Tag Archives: R. Madhavan

Opening May 22: Tanu Weds Manu Returns

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Tanu Weds Manu Returns — the sequel to 2011’s Tanu Weds Manu — hits Chicago area theaters on May 22, 2015. Kangana Ranaut and R. Madhavan are back as the title characters, with Ranuat taking on an additional role as Tanu’s doppelgänger, an athlete named Kusum.

Tanu Weds Manu Returns opens on Friday at the AMC River East 21 in Chicago, Regal Gardens Stadium 1-6 in Skokie, MovieMax Cinemas in Niles, Regal Round Lake Beach Stadium 18 in Round Lake Beach, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington, and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville, and AMC Loews Woodridge 18 in Woodridge. It has a listed runtime of 2 hrs. 8 min.

Bombay Velvet — which opened in twelve Chicago area theaters last weekend — carries over for a second week at the River East 21, MovieMax, South Barrington 30, Cantera 17, and Woodridge 18. The same five theaters also hold over Piku for a third week, while Gabbar is Back gets a fourth week at MovieMax.

Other Indian movies showing at MovieMax this weekend include 365 Days (Telugu), Lailaa O Lailaa (Malayalam), Demonte Colony (Tamil), Mosagallaku Mosagadu (Telugu), 36 Vayadhinile (Tamil), Chirakodinja Kinavukal (Malayalam), and Lion (Telugu).

Movie Review: Jodi Breakers (2012)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Fine. Nice. Okay. Those are probably the best words to describe Jodi Breakers (“Couple Breakers”), a pleasant but unremarkable romantic comedy about a pair of divorce facilitators.

Fresh off his own financially disastrous divorce, Sid (R. Madhavan) hires himself out to men looking to entrap their cheating wives, thereby avoiding costly alimony payments. Sid hires Sonali (Bipasha Basu) as his partner, which allows them to expand their client base to include women looking to divorce their wayward husbands.

Sid meets privately with the wife of a wealthy businessman with a mistress, who arranges for Sid and Sonali to travel to Greece. There, the duo successfully plants evidence to frame the mistress, Maggie (Dipannita Sharma), who’s tossed out by the businessman, Mark (Milind Soman).

Sonali and Sid get drunk and sleep together while in Greece. Only after they return to India does Sonali discover that Sid lied about the identity of the woman who hired them to break up Mark and Maggie.

As a romantic comedy, Jodi Breakers isn’t particularly romantic or comical. Director Ashwini Chaudhary strikes an uneasy balance between wackiness and more straightforward comedy. Direct-to-camera speeches by Sid’s best friend, Nano (Omi Vaidya), periodically ruin the flow of the film. The leads are instructed to overact in scenes that don’t require it.

Madhavan and Basu have a friendly rapport with each other, but their chemistry doesn’t go further than that. Even though their love scenes are racy by Bollywood standards, they lack sizzle. Mark and Maggie convey more passion and longing in their glances, upstaging the lead couple.

The screenplay hits the necessary plot points and generally makes sense, but scenes drag on too long at the expense of character development elsewhere. Chaudhary, who also wrote the screenplay, spends too much time showing Sid and Sonali getting drunk, without showing why they fell for each other in the first place.

Also missing from the script are scenes of Sid and Sonali executing the jobs they are hired to do. Sid’s first solo job and the duo’s takedown of Mark and Maggie in Greece are the only time we see them at work, other than some brief, humorous client interviews. Scenes of Sid and Sonali successfully entrapping cheaters could’ve set up their inevitable romance while providing laughs.

Other elements of the film are similarly okay, but uninspiring. The music is catchy and the dance numbers are fine, apart from one that’s memorable for the wrong reasons. Someone needs to have a word about appropriate fringe placement with whomever designed the costumes for the female backup dancers in “Bipasha” (below).

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Opening February 24: Jodi Breakers and Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya

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Valentine’s Day has turned into a month-long event as Bollywood releases two more romantic comedies the weekend beginning Friday, February 24, 2012. Jodi Breakers stars R. Madhavan and Bipasha Basu as a pair of professional breakup artists.

Jodi Breakers opens on Friday at the Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington, and Regal Cantera Stadium 17 in Warrenville. It has a listed runtime of 2 hrs. 10 min.

Also opening on Friday at all of the above theaters is Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya (TNLHG), which has a runtime of 2 hrs. 10 min. TNLHG stars Genelia D’Souza and Ritesh Deshmukh respectively as a rich girl who forces one of her father’s underlings to kidnap her in order to escape her arranged marriage. Click here for a national theater list.

