Movie review - Main Gandhi ko nahi mara

I was left wondering how this Gandhiji related title was suitable for a film based on dementia/Alzheimer's. 

Anupam Kher dons the role of an absent minded professor, whose absentmindedness is actually the beginning of a more serious brain deterioration.  It could be age-related, because he is retired from active service for a couple of years, but still remembers some incidents with vivid detail.  Urmila Matondkar is the only daughter between two boys, older one away in the US and younger one still in college.  Not wanting to trouble her older brother she takes up the responsibility of caring for her father - taking him to doctors and worries over him.  The younger brother immaturely talks about admitting his dad in an 'asylum' which angers Urmila and rightly so.

Things shoot out of control when Urmila's four year boyfriend's parents visit to discuss the possible marriage when her dad bursts out in anger for having kept a teacup inadvertly on Gandhiji's picture.  Urmila is caught in between her father's deteriorating mental health and the insensitivity of her boyfriend.  Its when she finds him married that her world collapses, but she has to pull on for her father's sake - he has had more instances of running away from home and even setting his room on fire.  He repeatedly says that it he did not kill Gandhiji.

A good doctor comes into the picture and his approach turns around things.  The family unlocks their father's obsession with his guilty feeling.  An unexpected experiment turns out to be a success and things get back to normalcy.

Its only possible in Indian movies that the topic starts off as brain dysfunction and ends up in patriotism! 

Movie review - Kahaani

I give full marks for this movie.  Very gripping story which keeps up your interest till the last scene.  A nice plot which even entertains your brain.  Vidya Balan plays very well her role of a very pregnant woman who visits Kolkata to search for her husband gone missing since two weeks.  How she takes revenge on those who were the reason behind her husband's death and so many other innocent victims in the Kolkata metro train poisoning is the theme of this story.  The story plays out so well, that at last, it is confusing whether it really happened or not.  That's why this movie is named so aptly as 'kahaani' or 'story'.

Movie review - Moonu

The thing that stands etched in my memory about this film is Shruti Hassan's crying face.  I think in every alternate frame, this dame is crying - for something or the other and for no apparent reason whatsoever! Whew!  

The story was okay, certainly an off the beaten track one and based on a 'psychology' subject and could be considered 'trendy' I suppose!  The first part of the movie moves well and both Dhanush and Shruti can pass off as school kids. Prabhu and Bhanupriya seem typical parents of a laid back boy, the mother very protective and the father too strict.  Though they seem affectionate and acquiesce to his every wish, why are they not in the picture when he has a serious problem? 

I would have liked the movie to start on a more positive note instead of Dhanush's funeral.  The anguish of a young widow is portrayed well. Shruti makes a very convincing grieving young widow who is torn in her sorrow.  What makes it all the more unsettling is that Dhanush has been killed in his own apartment, in broad daylight, but there are no signs of a struggle or nothing robbed from the apartment.
The movie flows on briskly, weaving together the past and the present and how finally Shruti finds answers for some very troubling questions.
On the whole, an entertaining watch if you are into serious themes.