pop-16 Reviews

Desh Drohi (2008)

This movies puts all the action classics of the past to shame and a new legend Kamaal R Khan has taken Bollywood by storm

[1/10 · 19 February 2021]

There are a few reasons I can think of watching this movie:

1. If you gift this movie to your worst enemy who is a Bollywood fan. 2. Someone who annoyed you and you share this film. 3. When you want to laugh.

This movie is as equal to the kind of C-grade films that Dharmendra did early 2000s.

Gracy Singh was the only positive but felt sorry for her for doing such a trash as well as a lot of some of the talented actors.

Super 30 (2019)

Don't underestimate the power of education

[10/10 · 12 January 2020]

I am not a fan of Hrithik Roshan but watching this film made me realise why he is an actor.

He superbly performed in this movie and it made me realise how important and powerful education is. This is proven in the climax. Wow, the best climax in a movie.

The elite want to make a profit for the rich using education and deny the poor that right. But Anand Kumar decides to take on the elite and instead make his own school providing free tuition to the poor children to enter IIT.

Whether the rich triumphs over the poor or not, what challenges Anand Kumar faces and overcomes, forms the story of the movie.

Hrithik Roshan is brilliant, an award winning performance.

You must watch this movie, a movie for those who want to be inspired by education.

FryDay (2018)

Hero No 1 Govinda is back! Govinda-Varun Sharma the new jodi in town!

[9/10 · 13 October 2018]

This was a great movie, given that his last movie Aa Gaya Hero a huge disappointment. The only low points about the film are that the co-stars (apart from Varun Sharma) are not elite stars and perhaps he might not be able to get A-list actors/actresses star with him. The film also had all the actors wearing the same clothes throughout most of the movie and most of the film was shot in one house. This measure was probably taken place due to budget constraints, which might probably the case that it had very little publicity using social media and very low satellite publicity.

This film definitely belongs to him and also Varun Sharma. The two are a great jodi. Govinda plays a two timing husband, trying to start an imtimate moment while his wife is away until the entrance of Varun, who's given an ultimatum to sell and install a water purifier or he will lose his job. And then the madness starts.

The film might not be a big hit if it were but Govinda's career might be revived with this film. But perhaps he will have to stick with doing low budget comedy films like this. Maybe he is long away from doing movies with A-list actors.

The only director who could get him back to he elite market would be David Dhawan, who is now concentrating on his son Varun's career.

But it's a refreshing change for Govinda to do films with different directors.

It's a good film to watch if you're a Govinda fan.

Gupt: The Hidden Truth (1997)

Over 2 decades old, still yet to be matched

[10/10 · 3 September 2018]

Gupt is probably the best murder mystery film ever made in Bollywood in modern times. I don't think there's been any that superseded.

The elements that make this such a great murder mystery are that the director Rajiv Rai directed classics like Yudh, Tridev, Vishwatma and Mohra, a great soundtrack by Viju Shah, top star cast of Bobby Deol, Manisha Koirala and Kajol and top supporting cast of Om Puri, Paresh Rawal, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Ashok Saraf, the famous villains Raza Murad, Prem Chopra, Sharat Saxena, Tej Sapru and Mukesh Rishi and, Raj Babbar and Kulbushan Kharbanda.

The intro was a James Bond-style title card with a lady dancing and the locket, the item that leads to the murderer. I don't think there has been and still there's been a credits intro like this.

None of the actors had any flaws in the film, everything was perfect.

Even in 2018 it is a timeless classic.

Bhagam Bhag (2006)

It was a one-man show

[2/10 · 17 February 2018]

This film brought two great actors together for the first time - Govinda and Akshay Kumar. Akshay Kumar was fast becoming the new comedy king while Govinda was making a comeback after some time out of Bollywood to concentrate on his political career.

This movie was about a couple of theatre actors Bunty and Babla (presuming these character names were inspired from a film Bunty Aur Babli released in the previous year) who visit the UK to perform but end up embroiling in a murder incident.

The film was mainly Akshay Kumar's with Govinda unfortunately playing his sidekick. Paresh Rawal had great scenes and Lara Dutta had been OK.

It was a shame that Govinda was restricted in this film. I still cannot understand why he chose to act in such a movie. His role would've suited Sunil Shetty or someone who would suit better to play second fiddle to Akshay. Govinda was truly wasted in this film. When this film released I was really hoping Govinda would play a top role with Akshay Kumar but perhaps Priyadarshan was more in favour to give a better role to Akshay than Govinda. It was a shame that this film treated Govinda like a below average actor.

