Heroes

Cast: Salman Khan,Sunny Deol,Bobby Deol,Mithun Chakraborty,Preity Zinta,Sohail Khan,Vatsal Sheth,Dino Morea,Amrita Arora,Riya Sen
Director: Samir Karnik

Sometimes it takes only a moment to bring about a big change. One experience can transform you forever. One journey can set you on a path that you will follow all your life. Heroes is the story of one such journey. A journey enriched with moments and experience that changes the outlook of two young boys.

Sammy and Ali are childhood friends. They have taken joint decisions in life, right from choosing a school to taking up a career. Even though they are not like-minded, they are together because they rely heavily on each other - two bodies, one soul. Sammy is an eccentric boy, high-spirited and has an uncanny knack of finding humor in the weirdest of situations. He's generous, compassionate yet impulsive. He is like a kid who needs to fall to learn how to walk. Ali on the other hand is quieter and more mature.

Heroes is the story of these two boys who travel a thousand miles to deliver three letters as a part of their film school assignment. But little do they know that the journey they have embarked upon will give a new meaning to their life. They discover the power within themselves to change lives and events that are of importance. Heroes emphasizes on the simple experiences that can awaken feelings of patriotism. A fun road trip for two boys and a series of experiences that finite emotions that have never been experienced before, this is the underlying crux of the film. The film is an attempt to bring out the new age meaning of patriotism - 'You don't have to be a soldier to love your country'

Dostana

Starring: Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham, Priyanka Chopra, Kirron Kher, Boman Irani
Written & Directed by Tarun Mansukhani
Rating: ***


Get this straight. Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham are not gay. They are just happy pretending to be bed partners. In the endeavour they pull put all stops and get into the gay zone with a gusto that stumps all the moralists.


There are butt-and-bum jokes galore some even pointed at the leading lady. But hold that frown. Auntyji, chill. It's all for fun. Wanna join in?The theme of heterosexual characters pretending to be gay to get a precious abode in the bustle of the metropolis is pretty cool.Bachchan and Abraham, both in full form, get into the gay groove without going over the top.


They come out with flying colours through most of the material that's provided to them to sink their teeth into. While John combines terrific body language with some great comic timing (he's come a long way from his thanda GaramMasala days) Abhishek's expressions are a scream in their pitch-perfection.


One of the most brilliantly-written sequences orchestrates all the characters of this gay-play in the same room. There're the play-acting gay protagonists, a gay magazine editor (a flawlessly wimpy Boman Irani), a gay marriage-bureau official (who just decides to drop in for a quick –check) and of course Abhishek's homophobic mother (Kirron Kher) who screams and rants and then accepts her son's apparent sexual preference.


You could simply marvel at the two principal actors giving so much of heart and others parts to their parts. After a point you're tempted to stop counting the number of times the word 'gay' gets in the way of the narrative. From 'Mera beta gay hai' (courtesy Abhishek's mom Kirron Kher) to a 'Han main gay hoon' …. Dostana wins the how-to-say-gay-in-every-which-way award of the year. Sandwiched between the two brilliantly-poised heroes is Priyanka Chopra, glowing like a 1000-watt bulb in her immaculate wardrobe (and out of it…she too gets into beachwear, what did you think?).

So here's the bottom (oops!) line. Hindi cinema finally comes out of the closet. And going by how little John Abraham wears in most of the film. There's very little coming out of the closet.But there you have it. Bollywood's first beach-bum-chum meri-dosti-mera-pyar dildo-dil-lo preparation done on that slow-burn state of leisurely cooking where the characters get an ample chance to extend the parameters of the conventional cinema without toppling into the abyss of overstatement.

First-time writer-director Tarun Mansukhani has the zing thing in his vision. Miami shot with fetching gusto by Aynanka Bose lifts the luscious locales to more than a touristic paradise. The desi characters seem to belong to this beachside paradise.

Dasvidaniya

Starring Vinay Pathak & Friends

Directed by Shashant Singh

Rating: ***

There's something to be said about this sensitive slice-of-life cinema. And it's this. You really can't keep a good man down.

Returning to the ambit of the dull workingclass protagonist that he almost patented in Bheja Fry Vinay Pathak delivers yet another bravura performance as a man who learns to live only when he learns he has to die.

The premise done to death (pun intended) in films as disparate as Akira Kurosawa's Ikuru and Hrishikesh Mukherjee's Anand, gets its power and glory from the simple yet never simplistic narrative that grows on you… piece by piece….just as the lessons of life creep up belatedly on our hero Amar Kaul.

With every dying day he lives a little more of that life he leaves behind. Though the film's leisurely pace doesn't quite capture the urgency of the moment, Dusvidaniya scores high point for its sincerity of performance reflected in every performance.

The narrative has been patterned prettily as a pastiche of ten episodes each dealing with a facet of Amar Kaul's life that he would like to retrieve from the archives of angst and claim as his own before he's gone. The pace often drops to a willowy whisper.

The tone gets predominantly stifled. The narration is constantly hushed, never rushed even as the shuffling, procrastinating hero speeds through things in his pending file that he needs done before he's through with life.

The beauty and harmony of life's essential core is obtained in passages of relaxed rumination and casual conversations that show us where we often go wrong in our daily dealings. This is done without wagging a dispproving finger at the audience.Vinay Pathak gets the sur of the tragic hero's comic escapades just right. He's partly Charlie Chaplin, and partly Robert Benigni. But finally this is an actor who does his own thing. Make no mistake about that. Helping him in his endeavour are like-minded friends like Rajit Kapur, Neha Dhupia, Ranvir Shorey, Sarita Joshi and Gaurav Gera all pitching in with transparently- sincere performances. There is not one faked moment in Dasvidaniya.

You may feel portions of the film (like the Kailesh Kher number Mumma) are manipulative in their intentions. But that's life. You win some. You lose most of it. Kudos to Pathak for making another winner out of another incorrigible loser's story.