Review +Spolier : Udaan

If lots of people say a movie is good, I don't feel like watching it. This is probably because this unknowingly makes me aware of plot holes (even minor ones).This also takes the fun out of finding a random movie beautiful. Anyway same thing happened with Udaan .Heard a lot of good things from lots of people and decided to pass.

Today I was down with cold and had nothing to do other than lying on the couch. I thought of picking this movie and watch it till the end.

The movie is amazing and one of the very beautiful Hindi movies I have seen in a long time.These are the kind of movies that gives me hope for watching bollywood movies.This movie serves one of those few things to the audience ,which I feel is almost impossible to find in any hollywood movie. One of those is a realistic picture taken straight out from an Indian society. Something so realistic that I had a hard time finding any sophistication that director might have added to make it more "filmy". Its hard to make movies which are realistic ,first of all people don't like real stories and if that works out then either the director or an actor will screw up somewhere. This movie seems to have gotten everything going well together.

The story takes off with Rohan being expelled from his boarding school. He returns to Jamshedpur , a small town in Jharkhand to his dad who is stern,apathetic,short tempered and void of love. He has a strong opinion towards how a son (or a man) should behave ( the movie hints that that is something coming from his own dad). Rohan who wants to write and actually writes well ,finds himself stuck in this disciplined , devoid of life environment. He hates his dad and his dad hits him occasionally. He is also surprised to find his cute little half brother Arjun who is staying with his dad. Frustrated will the new setup and new rules in his life , he happens to make some friends and start going out to late night bars ( he takes his dad's car).

As the movie moves forward, Rohan comes closer to Arjun ( feeling sympathetic towards him) and shows responsibility.

On the other end,Rohan's dad seems to have some issues. Initially he seems all bad , but then in one scene he reveals that he indeed visited him in school but when he saw Rohan happily enjoying life ,he did not want to disturb him. For a moment I felt sad for his dad, he is all alone with a stern nature that probably runs in his generations. It seemed he is alone but intentionally/unintentionally keeps people away. Rohan's Dad's character is well thought and it is difficult to call him a totally bad person. here and there you feel a bit sympathetic towards him.

The movie rolls, and the Dad decides to put Arjun in boarding school , asks Rohan to stop studying (Rohan wasn't really interested) and join his factory and tells them he is planning to get married.

At this point, Rohan decides to leave his house and after a bit of drama , he takes Arjun with him. With this scene, credits roll.

Apart from a realistic story line , I find the movie well shot . Showing the city of Jamshedpur in a way where you actually find small things in a small town beautiful. The shot in the end where Rohan outruns his dad seems well linked to the previous scenes where his dad forces him to come along for a morning jogging and always beats Rohan. The scene where Rohan outruns his dad makes me feel sad for his Dad.

One thing that was a bit surprise to me was the letter Rohan left for his dad, Given Rohan's writing skill,the letter was much simpler .I was also hoping it would show a bit of love/guilt/sadness ( other than the anger) towards his dad.

All in all a very amazing movie. Strongly recommended !

PS: one major + point for movie is the poems Rohan manages to sing here and there, those poems suits the scene and they have very significant meaning if you listen to them carefully.

Time is money ( review+spoilers: In Time)

Review time : In Time.

I saw the trailer few days back and the plot was interesting. the plot is basically set in some distant future when time (from your life) is the currency. Everyone stops aging after 25 and then they get time worth of a year to start their lives (The human body has been genetically engineered for that) . You trade with time ( time from your life), you earn time,you buy stuff with your time and that is how you live your life. Think of it like money one can earn , one can spend ,one can steal as well as one can donate. Rich lives longer and poor dies. The idea of using time from your life as "currency" seemed intriguing. There are few plot holes but I was really surprised (may be due to lack of my own creativity) that someone actually thought of this infeasible but interesting idea.

Anyway I went to saw this movie ,the movie as I expected started off pretty well. First 30 min, they showed how the whole idea is working out, your mother looks as older as you and all. Justin timberlake did a good acting here. The scene where he gets a lot of "time" yet not able to save his mother was touching.

But soon enough movie starts to get more irrational and get stuck into the mix of love, action and robin hood story. Will Salas ( Justin timberlake) and his rich girlfriend starts robbing banks(Time is stored there like cash), and surprisingly the banks seem to have less security than an ATM machine.(which is odd given that the banks actually contain life). With all the robbed time , Mr. Salas tries to be Robinhood distributing all of it to poor(dying) people. you would expect such distribution to cause a havoc amongst people whose life depend on it, but instead it all happens peacefully actually smoother than getting your food in cafeteria. The Time keeper's character seems interesting and given the screen time he gets, it seems he has some important role to play but instead he dies and you know how? because he left his "time" in his car (worried about it being stolen).

The expectation I had with this creative ( and amazing in my perception) plot was that the movie will have an ending where the whole system changes, or they figure out a way to generate time in some way. But nothing that sort of thing happens though movie ends on a good note ,showing no more "timezone" (different classes among people) .I think I loved the plot so much that I wanted to see the movie in more realistic way (of-course realistic in this new world) .

There are few good things as well (other than the wonderful plot). The movie has some fun , fast paced and simple enough to understand. Even though I felt bit cheated with movie not moving in the direction I wanted it to be , I never felt bored. Its definitely not boring. its entertaining . Will salas's acting was good and the way the plot has been set is well thought. Like defining the different timezone based on richness of people (which seemed natural in this world). Rich people afraid of dying due to making "mistakes". The idea of timekeeper is also well thought,whose job is to make sure whole system runs in place and maps to the sheriff in current system. Movie is tight and doesn't drag unnecessarily.

I think the movie is fun, watchable over weekend , when you are not really looking for plot holes (you might not even notice then ,though I told you almost all already ). The only wish I had was that it could have been better with given wonderful plot.

and yeah I think "time is money" would have been a better title for movie.