Margaret of Don’t Call It Bollywood and I met at the Chicagoland Indian movie theater lasts night to catch the new Hindi film Bareilly Ki Barfi with Ayushmann Khurrana, Kriti Sanon and Rajkummar Rao. It is SO GOOD! Cannot recommend this film highly enough. We absolutely loved it!
Rajkummar Rao was the main reason I was interested in seeing this film, because he looked so funny in the trailer. He is just delightful as a nebbish and then transforms into a tough asshole type as part of Ayushmann’s scheme. He was a RIOT!
This film has a fantastic script based on a novel. It’s very clever how the plot unfolds, and while I laughed my ass off so much, and then it had such an emotional ending that I teared up. Kriti had agency in the end, and that made it even better.
Plus, a woman director!! Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari in her second feature film knocks it out of the park.
So many trailers came out last week! Here are my reactions to four of the new films that I’m looking forward to seeing.
Any new movie from Dulquer Salmaan is one I’m looking foward to seeing. After I posted this, someone commented that the film is an anthology and Dulquer will play several characters in the film. This is just the first character, Rudhra.
Bhoomi shows Sanjay Dutt as the father of his daughter Bhoomi. No subtitles but I get the basic gist that this is a revenge story. I’m looking forward to seeing Sanjay play a father role.
Simran is the “maid” picture that was filmed in the States. What I just learned is that the director Hansal Mehta is the same one who directed the fantastic Aligharh. No subs, but it looks super quirky!
Finally subtitles, although they don’t show up in my reaction. This is just a teaser for Chay Akkineini’s latest film, but it looks exciting. Chay is definitely a great action film actor, and I’m enjoying following his career.
I have just launched my new YouTube Channel Pardesi with Kartik of Bollyfools. He first interviewed me right after that very first IMAX showing of Baahubali 2, and we struck up a frienship. After I did Indian Cinema reviews for the Bollyfools Youtube channel for the last few months, we’ve decided to strike out on our own with this new Pardesi Channel. We decided on Pardesi because I’m a foreigner reviewing Indian Cinema, and Kartik is an ex-pat in America.
I’ll be doing movie reviews for the most part in the four main Indian Cinema: Hindi, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam. I’m going to try trailer reactions and song reactions. In fact I just did one for the first song Boom Boom from Mahesh Babu’s Spyder. I had to take the Picture in Picture and audio out from the song because I got dinged right away. I think I look ridiculous bobbing my head to silence but I have to know — why is there the word Hogwarts in a Spyder song??!! It’s so strange!
I was traveling overseas on vacation and the M.S. Dhoni movie starring Sushant Singh Rajput was one of the “international” choices on the plane movie entertainment system. So, I took a chance on it. I know nothing about cricket — only as much as you pick up watching Lagaan. I knew nothing about Dhoni either — only had heard his name.
The first half of the film with the story of Dhoni’s childhood and early days trying to work up to the big leagues I found very compelling. The two romances in the film were also very well done.
After I watched the movie, I read about how many months Sushant spent working with cricket coaches to perfect the signature Dhoni swing. I can’t speak to how well he embodied Dhoni since I haven’t ever watched the real man play, but he did a good job acting the part.
The second half of the film just fell apart for me. It was sixer after sixer in a highlight reel of games that didn’t mean anything to me. I suppose they were important. Margaret of Don’t Call It Bollywood shared with me that she saw this film in a theater crowded with Dhoni fans who anticipated every big moment, and even change of jersey colors. I was watching it alone on a plane, so I didn’t have that to give me any sense of dramatic tension.
I shouldn’t have to be an expert in cricket or the man Dhoni to feel dramatic tension and be swept up in his story. I’ve seen other films about sports I know nothing about that are some of my favorite films ever. Asif Kapadia’s documentary about the Formula One racer Senna is incredible. (Kapadia went on to win the Oscar for Amy.) I was on the edge of my seat practically the whole movie. I’m a fan of Michael Sheen so I watched The Damned United, about the short reign of a football coach for the Manchester United team. The conflict between Sheen’s character and the team, the management, and especially his best friend and partner is an incredibly dramatic story. Highly recommend both films, btw.
Dhoni participated in this film, doing several hours of interviews, and they used those real details to give the “untold” story. But that meant that they glossed over some other real events to stay in Dhoni’s good graces. He was a “consultant” or executive producer or something on the film. There were little moments that just slid by, that you could have based the entire dramatic arc of the second half on — like his insistence as captain of the India team to force out a few older players who weren’t “fit” to start rebuilding the team toward the World Cup years in the future. Just mentioned and then glossed over. There were a few moments like that. Instead we got more footage of sixer after sixer. I actually almost dozed off watching it.
Anupam Kher is of course great as Dhoni’s father. He’s always great. The music montage numbers were good. Those songs were in the charts for weeks. And I did like the romances.
I guess I give it 2 and a half stars for the good first half. If you’re a fan of cricket and Dhoni, this film may be for you. If not, give it a miss. It’s on Netflix streaming currently in the US.
I didn’t LOVE Raabta as much as Margaret of Don’t Call It Bollywood did, but it was a welcome couple hours of escape for me this weekend. We have a family member that has just been put into hospice, and this movie took me away to beautiful Budapest for a bit. Several shirtless scenes of Sushant also helped very much, the first in the very first minute of the film.
As Margaret said, it’s Magadheera, but totally different. If you want an action film, go see Magadheera. But Raabta is a timepass romance with some angst.
I loved this charming sweet film! Ayushmann Khurrana and Parineeta Chopra were both great in this best friends to lovers romance. First time director Akshay Roy did a fantastic job, and I can’t wait to see more films by him. I loved how he gave a wink and a nod to the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, and even directly referenced Natalie Portman in Garden State.
While there were some parts I liked, this movie made me crazy for what it might have been. With the director Mohit Suri and the hits he’s had with Ek Villalin and Aishiqui 2 plus a book by Chehat Bhagat, you’d think this would be great, but it just didn’t work for me at ALL. The more I thought about it, the more infuriated I got. I happened to see the same showing as Kathy Gibson, who REALLY hated it.
Pardesi Reviews 