REVIEW 97: DAM 999

Release date:	November 25, 2011
Director:	Sohan Roy
Cast:	Vinay Rai, Vimala Raman, Joshua Fredric Smith, Megha Burman, Linda Arsenio, Jaala Pickering, Ashish Vidyarthi, Rajit Kapoor, Jineet Rath

Oh dear, what an insult to the Mullaperiyar Dam issue! For weeks now I’ve been getting tweets from Keralite readers inquiring about Dam 999. Is the film an effective comment on an issue close to their hearts? Will it inform the world about the risk to the lives of all those living in areas surrounding Mullaperiyar? The questions are natural considering that the film’s title seems like an allusion to the Tamil Nadu government’s 999-year lease to operate the Mullaperiyar Dam located in Kerala. Now that TN has banned the film, director Sohan Roy is crying himself hoarse that it has nothing to do with Mullaperiyar. So why 999, Mr Roy? Because 09/09/2009 is a significant date in the story? Feels suspiciously like a publicity stunt deliberately designed to mislead.

But the possible deception is not the worst part of Dam 999. The worst part is that it’s a lousy film. The story set in Kerala is about a couple who’ve been kept apart by astrology. Vinay and Meera have been friends ever since his father Shankaran took her into his home as a little girl when she lost her parents. The years pass, they fall in love. But dad – a keen practitioner of both Ayurveda and astrology – matches their horoscopes and arrives at the conclusion that they are incompatible. Vinay does not care, but Meera refuses to defy Shankaran. Years of separation and heartbreak follow, until Vinay returns home to get his diabetic son treated by Shankaran. Also in the picture is Vinay’s estranged wife Sandra, a foreign TV journalist who arrives in town to cover a controversial dam in the area; an unscrupulous local politician who ignores warnings that the new dam he has built is in a precarious condition; and sundry other characters who are so irrelevant despite the screen time they get, that I don’t want to bother listing them.

The Vinay-Meera romance is the focal point of the film, but neither their love nor the satellite stories add up to much. What on earth is Dam 999 trying to say? Well, there is an attempt to use a dam-on-the-verge-of-bursting as a profound metaphor for the emotional pressure cooker that .the lead couple have been living in. It’s all quite wonderfully silly!

The choice of language too is purposeless. Dam 999 is in English with a smattering of Malayalam spoken by a few very minor characters but not by the leads. There is also a Hindi version which I have not watched, but I can tell you that the dialogues in the English original are atrocious. English is certainly not the natural tongue for that milieu – in real life, I’d imagine characters like Vinay, Meera and Shankaran perhaps blending Malayalam and English in equal parts. But even if I were to believe that these people speak only the language of our colonisers with not a touch of Malayalam, I can assure you that no Malayali – in fact, no human being at all – would utter such stodgy, contrived, bookish lines. Instead of telling her husband she wants a kid, a woman says to him one day in bed: What would it feel like to have someone between us? For a moment I thought she was suggesting a threesome! Teehee!

The actors most pathetically served by the dialogue writer are Vimala Raman and Vinay Rai playing Dam 999’s star-crossed lovers. Both do their best with the laughable lines given to them, and deserve National Awards for having kept straight faces throughout. Rai is a very attractive-looking man who is clearly too good for this amateurish film. And Raman, talented though she may be, is amusingly miscast here. You see, Meera is supposed to be a Sardarni, but casting a classical Malayali beauty like Raman as a Punjabi is akin to getting Madhuri Dixit to play a Japanese woman in a film. The actress – a former Miss India Australia – also fails to entirely camouflage her marginally foreign accent. But that faux pas is not one-tenth as entertaining as watching National Award winner Rajit Kapoor tying himself in knots trying to look and sound Malayali. The one who comes off best in Dam 999 is the pretty American actress Linda Arsenio playing Vinay’s wife Sandra. She dashes around town issuing instructions to her TV crew and to local dam experts with an earnestness that belies this film’s stupidity.

At one point in Dam 999, while fobbing off Vinay’s renewed advances, Meera reminds him that every time they’ve tried to express their love for each other, something bad has happened. With all his pretensions to grandeur and philosophising, I wonder if the film maker realises that the regressive message emerging from his film seems to be that we humans must accept what is written in the stars, that those who dare to follow their dreams are doomed!

