My Original Interview with the Fake Spielberg!

Posted on March 12, 2013 by workaholicvarun

So I know, given my progression in the movie critic universe, getting an interview from the great and mind-blowing Speilberg is close to impossible. Unless I get married to a hollywood actress who is acutely short of finances. I have great regards and respect for him.

However, its so itching not to have interviewed him when the whole of Indian Media is getting to do it. So I decided to interview Mr. Fake spielberg who got caught inside my imagination. Hope you guys enjoy this. This is purely for fun!

1. Hi Mr. Fake Spielberg, how are you doing today ? Are you loving India ?

FS : Oh yes! India is amazing. Thank God I stay only in 7 star hotels and avoid public transport to commute. Where’s my hand sanitizer ?

2. Mr. Fake Spielberg, have you heard of the Varun’s Word?

FS: Ofcourse, its the latest trend in the US now. Actually I was considering making a movie on the birth, existence and rise of Varun’s Word.

3. That was very kind of you Mr. Fake Spielberg. Nice try. But you still have to answer my tough questions. Here’s the first one. When will you stop making movies ?

FS: Ask Sachin to retire, I will retire.  Ask Rajni..(Fake Spielberg observes that I am tightening my fist when I hear Rajni and he does not complete the sentence). Ask Clint Eastwood to retire, I will retire.

4. Nice work with the Adventures of Tintin but it was so predictable. Why did you film it?

FS: So what if its predictable. “I” directed it and we had used a new animation technology. Why should I care for predictability. Thats your worry.

5. Of-late you got stuck to the same genres. Take E.T. genre.  And Aliens & cowboys that was exactly like the Indiana Jones movie you directed that involved an Alien in the end.

FS: Boy, how long is that question. The Answer is NO. They are all different movies.

6. So what do you say about the snub at the Academy awards. Ang Lee won the oscar for best director. Do you see the EAST is rising even in the leisure industry now?

FS: No comments please.

7. Ok, ask yourself a question. I ran out of questions now.

FS: How do I fund my next project? Gotta meet some cash-rich Indian politician. Would you recommend any?

8. I am not too sure of that. You should ask one of the news channels that you visited earlier today, they know quite a lot of them. Here is your last question. Is there any genre that you have not made a movie on?

FS: Oh yes. I would love to direct some of those mindless multi-starrer hindi comedy movies. You see that would be my bottom and I wanna hit that at least once in my life.

It was pleasure talking to you sir.

–Varun Mannava Gowtham

Posted in Celebrity Interviews | 1 Comment

Zero Dark Thirty

Posted on February 18, 2013 by workaholicvarun

On May 1, 2011 social media reported the death of Osama Bin Laden. What followed was a week full of breaking news coverage on Regional, National and International news channels. People were glued to the updates on Facebook and the stories of how CIA operatives cracked the location of 9/11 mastermind. It was a remarkable story.

Now it’s not every year that you get to hear someone like Osama being hunted down. In this generation there was only one Osama and God willing there won’t be any Osama in the coming years. That’s why this movie becomes so important to watch. We may all remember the news articles but the cinematic thrill was missing in it. “Zero Dark Thirty” is that cinematic response to the modern era’s greatest revenge story.

“How do account for the risk of not doing something. Like, letting a person like Osama slip through your fingers?” This is the best dialogue by far. There are other remarkable scenarios where the protagonist puts a fight with her boss for not letting her pursue Bin Laden.

“Maya” is this CIA agent who plays a key role in hunting down OBL (fictional as the real CIA gave clean chit saying it was not a single agent who traced down OBL). She plays a role of this possessed / adamant kid who won’t sleep or play till she has seen the end of the rainbow. And she does find Osama at the end of this rainbow and its not a unicorn story that she had built up. And she’s got a lot of Performance appraisal techniques and pressure techniques to apply on your manager.

Katherine Bigelow comes back with a flair after “Hurt Locker”. She is Hollywood’s in-house expert in dealing with ‘Terrorism’ movies as her ex husband was the Hollywood’s expert in ‘Computer graphics’ movies. Now that’s called good influence and carving a niche for yourself.

Its released late in India, but its better late than never. Too late and the Oscars would get over and there would be no buyers in the Indian circuit for the movie.

–Varun Gowtham Mannava.

zero-dark-thirty

Posted in Movie Review | 2 Comments

David – 1975, 1999, 2010

Posted on February 1, 2013 by workaholicvarun

Three Davids. Three different generations. But they are united in their action. They may not be related to each other. A thin line connects them. However they are one of those rarest humans. Atleast that’s what Bejoy Nambiar (the Director) feels.