Having earned $1,026,303 in its first two weeks in U.S. theaters, the romantic comedy Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu gets a third week at the South Barrington 30. The romantic drama Ekk Deewana Tha leaves Chicago area theaters after just one week.

Other Indian films playing at the Golf Glen 5 this weekend include Padmashree Bharath Dr. Saroj Kumar (Malayalam) and the Telugu movies Ishq, Love Failure, My Heart Is Beating, and Poola Rangadu.

Movie Review: Tanu Weds Manu (2011)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

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Consider the Saltine cracker: a food so bland and inoffensive it’s one of the few things you can keep down when you have the stomach flu. It’s salted, but not enough to make it a go-to snack when you’re craving something salty. In fact, you kind of forget about that box of Saltines, relegating it to the back of the cupboard until the next time you either come down with the flu or run out of anything else to eat.

Tanu Weds Manu is the Saltine cracker of movies.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with Tanu Weds Manu. The costumes are pretty, the music is peppy, and the main characters are basically nice people. But there’s nothing to Tanu Weds Manu. Movies need conflict and urgency to maintain interest, and Tanu Weds Manu is devoid of both.

Since the title gives away the movie’s ending, I don’t feel I’m spoiling anything with this summary of the film.

Manu (R. Madhavan): Hi, Tanu. Our parents want us to get married. You’re pretty, so I’m game.
Tanu (Kangana Ranaut): I don’t want to marry you.
Manu: Okay. I’ll leave.
Tanu: Wait. You seem like a nice enough guy, but I want to marry someone else.
Manu: Okay. I’ll leave.
Tanu: Wait. I changed my mind. I want to marry you.
Other Guy (Jimmy Shergill): Hey, what about me?
Tanu & Manu: Sorry, but the title says we have to get married.
Other Guy: Okay. I’ll leave.

There you have it. Tanu’s a bit of a bad girl in that she drinks and smokes, but she’s otherwise uncontroversial. Manu is a terminally nice doctor and a bit of a pushover. There’s no real chemistry between them, so their romance feels like titular destiny more than anything else. Shergill’s villain, Raja, gets into fights, but he’s basically non-threatening. Everyone else in the film is forgettable.

Watching Tanu Weds Manu, I was reminded of my mother-in-law’s stance on the children’s book series Junie B. Jones. My mother-in-law, Joan (whom I love), refuses to read Junie B. Jones books to my 7-year-old niece because Junie B. uses incorrect grammar and sometimes gets sassy with adults, as if merely exposing my niece to these concepts would trigger some kind of pre-teen linguistic rebellion.

I imagine Joan’s ideal kids’ book to be one in which the child protagonist cleans her room and finishes her homework with enough time to play a game of Yahtzee with her adoring grandmother before the girl’s bedtime at 6 p.m. There’s nothing offensive about such a story, but who’d want to read it? Same goes for Tanu Weds Manu.

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Opening February 25: Tanu Weds Manu

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The Hindi romantic comedy Tanu Weds Manu is set to open in two Chicago area theaters on February 25, 2011. R. Madhavan and Kangana Ranaut play the mismatched lead couple.

Tanu Weds Manu opens on Friday at the Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles and the AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington. The film’s website has a national theater list. The movie has a listed runtime of 2 hrs. 49 min.

Despite meager opening weekend earnings of $164,153 from just 65 U.S. theaters, 7 Khoon Maaf expands its reach as it enters its second week in theaters. The excellent black comedy carries over at the Golf Glen 5 and Regal Cantera Stadium 30 in Warrenville, debuting on Friday at the South Barrington 30 and AMC Loews Pipers Alley 4 in Chicago.

Patiala House gets a third week at the South Barrington 30 and Cantera 30.

These may be the only Hindi movies showing around Chicago for a while, so catch them while you can. The Cricket World Cup is underway, meaning that Indian production houses have dramatically cut back on releases until the tournament ends on April 2. Bollywood Hungama lists just three Hindi films with confirmed release dates in the whole month of March. (Update: 24 hours later, Bollywood Hungama changed their list to just one film with a release date in March. It’s gonna be a slow month.)

Other Indian movies showing in the Chicago area this weekend include the Telugu movies Gaganam, Katha Screenplay Darsakatvam Appalaraju, Kudirithe Kappu Coffee, Life Before Wedding and Prema Kavali and the Bengali movie Gorosthanay Sabdhaan at the Golf Glen 5.

Movie Review: Teen Patti (2010)

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1 Star (out of 4)

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Writer-director Leena Yadav claims that her film, Teen Patti, is not based on the movie 21. After watching Teen Patti, I don’t believe her.