Films like Dam 999 are the reason why I respect David Dhawan, Rohit Shetty and Anees Bazmee: they don’t promise anything more than they intend to deliver! Misleading an audience is a crime! The Mullaperiyar Dam deserves a better envoy than this damned film!

Rating (out of five): 1/2  (this half star is only for Vimala Raman, Vinay Rai & Linda Arsenio who really tried!)

Footnotes: (1) I watched the 2D version of Dam 999. It’s been released in 3D too – I’m not sure why, since the disaster sequences in the film are minimal and not particularly impressive. (2) Warner Bros is distributing this film. What were they thinking when they signed up for it?!

CBFC Rating:                       U/A without cuts

Running time:                       110 Minutes

Language:                             English with some Malayalam

Photograph courtesy: http://www.damthemovie.com/  

  

REVIEW 96: DESI BOYZ

Release date:	November 25, 2011
Director:	Rohit Dhawan
Cast:	Akshay Kumar, John Abraham, Deepika Padukone, Chitrangda Singh, Anupam Kher, Bharti Achrekar

If you don’t do as I say, I’ll feel it was a waste that I ruined my figure to give birth to you! It’s not the sort of line you expect to hear from an elderly, tubby, gray-haired Hindi film mother. And that’s precisely why it’s hard not to chuckle when Bharti Achrekar – playing the mata to Akshay Kumar’s Jerry Patel – flings the jibe at her son in Desi Boyz.

Place: London. Year: 2009. Jerry is a loser who does small jobs and takes care of his orphaned nephew Veer while sponging off his MBA friend Nick Mathur (John Abraham). Their world comes apart when Nick loses his job to recession, leaving him with his high-maintenance girlfriend Radhika to worry about while Jerry battles a Social Services department determined to send Veer to foster care. Along comes an offer from a male escort agency, Desi Boyz, whose owner (Sanjay Dutt in a cameo) points out that his is a business that never goes out of business. Jerry has no qualms about the career move with its promise of quick money since he needs to pay Veer’s fees immediately, but Nick’s conscience protests. The film is about how the path they choose affects Nick’s relationship with Radhika and Jerry’s future with Veer.

There’s humour, emotion and drama here, and debutant director Rohit Dhawan (son of veteran David Dhawan) pulls it off for the most part despite his highly flawed screenplay. The first half of the film is especially entertaining, filled with wacky one-liners and pretty people. But over and above everything else, what carries this film through despite its many blemishes is the Akshay Kumar-John Abraham pairing. In Priyadarshan’s Garam Masala in 2005, John was overshadowed by Akshay’s charisma and comic timing. In those days, rumours also abounded about how Akshay would bully directors into cutting down his co-stars’ roles. That was before he began repeating himself so much in comedies that the law of diminishing returns finally kicked in even at the box-office. In Desi Boyz, it’s nice to see a vastly improved John getting equal screen space and matching up well to Akshay who is back to being his naturally funny self.

Am I being a Female Chauvinist Pig for enjoying Desi Boyz? I ask because I remember finding Laaga Chunari Mein Daag regressive with its stance that bechari girls have no option but to turn to prostitution to make money in the big city. But hold on … Desi Boyz does not suggest that men have no choice but to become strippers to support themselves. There’s absolute clarity that Jerry joins the agency because it’s an easy means to make a quick buck during a recession.

I wonder too whether I should feel guilty for not objecting to the unabashed objectification of the men in Desi Boyz. But what the heck, in an industry that has made a habit of objectifying women, why shouldn’t we girlz get to gawk at great-looking boyz with great bodies who happily take off their clothes for us?! Yeah, I love the gusto with which Akshay and John throw themselves into their pole dance and striptease routines. The characterisation does not match their no-holds-barred song-and-dance and facial expressions though – perhaps the film should have admitted that despite the compulsions that drew them to the profession, after a while they did become addicted to the female attention. Problem is, Rohit Dhawan wants to serve us a comedy revolving around male strippers but clearly cringes at the thought of Indian boyz having sex for money. So we are told that Jerry and Nick work on a no-sex-with-the-clients basis, and when Jerry admits to having slept with one lady, it’s portrayed almost as an act of charity! Haha … unintentionally amusing, I say! Likewise, the film takes the conventional route of demanding that the woman should forgive her erring boyfriend; when Radhika (Deepika Padukone) asks Nick if he’d have been able to erase from his mind an image of her standing half naked in a room surrounded by lustful, screaming men, he has no answer. Instead he sends her off on a guilt trip. After all, it is every woman’s duty to pardon her man if he asks nicely enough, right?