Akshay Kumar did brilliantly in this film and had some comic scenes. He had more screen presence than Govinda.

It is unlikely that these two will be in another movie after this (although they were in Holiday but Govinda in a small role) as Akshay Kumar is now in a different league while Govinda is trying to resurrect his fading stardom and career.

Aa Gaya Hero (2017)

Why oh why Govinda did this film

[1/10 · 21 March 2017]

I saw Govinda with great dance in the 90s when I was in my pre-teens and early teens, with awesome films like Raja Babu, Aankhen, Coolie No 1. Also a lot of the songs he sung had very pathetic lyrics but he made it so good to listen to. His career dried up in the last decade since he was in politics. So I was looking forward to Aa Gaya Hero, he promoted this movie in various shows and reality shows. The songs, albeit most were not in Bollywood style (apart from Lohe Da Liver), were still good to hear. The trailer looked a tad old but still wanted to watch it because of the legend Govinda. But when I started to watch it, I couldn't believe what was unfolding. The titles were awesome, with snippets of the music of his songs and then got to the scene. The graphics was poor, scenes were not connected, songs come at random. Very amateur direction and camera work. Suddenly we have every 15 minutes goons coming and Govinda beating them black and blue. A scene was shown that a car was about to hit Govinda while jogging and just in time he did a forward flip, which was funny to see. Unfortunately, after 30 minutes, it put me off and couldn't put my attention to the movie. It was hard to understand the movie. The songs were good. Words that describe my experience about this film are - angry, shocked, bewildered, flabbergasted, disbelief and probably more. This is because Govinda, a legendary actor, who I might probably put in the same bracket as Big B (I am a fan of him and Govinda). This film is a career damaging film for him. He's made himself look like a joke and it hurts to see his situation like this. Doing such movies is not helping him get noticed. This movie had other cast members, two actresses Juhi Khan and Richa Sharma (not the singer, a former Miss World apparently) who we may (should probably change it to will) never see in mainstream Bollywood, who were not sure what they were contributing to. Chandrachur Singh, a failed actor, now playing an insignificant role, same with Harish (Govinda's partner in Coolie No 1), a coward cop. Then you got past sell by date actors Ashutosh Rana, Makrand Deshpande and Murli Sharma playing villains but in the end it turns out they're not the main villains. This movie apparently is in 90s style, but I think it is worth watching 90s movies than this dross. Govinda has produced lots of flops and those are worth watching. Govinda is going through a similar struggle that Amitabh Bachchan did 20 years ago when his films Mrityudaata and Major Saab were flops, and when Bade Miyan Chote Miyan was released, ironically it was Govinda who Bachchan depended on for a hit. Today it is sad that Govinda has no one to depend on. I really hope Govinda learns from Big B and takes on leading roles but character based roles. He should start taking mature roles, now he should work with younger bankable actors. It is really sad to see Govinda in this state because he's a legend. Govinda is not finished, but he has to reinvent himself dramatically.

Toofan (I) (1989)

Typical Manmohan Desai movie

[19 September 2004]

This is a very hard movie to get your hands on in Britain so I had to order it overseas. Overall, I think it is a very good movie where Amitabh Bachchan plays Toofan who is a robin hood to those who suffer the atrocities of the robbers and Shyam who is a magician. They were separated by the father, played by Pran who only appeared in the first 30 minutes. It's very strange why this movie is not shown on TV. At the second half of this movie, Toofan and Shyam start playing opposite characters. It's a typical Manmohan Desai movie, brothers separated and found. Farooq Sheikh was good in a small role playing Amitabh's (Shyam) best friend. Meenakshi Sheshadri looked great but had a very short role while Amrita Singh had no character name but had not much to offer. Goga Kapoor didn't really do too much to convince he was the main villain as it was his only movie playing the main villain. The best songs of the movie are Jaadugar Ka Jaadu and Don't Worry Be Happy, sung by Amitabh Bachchan himself. I think it's a good movie and recommend it to Amitabh fans.

Insaniyat (1994)

End of an era for Amitabh...or is it?

[3 February 2004]

What was to become Amitabh Bachchan's final movie of his career before retirement, he ended with an action movie. I thought it was one of the best movies of him where he played an honest police officer who had two tasks - one to end the rivalry of Chunkey Pandey and Sunny Deol and two to destroy the villain Anupam Kher. There were some great songs in this movie sung by all the stars. There was also a young Raveena Tandon, who was only a newcomer. Sonam looking stunning with Chunkey Pandey. Amitabh singing in prison with Jaya Pradha, "Saathi Tera Pyar", another wonderful song. The best one out of all must be "Mere Dil Mein Tu" sung by Chunkey, Sunny and Amitabh. After almost 20 years Nutan was back with Amitabh and she played his wife in Saudagar in 1973. Only this time she was playing mother to him, while 70s and 80s low-key actor Vinod Mehra played his younger brother. After this movie, Nutan and Vinod Mehra died. Perhaps the movie delayed until 1994. Although the movie was a box-office flop, I thought Amitabh performed great. Amitabh came back with the box-office disaster Mrityudaata in 1997.