21 is a 2008 Hollywood film about some MIT students who get rich counting cards in the game of blackjack. Teen Patti is about some students from “BIT” who get rich counting cards in the game of teen patti. Ms. Yadav’s lame anti-plagiarism defense: “My film has nothing to do with blackjack.”

In a failed attempt to avoid the comparison, Yadav shifts the focus of her film from the students to their professor, Venkat (Amitabh Bachchan). Venkat develops a mathematical formula for deducing which hand will win in a given game of teen patti, a card game similar to poker. He recruits his colleague, Shantanu (R. Madhavan), and three randomly selected students to help him test his formula under real-world conditions.

The experiment proceeds with Venkat sitting at a table in a seedy gambling hall while Shantanu and the students make obvious hand signals to indicate what cards they hold. Venkat stares at each of the other players at the table while mumbling to himself, and then makes an equally obvious gesture to indicate which player at the table holds the winning hand. Then Shantanu and the students nod to confirm that they understood Venkat’s gesture, just in case it wasn’t apparent to everyone else in the gambling den that they are up to something fishy.

I’m not going to bother naming the students because they aren’t fully developed characters, nor are they even necessary to the Venkat’s experiment. The primary reason that they’re in the movie is so that a mysterious blackmailer can threaten them, forcing Venkat to keep gambling when he’d rather stop.

The other reason for the students’ presence in the script is for them to illustrate the moral danger of gambling, which can lead to flirting, minor theft and fist fights. No drugs, booze or sex, apart from an implied gang rape (another shockingly casual reference to sexual violence against women in a Hindi movie, as in Wanted and Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani). The stakes are pretty low in Teen Patti.

In addition to the superfluous students, minor characters show up without introduction and disappear abruptly. A woman named Mrs. Kale brings Venkat breakfast and complains about his messy office before leaving, never to appear again. Who is she?!

The prize for most useless character in Teen Patti goes to Perci Tractenberg, played by Sir Ben Kingsley for no other reason than to promote it as a Ben Kingsley movie. His presence would’ve been more impressive had Uwe Boll not already stunt-cast Kingsley as a villain in Bloodrayne.

*Teen Patti‘s runtime is 2 hrs. 20 min.

Opening February 26: Karthik Calling Karthik and Teen Patti

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Two new Hindi movies open in Chicago area theaters on Friday, February 26, 2010. Karthik Calling Karthik stars Farhan Akhtar as the shy title character who secretly loves his coworker, Shonali (Deepika Padukone). Their lives change when Karthik gets a phone call from a man also claiming to be Karthik.

I’m not sure what to expect from KCK. The official description makes it sound like a romantic comedy, while the trailer makes it look like a thriller. But Akhtar and Padukone are my two favorite actors, so I trust them to make a compelling movie.

The other movie opening this weekend is Teen Patti. The thriller stars Amitabh Bachchan, R. Madhavan and Ben Kingsley as mathematicians who find a way to win at teen patti (a card game similar to poker) and recruit some college students to help them test their equation in casinos. The premise sounds similar to that of the 2008 Hollywood film 21.

Both films are showing at two suburban Chicago theaters this weekend: AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington and AMC Cantera 30 in Warrenville.

The South Barrington 30 and Cantera 30 are carrying over My Name Is Khan for a third week, which continues showing at AMC Loews Pipers Alley 4 in Chicago and Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles as well. MNIK earned over $700,000 in its second week in U.S. theaters, bringing its total earnings to $3,253,168 so far.

3 Idiots leaves U.S. theaters after 9 weeks, having earned $6,523,103.

Other Indian movies showing at the Golf Glen 5 this weekend include Drona (Malayalam — not Abhishek Bachchan’s Drona), Leader (Telugu), and Vinnai Thaandi Varuvayaa (Tamil) and Ye Maya Chesave (Telugu), which are the same movie filmed at the same time, only in different languages and with different actors in key roles. Both VTV and YMC feature music by A. R. Rahman.

Best Bollywood Movies of 2009

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Despite losing a couple of months of releases because of a dispute with theater owners, Indian filmmakers released a number of terrific Hindi movies in 2009. (Click on the title of each movie to read my original review.)

Dramas Kurbaan and New York addressed terrorism with boldness and honesty, examining the reasons ordinary people become extremists. Delhi-6 dealt with religious differences in a manner both compelling and accessible. American audiences will enjoy the soundtrack by Oscar-winning composer A. R. Rahman.

A live-action version of Aladin was a novel update of the classic tale, appealing to adults and kids alike.

Romance was, as always, a popular theme. Amusing romantic comedies like Dil Bole Hadippa! and Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani took a light take on love. Luck By Chance and Wake Up Sid, both of which starred talented actress Konkona Sen Sharma, took a more serious approach, addressing the challenges of pursuing career goals while maintaining a healthy relationship.