There are several other issues I have with Desi Boyz … Radhika seems like an idle character who spends all her time making demands on Nick’s purse and it’s only when I checked the film’s website that I realised she’s an architect, though I don’t recall any architecturebaazi in the film … Jerry cleans up his act in the second half and the woman he falls in love with (Chitrangda Singh) seems not to raise half an eyebrow at his earlier avatar as a stripper! … It beats me why the film pointedly projects 44-year-old Akshay as a man in his early 30s! … There’s something icky and tacky about the way Radhika’s father (Anupam Kher) appears to leer at Nick ... Apart from the lively title track, the rest of Pritam’s songs are redeemed only by the slick picturisation … Random scenes are thrown into the mix that have no connection with the story – like Jerry’s confrontation with a white man who insults Indians. Just because it worked in Akshay’s earlier hit Namastey London, must we repeat the formula without any contextual relevance? … And the film’s ending is silly, abrupt and contradicts the preceding scenes.

But perhaps I’m thinking too much. The truth is that despite these reservations, I had fun watching Desi Boyz. Akshay and John seem to be having such a good time, that their enjoyment is infectious. Frankly, they look more in love with each other than with their respective girlfriends who have little to do beyond look stunning, which Deepika and Chitrangda do very well! So if you’re in a mood to forgive the mindlessness, then go ahead people – make some noise for the desi boyz!

Rating (out of five): **3/4

CBFC Rating:                       A

Running time:                       117 Minutes

Language:                             Hindi

Photograph courtesy: http://www.desiboyzthefilm.com/

  

REVIEW 95: SHAKAL PE MAT JA

Release date:	November 18, 2011
Director:	Shubh Mukherjee
Cast:	Shubh Mukherjee, Aamna Sharif, Saurabh Shukla, Raghuvir Yadav

It’s hard to respect a film that does not respect itself. And there’s no greater evidence of a casual approach to your own celluloid venture than a lack of attention to detail.

Shakal Pe Mat Ja – actress Hrishitaa Bhatt’s first shot at being a producer – is about a group of young documentary film makers who are mistaken for terrorists when they are found taking shots of aeroplanes near the boundary wall of Delhi’s international airport. Why should anyone believe these boys, especially when it turns out that their film is about how easy it is to make a bomb? Airport cop Om Prakash (Raghuvir Yadav) certainly does not, and so he calls in the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS).

The story unfolds within the span of a single day. As it progresses, the time is repeatedly flashed on screen. But I was completely distracted from the moment the screen informed me that it was 11.15 am which was followed by ATS officer Chauhan’s wristwatch coming into clear view, showing 11o’clock. Since the film had gone awry by then, I entertained myself by looking out for Chauhan’s watch after that. Sure enough, at one point 3.21pm was flashed on screen to indicate the time of day in the story, soon after which I caught sight of Chauhan’s watch showing what looked like 4.30, and several scenes later, the time 4.03pm was flashed on screen. Aaaaargh!!!!!

I know, I know, some of you will say that regular viewers don’t scrutinise films in this fashion. Well, shouldn’t the director care about that one meticulous, exacting viewer who does? Besides, every single such drop of inefficiency in Shakal Pe Mat Ja adds up to an ocean of tackiness.

The sad part is that this concept had potential. It could have been an interesting satire on how suspicious we’ve all become in these terror-stricken times, plus a cutting comment on the ridiculous inefficiencies of India’s investigating agencies. Think about it … the terror group Al Baqaeda is led by a man called Omama who functions from a darkened room “somewhere in the Tora Bora”; one of the boys has saved his girlfriend’s name as “Danger” on his cellphone which sends the airport police into a tizzy when she calls him; at one point a cop comes face to face with escaped terror suspects who he had spent considerable time interrogating that very morning but he needs to stare at their photographs to make sure he’s got the right guys. This film could have been both funny and frightening. But it ends up being little more than a wannabe Tere Bin Laden, inane, inexorably stretched, shabby in appearance and filled with smelly farts. No seriously, there’s a guy who keeps farting! But flatulence alone does not a Delhi Belly make!

Debutant director Shubh Mukherjee also stars in his film as the documentary maker at the centre of the fracas. Mukherjee is not a half-way bad actor himself. Cute looking too. His partners-in-crime played by Chitrak Bandyopadhyay, Pratik Katare and Harsh Parekh seem like they may be talented too. In a better film we might have known what they’re capable of. This is not that film.