Aatank Hi Aatank (1995)

A unique movie in the 90s

[13 December 2003]

The movie released in 1995, when there was a period for romantic movies released, such as Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, Barsaat and others. This one was unique in the sense that it is a gangster type movie. The movie is about a farmer who moved to the city of Bombay with his family where he met a boy called Munna who had no-one and both started to become a gangster. Years later son (Rohan) follows suit as he takes over from his father and avenges for both Munna's and his father's murder. Rajnikanth, perhaps this was the last time he did a Hindi movie, ditched his style of "throwing a fag to his mouth" and rather performed a great role as Munna. The amazing performance was by Aamir Khan, who was not really old to play such a role, executed very well as a gangland boss. This movie would have been suitable for this decade, where movies such as Company by Ajay Devgan was made. However, it was not a bad movie, although perhaps Aamir Khan was not the suitable actor to play such a role at that time.

Oh Darling Yeh Hai India (1995)

Do you call this a movie?

[7 September 2003]

Although one of the songs was good, the movie was a disaster. The storyline line was..actually no storyline. There is not semantic of this movie. If anyone would want to watch this movie, go an pick something else but this. The villains existed in this movie but the problem with this movie movie was that the regulars like Shah Rukh Khan and Anupam Kher were all brought to shame and looked like as if they were the skeleton of the real actors. I have seen it once and never again. There is no language in this movie.

Mrityudaata (1997)

Disaster for Big B

[23 August 2003]

After almost 4 years of break, Amitabh came back with this movie and as it released, it became the biggest flop of the year, perhaps Amitabh's biggest since Ganga Jamuna Saraswati. By then people declared Amitabh as the villain of the year. As far as the movie was concerned, it was the typical ingredients of an Indian movie, fighting against corruption and revenge for murder. Amitabh played a doctor in this movie, who had a happy life with a wife and a young brother. Who knew that fate had something tragic in store. Amitabh's young brother, an engineer, gets framed for murder and in jail, he dies. The police claim it was suicide. After the brother died, Amitabh's wife died. Now Amitabh had to save a patient, but another doctor killed him despite a successful operation and therefore was framed for a patient's murder. Another twist, another prisoner tells him that his brother was actually murdered by the police. Amitabh soon gets out of jail and then kills all the culprit who were responsible for his brother's death. On top of that, he also kills the corrupt politician before he dies. There are many possible reasons for this movie to be a flop, perhaps Big B, or Amitabh Bachchan, was playing a character that he should have played a decade ago. Another reason could be that Amitabh was featured with a different actor Arbaaz Ali Khan and 90s leading ladies Karishma Kapoor, who briefly appeared. Maybe the audience did not like Amitabh to play a fighter for justice. At least now he is recovered, thanks to his fronting of India's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" and some further hits.

Aks (2001)

Total garbage

[6 April 2003]

Must be one of the worst ever movies of the Big B. Hardly recognizable actors/actresses, any semantical storyline.

What kind of a movie is this?

That is not the kind of movie that Amitabh is renowned for.

The Big Breakfast (1992–2002)

Good riddance!

[31 March 2002]

The axing of the Big Breakfast was on the cards for sometime. It was destined to face the chop since they had wicked presenters like Paul Tonkinson, whose jokes were awful and lame, Richard Bacon, who can't even act properly. Amanda Byram looked awful as a presenter. The problem was that they couldn't bring experienced presenters. Johnny Vaughan and Denise van Outen were the best presenters of this programme - better than Chris Evans and Gaby Roslin. Paul Tonkinson - who the hell is he? Amanda Byram - what?! Well I believe Kelly Brook's curse struck the programme after her "shocking" sack, just six months in there. I believe it was the right thing that happened to the Big Breakfast. Big Breakfast 1992-2002

Coronation Street (1960– )

The most boring soap opera ever!

[4 April 2000]

This soap opera is the most boring ever! Eastenders is a billion times better than this drama. This drama is so awful that it has been out of date. People have an awful taste if they like this programme and are fans of the drama series. I think it should finish just as the other awful drama Crossroads did in 1988. This should finish sooner rather than later.