When you are too genius in school, when you are too smart at work you get a double promotion! When you are too creative and have too much to express in 150 minutes what do you do. You look towards Bejoy Nambiar. He is the newest talent when it comes to freshness, newness, exciting screenplay, exciting camerawork, cool background score, characterization and casting. I mean who can cast so many characters in one movie, every song is composed by a different music composer. I am flat as a critic. You can’t beat this guy’s energy! Give it up for Bejoy Nambiar folks.

Now, I will speak about the movie also for some time otherwise this will be a passage on Bejoy Nambiar.

Ok now, this is the cast ! can someone count this please :  Vikram, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Vinay Virmani, Lara Dutta, Tabu, Isha Sharvani, Sheetal Menon, Nassar, Nishan, Prahlad Kakkar, Remo Fernandes, Rubi Chakravarti, Monica Dogra, Rohini Hattangadi, Milind Soman, John Vijay, Saurabh Shukla, Shweta Pandit, Satish Kaushik, Anupama Kumar, Akarsh Khurana, Manish Jha, Bharat Jha, Ajinkya Dev, Sarika (Special appearance), Sainath Dukkipati.

Chiyaan Vikram’s cool transition from Kollywood to Bollywood has just got cooler. I hope he continues to do more movies in Bollywood and not stop. He does 150% justice to his role as a drunkard lover boy. He is confused whether or not the girl likes him too.

Vinay Virmani as the upcoming musician promises good looks but may be slightly woody in expressions. He has two good actors as the other two Davids.

Neil Nitin Mukesh as a gangster’s forbidden son is the dark horse in this movie. His role is the most like-able and he has pulled it off with great composure. Add to this, the black and white cinematography for his story.

Tabu’s role stays in your head for quite a while after the three Davids. She is a natural actor and brings her strength to the table.

Screenplay, Cinematography and Editing are the three pillars of this movie, fourth one being Bejoy himself.

Happy “Trendsetting” movie watching experience!

–Varun Mannava Gowtham

david-movie-poster

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Why you need to watch “Vishwaroopam” ?

Posted on January 30, 2013 by workaholicvarun

These are strange times that we live in. At one side we celebrate our independent voices. We celebrate our rights. The power of voicing an opinion through social media is gaining more and more momentum. At the other side there are victims of “cultural blackmail”. And it is even fateful to witness someone like Padmasri Kamal Haasan at the receiving end of all this stupidity. I recently read an article by ‘times of india’ that quoted Quentin Tarantino was inspired by Kamal Haasan’s “Azhavandhan (Abhay in Hindi)”. That is the class and potential of the man who is a victim today.

Also the irony of the situation amuses me in not so comfortable manner. I am in Hyderabad and I have watched the Tamil version of the movie and am writing this review. However my friends and fellow Tamilians in their own state need to wait till Feb 6th. This is a very crucial juncture that can make or break the artist who is a pioneer in current generation of indian movies.I have never written a review for a movie that is at such a critical spot. I take pride in writing this movie review.

Why you need to watch Vishwaroopam ?

a) This movie is as good as watching a flawless Hollywood movie, only difference is that most of the characters speak in Tamil. Technically, it can’t get better than this in Indian movies.

b) As Kamal Haasan pointed out, this may be his last tamil movie while he is still a resident of India. Can the Tamil film industry afford to lose him in this fashion?

c) The other reason being, as all the news channels are pointing out, if few elements of the society have the right to protest against a movie that has been cleared by the censor board, the remaining society at large can also demand for their right to watch the movie without any blockades or disturbances.

Controversies apart, if we look at the nature of Vishwaroopam, its equivalent to all other movies released till date. “Body of lies”, “Mission Kashmir”, “Roja” and the list goes on. Jihad is a worldwide phenomenon. That is what the movie tries to display in Kamal Haasan’s own style. I don’t see any controversy at all provided the audiences view Jihadis only as Jihadis.

Kamal Haasan has portrayed 3 roles in this movie. The role of a soft Kathak dancer where he displays expressions and emotions with great ease. This is the role where he gets to display his versatile abilities. He dances, he evokes humour, he displays, he has sung parts of the song himself (Unnai Kaanadhu Naan song). He speaks, walks and reacts in a feminine as the role demands him. Out of the Navarasas, he has displayed all emotions using this one character of a Kathak dancer in NYC. Clearly displaying why he is a living legend in Indian movies. The remaining two roles that he plays would reveal the plot so I would refrain from getting into the details. But I would definitely mention that a lot of mind has gone into the creation and portrayal of these two roles as well. All credit to the one and only Kamal sir.