Perhaps the problem with Shakal… is encapsulated in its name. The phrase “shakal pe mat ja”, when translated, means don’t take anyone or anything at face value. There’s a lesson in there for so many Hindi film producers: good films are about good concepts well fleshed out by good scriptwriters and good directors. Keval concept pe mat ja … please!

Rating (out of five): 1/2

CBFC Rating:                       A (I guess because of the repeated use of the F word)

Language:                              Hindi

Photograph courtesy: http://www.facebook.com/Shakalpematja

  

REVIEW 94: TELL ME O KKHUDA

Release date:	October 27, 2011
Director:	Hema Malini
Cast:	Esha Deol, Arjan Bajwa, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Vinod Khanna, Madhoo, Rishi Kapoor, Meltem Cumbul, Dharmendra, Hema Malini

It breaks my heart to write this review … because I’m a softie when it comes to veteran stars, and as you know, this film stars the legendary Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Rishi Kapoor and Vinod Khanna! But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do! Sigh!

Tell Me O Kkhuda feels like a mother’s offering of love to her offspring, an affectionate effort by Hema Malini to resurrect the career of her daughter Esha Deol. But somewhere between an uninspiring script and a mid-stream switch in directors, it actually does more harm than good to  Esha, who’s a reasonably good actress but has just not managed to make it in Bollywood in the nine years since she made her debut with Koi Mere Dil Se Poochhe.

In TMOK, Ms Deol plays a happy-go-lucky young bestselling author called Tanya who chances upon evidence one day that she’s adopted. She loves her mother and father (played by the always quietly dignified Farooque Shaikh and Deepti Naval) but feels compelled to discover her biological parents. The task, however, is tough because the records of her birth were destroyed in a hospital fire, and the lazy record-keeper casually points her in the direction of three possible sets of parents.

Sounds promising? But after an interesting start, there’s a markedly unenergetic feel to the film which fails to live up to the potential of its basic concept and evident budget. Producer Hema Malini – who dropped director Mayur Puri and took over the reins part way through the shoot – seems to have a fascination for girls in search of their parental roots. Her earlier directorial venture Dil Aashna Hai (1992) starred Divya Bharati who was out to find her mother from a choice of three women, with the help of a friend played by Shah Rukh Khan. In TMOK, there are two friends helping Esha instead. And in place of the daughter’s search for her mother in Dil Aashna Hai, here Esha is on a quest for both her parents.

The locations are pretty (Rajasthan’s Pratapgarh, Kas in Turkey, and finally Goa) BUT the cinematography does not entirely do justice to them. The storyline has promise BUT the treatment does not give it the emotional appeal it could have had. The cast is talented BUT their overall impact is unsatisfactory. Dharmendra, Rishi Kapoor and Vinod Khanna are capable of so much on a good day. They’re joined by the beautiful award-winning Turkish actress Meltem Cumbul playing Kapoor’s wife. BUT no actor is better than the written material on which they’re basing their performances, and the script of TMOK is decidedly lacklustre. Esha’s friends are played by Arjan Bajwa – the handsome and talented model who you will remember from his role as Priyanka Chopra’s boyfriend in Fashion – and Kaminey and Faltu’s memorable Chandan Roy Sanyal BUT both are given short shrift by the script which reduces them to background characters although they’re present in the on-screen proceedings from start to finish. Esha participates in a camel race that could have been filled with suspense and spectacular shots of the desert, BUT it is no such thing.

Saddest of all, Esha Deol for whom this film is meant to be a showcase, comes off looking both tired and uninvolved. Does her make-up artist not know how to handle under-eye dark circles? Didn’t the film’s light technicians and camerapersons know how to highlight a facial glow? It’s really unfortunate because this film is the first time that Esha has appeared on screen with both her legendary actor parents. Oddly enough, the episode involving Dharmendra and Hema Malini has been the least efficiently handled.

As I said, it breaks my heart to write this review …

Now I’m off to gather up the pieces of that broken heart before I write my next review!  

