Lage Raho Munna Bhai. - Awesome bole toh Awesome!

Cast: Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, Vidya Balan, Boman Irani, Dilip Prabhavalkar, Dia Mirza, Jimmy Shergill, Kulbushan Karbanda, Abhishek Bachchan (guest appearance)
Director: Raj Kumar Hirani
Producer: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Screenplay: Abhijat Joshi

Genre: Comedy
Movie Overall Rating: **** (4 stars out of 5)

Not many sequels have been made in history, where the sequel outshines the first one in the series. Nor have there been movies which are amazingly entertaining while carrying a moral message. Lage Raho Munna Bhai is one such excellent movie.

Sanjay Dutt - Munna Bhai/ Murli Prasad Sharma is at his best with his permanent sidekick Circuit/ Sarkeshwar- Arshand Warsi in this awesome sequel. Though it’s a sequel of Munna Bhai MBBBS, both stories are independent and comprehensive, with no connection or continuation from the previous movie. The only links are Munna Bhai and Circuit characters. The villain again is Boman Irani, but in a new character. Hence a new concept of sequel movies, at least in bollywood! Apparently there will be one more sequel in this series and I bet that too would be worth watching! Lage Raho Munna Bhai is an amusing comedy with vibrant and colorful dialogues, spectacular performances and fresh and exuberant story.

Munna Bhai/Murli Prasad Sharma is floored every morning with the melodious voice of radio jockey Jhanvi- Vidya Balan. His desire to meet this voice makes him tread into books of history and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi! Adopting a totally new technique called ‘Gadhigiri’ as against his regular ‘dadagiri’, he philosophizes and preaches and practices the non violent style in making things work in his favor.


In this unconventionally hilarious yet sentimental comedy Sanjay Dutt has a multifaceted broad persona. His ‘talk shows’ (Dr. Laura Schlessinger style) and reality radio are very poignant and moving, and so are the tender moments with the second innings team. The vibes of Dutt with Boman Irani –the unscrupulous antagonist and his banter with his sidekick and counselor, Circuit, and lastly his rapport with ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ are interesting and hilarious to watch. Though Warsi is technically a side kick, he has a chunky role and his performance is outstanding. Boman Irani again an excellent actor on the rise performs his character of unprincipled man but still a doting father, well. The chemistry between the beautiful and talented Vidya Balan and handsomely ageing Sanjay Dutt is wonderful. Vidya Balan’s voice and sparkling eyes do add an aura to her Good Morning Mumbai!

Lage Raho Munna Bhai scores for also handling the subject of Psychiatry well. Not all movies do a good research of subjects and facts accurately. Here the psychiatric analysis with demonstration is detailed out for clear understanding of audiences. Of course this is paralleled with the notion that you will see what you believe!

All the Songs ,"Lage Raho Munnabhai", "Samjho Ho Hi Gaya", "Aane Char Aane"," Pal Pal...Har Pal", and " Bande Mein Tha Dum Vande Mataram " are energetic and lively, and as I have known from a recent long car trip very much humable even by toddlers. The favorites replayed and re-sung being "lage raho munna bhai", "pal pal har pal", and "Aane Char Aane"(Go Hyderabadi Karunya-Indian idol singer) !

The movie gets four stars for its excellent performance by ever cast member; catchy and vibrant dialogues; energetic songs; and finally for the amazing script perfectly balancing the emotions with humor. Don’t miss it.

Babul- Extremely Sentimental

Cast: Amitabh Bachchan Hema Malini, Salman Khan, Rani Mukherjee , John Abraham, Om Puri, Aman Verma, Parmeet Sethi, Rajpal Yadav, Smita Jaykar, Avtar Gill, Gargi Patel

Director: Ravi chopra Producer: B.R.Chopra
Primary Audience: Older Audience
Genre: Family Drama
Movie Overall Rating: ** (2 star out of 5)

Sentimentality needs to be balanced either by good story content with depth or by hilarious comedy. Neither happens here. Hence the sentimentality goes overboard. Babul looks like an ineffective joint sequel of Baghban and Viruddh, both well handled sentimental movies. Babul in spite of having a noble subject like widow remarriage, top of the line stars and great acting as always from Amitabh, it lacks the ability to touch hearts because of a superficiality and cliché kind of dialogs, settings and cast; very predictable story and not to mention the image branding of many products.


The movie revolves around Amitabh Bachan, ( Balraj Kapoor)- the Babul.The story in brief is about the buddy son Salman Khan( Avinash/Avi) and daughter-in-law Rani Mukerjee( malavika/Mili) who have a typical romance, marriage and child. When Avi exits, Amitabh wants to reintroduce her to her old friend John Abraham( Rajat) to get color and happiness back in her life!


The first half of the movie was much longer to create a highly sophisticated, progressive and sporty image of the characters of the movie, having modern outlook and traditions. All this to help in the image branding for Audi! Hence there were prolonged car racing with the Audi in focus; golf games, American education, Hi flying parties and kabhi khusi kabhi gham like settings.


Well that was not enough, we had chai time with Taj Mahal Tea in coffee shops, painting kid’s room with Nerolac paints, and even a life insurance was advertised. Not only did the movie gain money for advertising for many products like Audi, Taj Mahal Tea, Nerolac Paints and Kotak Life Insurance; it even got a tax break for the subject of widow remarriage. Hence I guess producers were not worried for audience response and viewers money!


In spite of Amitabh Bachchan’s good acting and even singing his songs, it wasn’t enough to make the movie worth watching. Hema Malini miraculously still looks her beautiful self, but alas still carries the south Indian Hindi accent after so many movies! Salman Khan is aging but caries himself well. Rani Mukherjee does well in the complex role. The handsome John Abraham shows least enthusiasm to be part of this movie, except when he is in a song! Sarika is also in this movie, but don’t know why she came back in an insignificant role.


Music of ‘Babul’ was average. ‘Kehta Hai Babul’ and the theme song sung by Amitabh Bachchan were touching. The songs of the movie were not something you remember and hum later. Some of them are slow too. The bhangra number ‘come on, come on’ looked like the K3G ‘Shava Shava’, with pink dress dancing blondes replaced by blue! A number (Bawri Piya’) showing intimacy is getting common these days in many movies.


Babul would have been a better movie if it had not just taken the existing productized formula and just added the subject of widow remarriage to it. I hope the producers learn to realize that audiences have a limitation to digest formula masalas movies, and make movies with intelligent and exclusive style.