Rahul Bose landed himself a role of his lifetime. I am pretty sure he would sweep all the awards for the negative role section, including the national awards. At no point we realise that he is enacting a role of the one-eyed mastermind. He has lived this role onscreen. He also has difficulty in speech and in walking. Kamal has characterized this role with great detail.

The sheer presence of Shekhar Kapur elevates the movie and gives it an international appeal. He has portrayed his role with ease. It’s good to see him on-screen after a long hiatus.

Andrea and Pooja fulfil their roles.

Title track sung by Suraj Jagan captures the mood and imagination of the movie. Pretty decent album by the trio of Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy.

The only flaw I personally feel is the characters conversing in Arabic/ Afghani on-screen. The subtitles being only in Tamil, I could not read and assimilate so fast. If the subtitles were also in English, it would have given me better understanding of what Rahul Bose and Nasser were conversing.

–Varun Mannava Gowtham

vishwaroopam

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Ganesh Kumar Mohan – One small step in Feature films; One Giant leap for Short Films!

Posted on January 23, 2013 by workaholicvarun

Varun’s Word on the Short film Director who is making news with his latest 40-minute short film “Kuttimaa”.  Youtube is generally the medium for screening short films, however Ganesh Kumar Mohan (standing at extreme right in the below pic) plans to release “Kuttimaa” in preview theatres across different cities and overseas too, a new milestone in the short films circuit if that happens. Read on!

kuttimaa

1. Ganesh, tell us something about yourself. Your early life, work life. When did you discover this passion to work on short films?

I did my schooling and college in my home town Coimbatore. After MCA, I worked in Bangalore for an IT concern for 4 years. During that time, I started short film making. Though the craze for film making did exist ever since my childhood, 2009 was the year where I practically did something towards my passion.

2. What was your first short film? Being the first time, was it the toughest experience?

My first short was ‘Brindavan’ in 2009, which was an amateur work. Without any theoretical knowledge or practical experience, I started the venture with the help of my close friends. It had a theme on old age homes and brain-drain. I had to spend a lot of time to get technicians, actors and locations. All were non professionals. With whatever I got, I completed the short film in 2 days. I myself tried editing and other post production works. Though it looks shoddy work, I feel it’s the learning step.

3. How many short films have you directed till now. Do short films generate revenue? Who produces your short films ?

I have done 5 short films like ‘Brindavan’, ‘536’, ‘Ramasamy’, ‘O4P’, and now ‘Kuttimaa’. I myself produced my films except ‘Kuttimaa’ which is produced by Nibiru entertainers.  I used to spend out of my pocket and get help from friends in terms of casting and locations. I should mention about my core team members like Venkat Sundar, who acts in my movies and has got recognition for his unique style in acting, KB Prabu who shows his brilliance in cinematography, Abhinav Sundar Nayak who edits and make th movie crisp, Vinod varma who assists me and supports me all the time. I got my team mostly through social media where people come forward showing their interest to work with me and I collaborate with like-minded talents. My team comprises of people from different regions and backgrounds. Short films can generate moderate amount of revenue. But now, the platform is bigger than earlier days. So with wise strategies and good product, it is becoming possible to get the money back. More corporates and theaters should come forward to make this as an industry.

4. Director A.R. Murugadoss in his interview quoted that he was very impressed with your ‘Award winning’ short film”O4P” and he is pretty convinced that your team is capable of working in main stream cinema. Do you consider 04P gave you the first breakthrough to main stream movies?

O4P is definitely a milestone among our films. With the attention we got from Internet audience through our films like ‘536’ and ‘Ramasamy’, we wanted to give a better movie in all aspects and came up with ‘O4P’ and arranged preview shows before online release. The movie was received very well and crossed 6 lakhs views so far on Youtube. Fortunately, AR Murugadoss watched the movie in youtube and mailed me. I was so surprised to see an appreciation mail from him and contacted him back. He is a humble person who met our team and shared his appreciation in person and kept supporting our ventures. ‘O4P’ created a base for our team and garnered better attention among Internet audience.

5. “Kuttimaa” is your latest venture and it is making waves already.

So happy to see audiences supporting ‘Kuttimaa’ right from announcement to Preview show. Thanks a lot for their trust and affection towards our team. We are planing to have previews at all major cities and also overseas. Also planing to approach TV channels for telecast to reach wider audience. We are looking for distributors/channels to support our venture.