Rating (out of five):  *

CBFC Rating:                       U without cuts

Running time:                        132 Minutes

Language:                              Hindi

Photograph courtesy: http://www.facebook.com/TellMeOKhuda

REVIEW 93: ROCKSTAR

Release date:	November 11, 2011
Director:	Imtiaz Ali
Cast:	Ranbir Kapoor, Nargis Fakhri, Aditi Rao Hydari, Shernaz Patel, Shammi Kapoor, Piyush Mishra

What do I say?! Rockstar is the story of an aspiring singer in Delhi University who is told by a close associate that great art is born of pain. Janardhan Jakhar (Ranbir Kapoor) has not so far known suffering … does this mean he can never create soul-stirring songs? Taking the advice literally, he sets out to experience heartbreak by convincing himself that he’s smitten by the sophisticated hottie from a neighbouring college, Heer Kaul (Nargis Fakhri). Since she is out of the unrefined Janardhan’s league, he hopes to be rejected, believing that the hurt thus caused will stimulate his creative juices. As expected, she spurns his advances, but the consequence is an unlikely friendship that leads to more pain than either of them could have ever bargained for.

The film begins well … Janardhan is Jordan, a world renowned Indian rockstar who gets out of a bloody brawl on a street in Italy, strides past gigantic cut-outs of himself and into a stadium, shrugs on his performer’s gear on stage, and coolly turns to the crowd to belt out a song as they scream for him. From the bronzed and burnt look of that episode the film cuts to a bright, cheery Delhi of the past, and the clean-shaven Pitampura boy Janardhan’s determination to be a singer.

Smooth! Very smooth! But as Rockstar progressed and I remained in awe of its smoothness, slickness and style, the breathtaking locations, Anil Mehta’s cinematography and the fun choreography, I searched desperately for a soul and failed to find it. Imtiaz Ali’s strength so far has been his ability to tell real stories about real people whose lives he drew us into so effectively, that we laughed and cried with them. I desperately wanted Geet to dump her boyfriend for Aditya in Jab We Met. I could feel the love and longing of two generations in Love Aaj Kal. But in Rockstar, I didn’t weep for anyone.

The problem lies primarily with the film’s weak storyline. A girl faints at the sight of an Indian rockstar, crazed crowds gather when he’s spotted on a street … JordanMania in India requires a suspension of disbelief considering that we are a nation whose urban idols are drawn almost entirely from the cricketing and cinematic pantheons. But even if I were to buy the madness for Jordan in India, Rockstar is on shaky ground. Like Janardhan a.k.a. Jordan, Ali too seems to have been rather literal about the connection between artists and extreme suffering. But is this a film about love against all odds (as the quote from the poet Rumi in the end suggests) or about music against all odds (which was conveyed to us with such tenderness in Farhan Akhtar’s far superior film Rock On)? What was the driving force behind Jordan’s music of rebellion? Perhaps I could have understood his perennial anger if the film had taken us gradually through his journey from an innocent boy to a maverick, but it didn’t, opting instead for a narrative style that switched from the past to the present to what seemed like a flashback within a flashback. Sadder still, despite the sparks between Ranbir and Nargis, I didn’t feel drawn into their love story beyond the blossoming amidst the mountainscapes of Kashmir.

In fact, some episodes in the couple’s relationship are a trifle disturbing. Janardhan’s stalking of Heer in early scenes should have been handled better to avoid reinforcing the conviction held by so many roadside Romeos that when a woman says no, she means yes. Likewise, it’s sweet to hear Jordan matter of factly state his physical yearnings to Heer, but when he demands a kiss as she lies dying, it feels marginally offensive though the film projects him as being well intentioned. Then there’s that unfunny ‘joke’ after Heer and Janardhan watch the sleazy film Junglee Jawani in a sleazy theatre. “If we stayed any longer in the hall, you’d have been raped,” he says. She replies laughingly, “That’s fine, it would have been Junglee Jawani Part 2.”

Of the leads, Ranbir comes off much better. The reasons for Jordan’s rage are unconvincing, but you can see that the actor has invested so much of himself in the role! The basics are in place (his earthy accent is consistent, he’s been wonderfully styled to look alternately boyish and scruffily adult), but best of all, IT FEELS LIKE HE’S REALLY SINGING! Nargis is pretty, but her studied acting style required a firmer directorial hand.

To be fair, Rockstar has many positives that are a reminder of the acutely observant and humorous Imtiaz Ali we’ve grown to love: the contrast between reactions to a busker in Delhi and Prague; the glimpse of Janardhan’s lustful bhabhi; Janardhan’s meeting with a semi-nude music company honcho in the throes of a body massage; an elegant Shammi Kapoor’s appearance as a shehnai veteran; and the entire portion devoted to Heer’s wedding in Kashmir. The talented supporting cast is led by the delightful Kumud Mishra as Jordan’s hapless manager.

