

- Overall, a must watch. Bang for your buck.