6. Tell us more on how was the experience watching the preview of “Kuttimaa” with Ace Director A.R. Murugadoss at the AVM theatre. Did he give you any tips or feedback?

It was really a great experience watching the movie with a person like AR Murugadoss who proved his excellence nationwide. We have shown the movie to him at his home personally and he appreciated a lot in detail. Also, he came to preview show and watched it second time with audience and loved the movie a lot. He spoke a lot about the movie and gave  strong recognition which eventually drew the attention of media too. He gave constructive ideas to improve the movie and also openly appreciated script and technical aspects in the movie. He gave a boost to our team by saying we have potential to make a feature film.

7. Do you plan to release this movie only in preview theatres or based on the response, would you consider releasing in a few movie theatres also? e.g. Sathyam Cinemas encourages ‘pure cinema’ and I am sure “Kuttimaa” would fit.

We are open to new ideas which will gain us financial benefit and also wider recognition. As the response is really great, we are moving forward with some more previews in other cities. We are planning to approach corporates like Sathyam Cinemas too. Hope we get enough guidance and support from the experts in the field and make this a profitable venture to pave way for upcoming short films.

8. How did you conceive this plot about a touching relationship between Grandmother – Grandson for “Kuttimaa”? Do you feel family values are important in these days of nuclear family / live-in relationship culture?

The plot evolved from my personal experiences. I find the relationship between a granny and her grandson is something novel, which comprises of fights due to generation gap, underlying affection etc. And I found not many movies based on this line. So I wanted to make a subtle emotional drama on this concept. I took some funny instances from my life and added some flavor to make the movie more interesting. Also, this movie emphasizes subtly on how elders are not taken care by their heirs which is a harsh reality. I would like to give entertaining movies with a good message for the society.

9. What are the future projects that you are working on?

I am planning to make a feature film soon and am working on script and looking for an efficient producer. Hope to enter the mainstream soon.

10. To all the working professionals out there who want to pursue their passion, but are unable to take the leap, whats your advise. You have been there, done that.

I went through those confusing days where your heart says pursue your passion but mind says just earn bread and butter. But there comes one point where you realise you can’t ride on two horses and have to choose one way. At that time, we have to gather all courage and confidence and move from comfort to courage zone. That transition period will be really tough but all we need is perseverance and hard work. When the right time comes, things will fall in place. We just have one life.  That does not mean, every one should right away throw the job and jump into film making. While working, they can do some short films and see if they can really shine well in the field. When they really gain confidence, they can take action.

“Kuttimaa” teaser trailer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDYiiGjKJdU

“O4P” Short film : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leQ0eLJpsnk&list=UUsbyW82QWL6i9PmH0BG16XQ&index=8

–Varun Mannava Gowtham

Posted in Celebrity Interviews | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Strong Coffee with ‘Machi Escape’ crew !

Posted on January 21, 2013 by workaholicvarun

Venue : Cafe Coffee Day Lounge, Hyderabad.                                             Date : 20-01-2013

Interview with Machi Escape Crew: Vivek Suriyamoorthy (Story, Screenplay & Direction) and Krishnan Ganesan (Music Director)

1. How did you conceive the plot of Machi Escape?

Vivek : Around 2009, my room-mates and I used to commute to office using share-autos. I always keep visualizing quite a lot of “What If” scenarios during this commute of 20 minutes. That gave birth to the plot of Machi Escape.

2. Why the title Machi Escape? (It’s partly English and partly Tamil.)

Vivek : ‘Machi’ is no longer a Tamil word, thanks to Kolaveri culture. Besides, given the scenario in the plot, these were the first words that came to my mind. Although there were few other suggestions for the title later, we stuck to the first one.

3. Have you faced any ‘Machi Escape’ moments in your life till now?

Vivek : Quite a few, but can’t disclose in a public forum. (Smiles)

Krishnan: (Smiles) I think each one of us would have had this moment at some point or the other in our lives. e.g. We would have visualized confrontation of various scenarios with our friends / parents / teachers etc and would have taken the Machi Escape route to avoid them.

