Hangover II - No Encore

I couldn't watch from the start of the movie but reliable sources tell me that this installment also starts with a phone call from Phil (Bradley Cooper). The credits roll and then we enter Stu's (Ed Helms) dental clinic where we learn that this time around it is he who is getting married.  He is getting married in Thailand as he is getting married to a Thai girl and then predictable things move to Thailand.

What is unconvincing is how Phil and Stu who were very cautious about Zack (Galifianakis) feeding them anything at all at the beginning of the movie let their guard down in Thailand and eat the marshmallows provided by him! This time around its Stu's fiancee's brother who goes missing and from then on the movie follows the plot of the first movie which totally robs the movie of the surprise element. Ed Helms and Galifianakis try harder to provide laughs and are over the top at times. Chow (Ken Jeong) joins the wolfpack to make the movie raunchier.

To be honest there certainly are some genuine laughs in this movie. Enter the theatre without too much expectation from this movie and you may come out satisfied!

Saath Khoon Maaf - Never takes off.

If many of you are planning to go to the theatres expecting the kind of cinematic experience VB delivered with his earlier movies Kaminey and Ishkiya you may be in for a disappointment.

Trying to develop a 2 hr 30 minute movie from a short story is a risky venture and Saath Khoon Maaf(SKM) has disappointingly has all the shortcomings that can happen to such a movie. When you watch the movie it becomes obvious that not enough effort has been put into the development of the script. The script writer has not been able to create any sort of depth in the movie and it remains as superficial as the short story would have been. The director forgets that a shallow short story is accepted but not a movie.

Most of the characters including that of the protagonist Susanna(played by PC) are not well defined. PC gives it her but is unable to make a full impression due to the poorly etched charater. You dont know whether to like or dislike her character which makes the movie a little bit of a pain to watch. Annu Kapoor puts up a stellar performance while the other characters which keep the movie interesting are the ones played by Vivaan Shah(Arun Kumar) and Harish Khanna(Gunga). Naseeruddin Shah, Irrfan Khan, Aleksandr Dyachenko and Konkona Sen Sharma impress in the short screen time given to him while the other characters played by Neil Nitin Mukesh and John Abraham are not passable. Neil Nitin Mukesh needs to be told that he was playing a Major in the movie and not a Colonel and John Abraham as usual is not able to get into the skin of his character. Ruskin Bond does a cameo while Usha Uthup's character as the maid is never fully revealed which is an injustice done to a veteran like her.

There are no surprises or twists and turns in the story which could have perhaps made the movie more engaging. You just have to sit and watch the protagonist during the course of her life kill six people which becomes quite a boring countdown. The seventh victim is perhaps the only saving grace of the movie. The make-up on PC and costumes also leave a lot to be desired. Overall an average watch.