Aitraaz

Directors: Abbas-Mustan Cast: Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Paresh Rawal, Annu Kapoor

5/10

It all begins hilariously, even though predictably, enough. With ambitious Kareena, out to get a job as a lawyer?s secretary, landing up instead at Akshay?s house, who was waiting for the new maid to arrive. A few loud guffaws and before you can blink, in typical Abbas-Mustan pacy style, Akshay is tapping feet with her on the beach, matching them to those of fat bikini-clad girls, swarming all over, like bees droning to Himesh Reshammiya?s foot-tapping number, Gela Gela Gela Gela. Kareena, married and pregnant, already. Rather short-dreamt ambition, hers.

It all had, however, a far more steamy beginning, of which the happily domesticated Kareena is in the dark, as is the audience, till Priyanka Chopra with her long bare legs steps out of the car with her grandfather-age husband, Amrish Puri, as the new managing director of the mobile company where Akshay is an engineer. And sends him shuddering off to steamy flashback scenes of how it all actually began. Priyanka and him together, tapping feet and more, five years ago. Priyanka, pregnant, but not ready to accept Akshay?s Mujhse shaadi karogi proposal, yet. Ambitious to be top of the world, not like Kareena, happy to be just top of Akshay?s world.

That was then. Top she still wants to be. But now wants to be top of Akshay as well. And when he refuses, slaps on him charges of sexual harassment. And while Paresh Rawal, as Priyanka?s lawyer, quite brilliantly tries to sort out the dilemma of who was on top of whom, behind the docks stands Akshay, startled and shocked. Looking every bit the man whose world had just come crumbling down. Though all through the film, Priyanka gets to throw her curves around, and Kareena just her smiles, in the last few scenes Kareena manages to salvage not just the case, but her role as well.

Said to be a bold film, as Aitraaz is about a woman doing what men have always done in offices, anyway. Would have been bolder, had the woman been allowed to remain on top and get away, too. Don?t the men, always?

Deepali Singh

Body dilemma

Naach

Directors: Ram Gopal Varma Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Antara Mali, Ritesh Deshmukh

4/10

In trying to be different, Ram Gopal Varma appears to have unwittingly fettered his freewheeling style of filmmaking. As an idea, Naach is pregnant with potential, but its execution is a major disappointment.

Varma?s first directorial effort since Bhoot is supposed to be an insider look at the clash of ideals in showbiz, though his camera concentrates far too much on Antara Mali?s sculpted physique to be bothered about bringing out the dilemma of an artiste trying to make it big on her own terms. Naach neither has the effervescence of Rangeela, the director?s first take on filmdom, nor the sarcasm of Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon, which was produced by him.

Moving, uncharacteristically slow for an RGV production, the film tells the story of two opposites who harbour starry ambitions and love one another, but have different views on how to reach where they want to. The conflict between idealism, represented by Antara?s character, and pragmatism, as seen through the eyes of fellow struggler Abhishek, never quite burns the screen.

The emergence of a third character, though efficiently portrayed by Ritesh Deshmukh, merely prolongs the narrative. It does not help either that Antara?s dance costumes defy the laws of aesthetics, making her look more like a cockatoo than the introverted, sensitive artiste she is supposed to be.

If there is anything to recommend in Naach, it is Abhishek. Understated and yet powerfully effective, here is an actor marked for greatness. Unfortunately, Naach is not.

Ritu Parna Dutta

Two vs Two: Titan clash

Tyag

Director: Swapan Saha

Cast: Prosenjit, Rachana Banerjee, Tapas Paul, Locket Chatterjee, Rajesh Sharma, Subhashis Mukherjee, Piya Sengupta, Dulal Lahiri

4/10

Debdoot

Director: T.L.V. Prasad

Cast: Mithun Chakraborty, Sreelekha Mitra, Razzaq, Bharat Kaul, Samrat Mukherjee, Imran, Shruti, Sweta

3.5/10

For the first time in this new millennium, Tollywood settles for the clash of the Titans. The same Friday release of Tyag (Prosenjit starrer) and of Devdut (Mithun starrer), each with his patent director (Swapan Saha and T.L.V. Prasad, respectively) nicely sets the tempo of the Diwali bash like the India-Pakistan one-dayer, the following day. With the two showpiece encounters ? Prosenjit vs Mithun, Sachin vs Shoaib ? the city?s cup of Diwali bonanza gets brimful.

The onscreen showdown tees off with oodles of sibling sentiments. However, the brother-sister (Prosenjit-Locket) bonding in Tyag seems more in tune with the bhai-phota spirit than the brother-brother (Mithun-Samrat-Imran) and the sister-sister (Sreelekha, Shruti, Sweta) bonds in Debdoot. This is one area where Tyag scores over Debdoot. But with a relatively better script (Anjan Chowdhury) Debdoot quickly draws level.

While Mithun makes his regulation big brotherly sacrifices in Debdoot, Prosenjit, Rachana and Locket in Tyag go absurdly overboard in their sacrificial spree. Scriptwriter Snehasish Chakraborty has blandly recycled in Tyag some of his story ideas of Sajani. No denying that the Prosenjit ham has occasionally taken a backseat to Mithun panache. But Prosenjit compensates by fighting in dhoti-panjabi ?that, too, sportingly an astonishing range of colours comparable to Tendulkar?s repertoire of strokes. And thus, proving a point or two to our ageing Bangali Babu.

Among the female leads, Sreelekha of Debdoot histrionically has a clear edge over Rachana of Tyag. Though, in item numbers, Sreelekha looks much less supple than her counterpart. And ill-at-ease, too. The Tapas Paul (playing Prosenjit?s brother-in-law) factor decisively puts Tyag a notch above Debdoot. There is, however, very little to choose between the musical scores and lyrics of the two films.

Debdoot signals T.L.V. Prasad?s return to Tollywood after Barood and his Hindi sex comedy, Tauba Tauba. But his spicy machher jhol, cooked as a special bhai-phota dish for the Bengali palate, gets pipped at the post by Swapan Saha?s murighanto in Tyag. So, for the Diwali week, it?s Advantage Prosenjit.

Arnab Bhattacharya