4. When did you discover this passion (to create / work in a short film) ?

Vivek : My father used to have critical and deep observations on Tamil movies. Whenever I sat down with him to watch a movie, he would come up with minute and valid observations. e.g. There is a scene in “Hey Ram” movie, where a background bhajan is added to suit for the ‘Marghazhi’ season. He observed this and pointed it out to me that Kamal Hassan took utmost care even on the smallest details. This fascinated me. I realized that the technical aspects of a movie was more fun than watching the movie itself. There started my passion. Screenplay was my first love. I keep visualizing one liners and try to add screenplay to develop the one liner / idea into a full-fledged short film / feature film.

Krishnan: Music used to fascinate me right from my childhood. However as I grew up, I started taking up piano classes and started playing. I discovered the true passion in me when I was fixed more on the sound track than anything else while watching movies in theatres. That’s when I realized the passion is growing stronger.

5. How did you cope up with making a short film while working for a software firm in parallel?

Vivek : The plot was conceived in 2009 and it took a lot of will power and persuasion to roll out the completed short film by 2012 end.  Since it is a freelance venture, gathering all cast and crew at the same time was the major challenge. If the crew was there one of the cast members were not there. However those were for genuine reasons so I had no complaints. Infact I am very thankful for the entire team for sparing their weekends to bring my idea to life. We filmed all of it during weekends so it did not affect our work much.

Sethuraman played a major role in editing and post-production. Sujay was like the executive producer, arranging locations for the shoot and making execution possible. Bhasky was the optimist during the prolonged pre-production phase. Arun was the epitome of dedication, he was always up to the point. Usha was a telugite, however she volunteered to dub her own voice for tamil dialogues, and it worked out really well for her character.

Krishnan: I finished the music in two weekends (smiles), so my work was not affected either. Wanted to pitch in a live instrument (Uduku) for the end-credits for better impact, however could not execute it. So had to be satisfied with a similar sound on my keyboard.

6. What are the next steps, how do you plan to carry forward this passion?

Vivek : I am planning to read more books on Screenplay, Direction and Cinematography. This would increase my theory knowledge. And I also need to work on few more short films and excel technically before I take the leap to feature films.

Krishnan: Attending karaokes, Small jam sessions, Guitar classes etc. I just want stay in touch with music whenever I have free time. Ultimately exposure and experience is the best teacher in my art.

7. Any fun moments while filming that you like to share with us?

Vivek : Audition bloopers, fixing the auto (break-down) while shooting in it, shooting Usha while she was acting dead. The list goes on. These are not moments, these are permanent memories.

Krishnan: Auditions for the climax scene where the participants had to get scared looking at a corpse. This brought the roof down. We got to see some of the funniest expressions from our friends.

8. Actor Siddharth recently produced and acted in a movie titled Love Failure that was inspired from a short film. If such an opportunity presents itself would you be game?

Vivek : As I mentioned earlier, I can’t take up direction/ camera till I gauge myself as fit for a feature film. However if I get a chance to write the screenplay I will take it up for sure!

–Varun Mannava Gowtham

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Posted in Celebrity Interviews | 4 Comments

My first review on Short Film – Machi Escape (Tamil)

Posted on January 12, 2013 by workaholicvarun

In the short film universe there is very little time to execute what you want to convey. You need to execute this in a slick fashion without any unnecessary diversions. Short Films may  be taken too lightly at present since they seem very easy to film. However one should also acknowledge the fact that most of the short films are shot by amateurs and first timers and there is very minimum role for professionals. Its not easy to shoot a short film that clicks.

Given the above scenario, Machi Escape knows its thrills & shrills and this one clicks too.

It is beautifully woven initially as a boy meets girl story in a fast paced ‘share-auto’ – software culture. How a casual conversation with your co-passenger cum stranger can land you in trouble is very well demonstrated here.

The highlight of this short film is the way the actors highlight the letters ‘EAT’ derived from the girls mobile number, however the camera focuses on the letters again to highlight altogether a different word. This adds as a strong point for director Vivek Suriyamoorthy’s narrative skills.

The music director Krishnan Ganesan’s adaption of ‘Kill Bill’ tune as the ringtone shows good taste. Also the background score towards the climax and credits stands out.

Arun Balaji and Usha have done their roles pretty well, both of them comfortable with their expressions.

–Varun Mannava Gowtham

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Madhapur – eat out @ 130/- only..

Posted on January 4, 2013 by workaholicvarun

Alright! Madhapur being the tech capital of Hyderabad city, the food options are also quite a lot. You see techie and back-office crowd get bored fast and prefer variety. So how about trying a new way of having dinner.

Instead of having different items from one outlet how about having one item from different outlets. It feeds the food explorer in you.