Most of all, I liked Irshad Kamil’s lyrics, A.R. Rahman’s background score, Mohit Chauhan’s voice, and the picturisation of each song. Rockstar is not my favourite Rahman album – I’ve enjoyed listening to Katiya Karun and Kun Faya Kun so far; when Saadda Haq enveloped me in that darkened hall, I finally fell for it too; but I’m afraid I don’t find the rest of the songs appealing. Yet, all of them have been filmed so beautifully and with such dramatic grandeur (in a dargah, in a European square, in the midst of frenzied crowds) that it was hard not to be drawn in while watching them. I wish the story had drawn me in too!

Rating (out of five): **1/2

CBFC Rating:                       U/A (The Censors asked for the word “Tibet” to be blurred from a “Free Tibet” banner during the Saadda Haq scene + other changes)

Running time:                        156 Minutes

Language:                              Hindi

 

Photograph courtesy: http://www.rockstarthefilm.com/#

  

REVIEW 92: LOOT

Release date:	November 4, 2011
Director:	Raj Thakur
Cast:	Govinda, Suneil Shetty, Jaaved Jaaferi, Mahaakshay Chakraborty, Prem Chopra, Dalip Tahil, Ravi Kissen, Mahesh Manjrekar, Mika, Kim Sharma

To fully fathom the bankruptcy of thought & the surfeit of cash in Bollywood these days, watch Loot! The film is about four crooks – Pandit (Govinda), Builder (Suneil Shetty), Akbar (Jaaved Jaaferi) and Wilson (Mahaakshay Chakraborty) – who are sent off to Pattaya to rob a house filled with valuables, but discover when they get there that they are in the home of the dreaded gangster Lala (Mahesh Manjrekar) who, as it turns out, is out to kill the don of Pattaya (Prem Chopra) and is being investigated by an unscrupulous cop (Ravi Kissen) who intends to use the evidence to blackmail Lala. That’s it – the story does not deserve more than one sentence!

Nor does this film deserve a cogent review. But I do have some questions for the team of Loot:

1.     Why did anyone bother to make this film?

2.     Why is Govinda (the only bright spark in this film) ruining our happy memories of the high points of his career by acting in such utter rubbish? If the industry no longer offers you halfway decent films, isn’t it better to retire or bide your time till something better comes along?

3.     Why did this talented actor destroy his own career with his tardiness, his weight gain and what we’re told was extreme unprofessional behaviour although he’s said to be a nice guy? Will we ever again get to see Govinda – one of the funniest guys Hindi filmdom has ever known – in a worthwhile film?

4.     Why doesn’t the industry have better films for Jaaved Jaaferi who too can be funny given a good, well-written role?

5.     Does Suneil Shetty still think he can act?

6.     Does The Artist Formerly Known As Mimoh believe that a change of name to Mahaakshay is more important than voice training?

7.     Could someone tell the writer of this film to forget asinine language stereotypes of the sort that assume that Hindus say dhanyavad, Muslims say shukriya and Christians say thank you?

8.     Could the director please tell me why his quartet of goons crawled down the railings of a multi-storeyed building’s fire escape instead of running down the steps during one scene?

9.     Has anyone on the team of Loot heard of not-so-minor issues such as continuity? Wasn’t any production assistant monitoring the shooting of that scene in which Ravi Kissen is shown wearing one earring but in close-ups that were clearly shot later, he’s wearing two earrings and his hair is shorter?

10. Was there some significance to the scenes involving a doddering old man in a restaurant? Is old age meant to be funny?

11.  (This  one’s for the reader) Do you know Kim Sharma still acts in films?

12.  Rakhi Sawant features in an item song right at the end. Why is her face frozen stiff?

13.  And (apologies for repeating myself but I can’t help it) why did anyone bother to make this film?

Rating (out of five): 1/2 star (only for Govinda)

CBFC Rating:                       U/A with cuts (The Censor Board banned Mika’s song Mere iss pe and got the words “choos le” beeped out from Rakhi Sawant’s item number Bank loot le)

Running time:                        120 Minutes

Language:                              Hindi

Photograph courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_(2011_film)