The grand Diwali war being fought at a theater near you..….

This was the most anticipated showdowns of the year….

On one corner was the first movie from a hollywood production house launching two star kids in Ranbir Raj Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor and with one of the versatile directors of the modern hindi film industry SLB (Khamoshi, HDDCS, Devdas, Black).
On the other corner was SRK.....Well, many might feel that this war is being too unfair…they would do well to remind themselves of last diwali. SRK doing the DON literally buried the critically acclaimed Jaan-E-Man (Incidentally Farah’s husbands’ film) which had the most bankable stars of today Salman and Akshay...But at the box office nothing does matter…Neha Dhupia might have got a lot of things wrong in her career…but one thing for sure she got right was when she said “Only sex and shahrukh sells”

With that pretext when Shahrukh makes the seemingly arrogant sounding comment “Diwali sirf main manata hoon”…he just ain’t talking. A brief flashback in filmi style would make the fact loud and clear with some of his diwali releases being Baazigar, DDLJ, Kuch Kuch hota hai, Veer Zara and Don to name a few….

So does Shahrukh finally lose his Baadshaah title this diwali??...

Saawariya…was perfectly the wrong vehicle to launch Ranbir…The guy sure has got lots of potential and will surely do great with the right script...He has absolutely inherited the charm of his paternal lineage and the good looks and acting histrionics from his mother.

Sonam Kapoor though was a big disappointment…the only moments where she looks impressive is when she has that infectious laugh going but of course not at all fair to be compared with the Jhakaas smile of her dad.
Zohra Sehgal’s was by far the best performance of the movie…the narrating Rani and the blink and a miss Salman notwithstanding…
Songs seem to pop up every 10 minutes but none has the lasting effect on your ears except the title track…
Im not sure if Bhansali has watched the national award winning movie “Iyarkai”…but I would suggest he should because inspite of having the same premise, it was dealt with far more panache resulting in accolades around the world.

So does that mean SRK has no fight at all this Diwali !!...

Om Shanti Om…if you were looking for meaningful cinema…give this a miss…There is no logic..no reasoning...story(read rehashed) at a cursory level…and nothing really that’s enthusing apart from the fact that it has SRK in it….but the bottom line is its HILARIOUS…right from the introduction frames to the intermission…the stuff thrown at you is so rib tickling that you would not mind with some nonsensical idiosy

Deepika looks great…and that is all she has to be for the movie. Her acting skills aren’t really tested much but the experience of having done a kannada movie earlier clearly shows…She would surely be managing loads of offers now though…
Kirron Kher does a wonderful job as the ‘Filmy Maa’…Shreyas was a revelation and my pick for the best performance in the movie. Arjun Rampal looks least like a villain but makes up for it with a good performance and finally SRK…he is so used to doing this same stuff…so a good performance is but of course expected off him.

The songs are wonderful especially ‘Ajab Si’ and ‘Main agar kahoon’. The visual effects have been managed impressively while using the old footages.
Humor though absolutely ruling the movie…one would surely enjoy the manoj kumar episode, filmfare award function, and the southie superstar episode apart from various other moments.

Well…so does that mean…SRK rules this diwali too…YES of course but not by the virtue of having made a better movie…Thanks to Mr. Bhansali who is not quite himself in Saawariya…he has handed the contest to SRK straight.


Wish Hollywood releases would impact the bollywood releases much…If that had been the case the superb “American Gangster”…with absolute top notch performances by the cast including russel crowe and denzel washigton would not go unnoticed...

So my winner this Diwali would be ‘American Gangster’ which surely gonna be in the reckoning for a few Oscars…..