Samosa ragada at Keshav Reddy sweets – 30/- :

Once you buy the coupon and hand it over to the chat counter you have to wait for solid 10 minutes before you order is served. In the mean time you can stand there and watch the chat guy prepare other items. Once your ragada is ready you can start experiencing different flavours on your taste buds. The tinge of garam masala, the occasional sev and onions, the meaty ragada made of channa and samosa. Caution: served hot.

Jalebi at Delhiwala sweets – 30/- :

100 grams is all you get for 30/- but trust me, that should suffice your sweet tooth. The dough prepared is squeezed into hot oil and allowed to roast for a minute. It is then soaked in hot sugar syrup for another minute. What you get after this is golden looking sweet tasting juicy jalebis ready to be consumed hot.

Pani puri near petrol bunk – 15/- :

It may not be the most hygenic outlet but trust me, you get the taste in such outlets. He gives 4 puris for 10 bucks but i wanted two more. He makes one dry puri in the end as complimentary.

Aloo cheese paratha n lassi at Sanjha Chulha – 55/- :

This is the most famous punjabi food outlet here and cheap too. Order aloo cheese paratha here and sip on the lassi while you wait. Paratha is served hot with onions and pickle.

So you got so much variety for 130/- . Get a sweet pan to help you digest the food. Go home and sleep tight.

— varun mannava gothamm

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My Farewell Note

Posted on December 28, 2012 by workaholicvarun

In the year 2003, if you were staying in Chennai’s Tambaram area, you would have seen me cycling the locality at 6 am, delivering news papers and magazines for a living. At that time, if you had asked me what hope was, I would have told you its the only energy that kept me moving. At no point in my life I had imagined that I would be part of a sophisticated hedge fund operations team with cutting edge technology.

College Education made a lot of difference in my life. DESIS gave me the maximum bandwidth for a Bachelors degree (that too Life Sciences). No other firm would have uncovered so much potential in me and rewarded me so much.

The best reward that I take away from DESIS is the luxury of choice in exercising my future steps in life. All my life ‘choice’ was either un-affordable or un-reachable due to competition and I couldn’t pursue what i liked. Now there is no such stopping. I owe this learning and luxury to DESIS.

Being the first Associate batch in Finop, I hope my journey in the last 6.5 years from an Associate to a Senior Analyst was as beneficial to the firm as it was to me. I would encourage more and more associates to keep showing more commitment and hard-work so that Shaw keeps up this tradition of recruiting graduates and as a result, some needy graduates like me can afford to discover their choice in life.

–Varun Mannava Gowtham

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

Talaash – Gripping Supernatural Thriller

Posted on December 1, 2012 by workaholicvarun

 

Talaash-Aamir-Khan

Talaash is the kind of movie which could have just been critically acclaimed and forgotten in a few weeks had the director Reema Kagti chosen to shoot with a bunch of freshers. But because she chose to cast three superstars despite a strong story, the movie is pitted to become a landmark in the supernatural thriller genres.

The movie needs to be taken seriously right from the opening scene. As small as a street’s dog’s howling will make sense once the suspense is revealed. The director has gone to the extent of mentioning the street dog in a dialogue.  We may think its just cheap comedy but its not. There are also a few shots where one might start feeling that Kareena is everywhere and listening to all the plots. This in no way is a flaw in the script. Everything would make sense once the suspense is revealed.

Aamir Khan is famous for his stint with experimentation. Although this movie may not be a huge revenue generator, but that should not deter his willingness to try new roles. He has portrayed the role of a depressed father with extreme sincerity. So much to the extent that he managed to roll out a few tears from the audiences towards the climax. One of them being a girl sitting next to me.

Rani appears with almost zero make-up and totally does justice to her role. Kareena looks dashing in this movie. All she does is smile and look pretty, but once the suspense is revealed, her role becomes even more important. Nawazuddin Siddique of ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ fame comes up with a fine performance as the limping pimp.

Reema Katgi co-wrote the movie along with Zoya Akhtar. The dialogues were written by Farhan Akhtar. Its a great combination. Watch out for the scene where Aamir Khan repents the loss of his son and he keeps thinking of preventive alternatives that he could have taken to avoid his son’s death. Thats the director’s toast.

Ram Sampath is the unsung hero of this movie as he comes up with five songs and all five of them stand out and mesmerize. Usually Farhan Akhtar prefers Shankar Ehsan Loy but Ram Sampath has exceeded the stereotype.

Talaash has a unique story and is neatly executed. 4 stars !

–Varun Mannava Gowtham

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