Goa

You have a string of great ideas that you would put in a movie, but no story. So you string these great ideas and jokes together and in between place some songs and a half baked story and voila! You have Goa. I like Venkat Prabhu and he did an ok job with his screenplay's till now (Chennai 28 & saroja) but this time around, he should have hired a good screen writer and a very good editor. I love the irreverence with which he treats certain scenes. A few examples - the statutory warning against smoking changed a teeny bit to hilarious results. The usual introductory aarthi of the amman where the prayer is for rain, well being of all and ofcourse that the movie should do well in b & c centres :) A song with Premji giving a "Tamil Nadu"( a map) to the foreign girl and ofcourse one of the couples in the movie is a bit unusual (hehe I wont spoil the fun)

The Story:
Three guys from a very isolated village near Madurai or Theni. Jai is the wannabe NRI with some great lines, Premji is the guy given to the temple - saamikannu in a hilarious role and the third guy (i forgot his name) is the village casanova. The movie follows their adventures or rather misadventures. And after all the misadventures the movie has had, I was hoping they would have put in some more effort to atleast edit it well and provide a strong story line.May be they thought the publicity (although bad) was good enough. Anyways its supported by the funny scenes and a nice follow up at the ending, though the second half of the movie looks like a mish mash of clips from different movies.

Some of the jokes are great, though most of them have been stretched to almost breaking point. Premgi as usual provides the comic - er relief and Sampath!! I'm not going to give away the suspense but he blew me away! From the adorable macho villain in Saroja to...well, just the opposite! The women provide adequate support, with Pia looking great, a foreign girl who does her stuff and Sneha looking trim and doing a pretty good job.

A 5/10

Two States, Chetan Bhagat

Frankly speaking I do not understand the hype surrounding Mr IIT Bhagat and his books. Plus there was the film fiasco.(The movie was far better than the book could ever aspire to be) The first one succeeded because he took advantage of the IIT craze that has overtaken the nation. The following books showed that not only was he a bad writer, but one with absolutely no imagination at all. I almost cried over the time I had lost reading one night at the call centre. So when two states came out, I refused to even consider reading it. But then one red coloured copy (i love red) lay on my library desk with no takers, so decided to give in. It was ok, like a blog written by an IIM (yes we know you went to all these prestigious colleges Mr Bhagat) friend. A masterpiece of literature or even a good novel it was not.

It talks about the love story of two people from different states as the imaginative title suggests. They fall in love, the family doesn't. To give him fair credit, he has shown faults of both communities equally and has brought in some interesting conflicts. Apart from that its just a glorified diary.

So I reached the conclusion, when it comes to recounting bits of his life with a little bit of masala added Mr Bhagat does a good enough job. Just as most of us with a working knowledge of English and some spare time can.  When it comes to using his imagination, Mr IIT/IIM fails miserably. All said and done, he markets (or is marketed) aggressively and hopefully does not represent the young and upcoming writers of this generation in India. Because if he does, it falls into the same trap that our newspapers, tv channels etc are into - Dumbing down everything.

Rocket Singh Salesman of the year

Ranbir Kapoor is a supposedly a straightforward sardar who wants to be a salesman. He gets a job in AYS, a computer supplying and servicing company. The first day he meets his boss Nithin, a hard boiled saleas man who has every trick in the book and some that are not in the book or anywhere else for that matter. He shows the trainee the ropes. We are also introduced to Prem Chopra as Ranbir's grandfather who excels in this movie otherwise populated by youngsters. Singh is sent to a client by himself a few days later and the client asks for a bribe. Now this is the most common thing in India and I found it hard to believe how naive  the character was. Apart from refusing outright, he writes a complaint and drops it in the company's complaint box. As is expected he is ostracized in office and asked to cold call till his training period is over, which is kind of wierd because the training period is when you can be fired without a notice. Anyway the siren receptionist feels sorry for him and gives him the number of customer who had sent an enquiry.

During the course of the sale he discovers that the computers can be assembled at a fraction of the cost of the branded ones (something im sure even a 10'th standard kid can tell you) and so sells the client( two pretty girls) the computer he assembles with the help of the office tech support( always on porn sites and never sleeps) Now the story so far was good, from here the scriptwriters who repeatedly paint the hero as a guy with high morals make him run an illegitimate business with stolen clients (The explanation given is that they are clients who are dissatisfied with AYS. But it is a list and its stealing.)The hero has no qualms about using office time, but keeps a list of amenities used so that he can pay his boss back. These idiosyncracies ruin the movie. Your main protagonist never gives bribes but is willing to commit fraud. A half hearted attempt to show him being humiliated and hence his actions are given, but fails to prop the story. If only that had been taken care of, the movie would have not been like reading a horrendous piece of misleading philosophy (eg Ayn Rand).

The hero obviously wins the day, but the message gets diluted. 5/10.