The best of this year’s romances was Love Aaj Kal. Telling love stories from two different time periods, the movie embraced traditional Bollywood romance conventions while showcasing contemporary relationship issues as well. The entertaining dance numbers will make American viewers feel like they’re getting a real Bollywood experience within a Westernized story structure. The modern relationships showcased in Love Aaj Kal, Luck By Chance and Wake Up Sid represent an important advance for Indian movie makers courting success abroad.

But the Best Bollywood Movie of 2009 has to be 3 Idiots. It’s a great comedy about friendship — with just a hint of romance — that features nuanced performances by Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan and Sharman Joshi. The jokes are funny whether you’re listening to them in Hindi or reading them in English subtitles.

More importantly, 3 Idiots represents a step forward for Indian comedies. Most Hindi comedies released in recent years (excluding romantic comedies) have relied on slapstick humor: childish sound effects, comic violence and chase scenes that defy logic. There’s certainly a place for slapstick in modern cinema, but I don’t think this type of humor plays well in the international markets that Hindi filmmakers are looking to break into.

3 Idiots has its share of silliness, but it’s shown in a more subdued, realistic way that makes the characters relatable. It’s easier for the audience to cheer for the guys in 3 Idiots than for the farcical nincompoops in a movie like Do Knot Disturb (my Worst Bollywood Movie of 2009), because in 3 Idiots they seem like real people. When they succeed, despite being a bit goofy, it gives hope to the rest of us goofballs.

Previous Best Movies List

Movie Review: 3 Idiots (2009)

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4 Stars (out of 4)

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The comedy film genre encompasses a wide range of styles, from slapstick to romantic comedy. Hindi comedies are frequently either mindlessly wacky or overly sentimental. 3 Idiots is funny and perfectly balanced: silly but not frantic, poignant but not sappy.

The movie begins as Farhan (R. Madhavan) and Raju (Sharman Joshi) get a lead on the whereabouts of their friend, Rancho (Aamir Khan), who vanished after their college graduation ceremony, five years earlier. The source of the lead is Rancho’s old university nemesis, Chatur — known as “The Silencer” for his chronic, quiet flatulence — who’s eager to verify that he’s become a bigger success than Rancho.

As Farhan, Raju and The Silencer hit the road, the movie flashes back to their first days at a prestigious engineering school. Rancho seems to be the only freshman not afflicted by the neuroses crippling his classmates: fear of disappointing his parents (Farhan), the burden of being the family breadwinner (Raju) and greed (Silencer). Rather, Rancho is at school because he likes creating machines.

Rancho doesn’t agree with the school director’s motto: “Life is a race. If you don’t run fast, you’ll get trampled.” This earns him the respect of Farhan and Raju, and the ire of the school director, Viru (Boman Irani), nicknamed “Virus” by his students.

During a prank, Rancho meets pretty medical student Pia (Kareena Kapoor). Unfortunately for Rancho, her father is Virus. But Pia succumbs to Rancho’s charms and helps him and his friends during a crisis.

The movie transitions between flashbacks and the modern day, as Farhan and Raju close in on their missing pal’s location. The reason behind Rancho’s disappearance — which is explained halfway through the movie — isn’t the focus, the friendship is.

3 Idiots is a smart comedy. Jokes are well-written, with plenty of call-backs to prior jokes and meticulous continuity. The material is well-acted, proving why it made sense to cast 44-year-old Aamir Khan as a college freshman.

The material is also universal, with few regional or culture-specific jokes. Non-Hindi speakers who stumble into the theater expecting an English-language film needn’t worry about not understanding the jokes. In fact, 3 Idiots is a great Bollywood starter film.

There are a few melodramatic moments, but they’re not overdone, as in typical masala movies. Those maudlin movies are lampooned, as when a trip to Raju’s family home is shown in black & white with a dramatic score, his poor mother and unwed sister slaving over dinner next to his paralyzed father’s cot.

By skipping teary-eyed speeches in favor of funny dialogues, 3 Idiots provides better insight into the nature of friendship and the importance of following your dreams than most dramas. Yet it’s funny throughout, making 3 Idiots perhaps the best Hindi comedy I’ve ever seen.

Note: The movie’s runtime is listed as 2 hrs. 15 min. It’s actually closer to 3 hours long.

Opening December 23: 3 Idiots

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Aamir Khan’s Three Idiots is the only new Hindi movie opening in the Chicago area in time for the Christmas holiday. Khan plays the free-spirited Rancho opposite Kareena Kapoor, who plays his love interest, Pia. When Rancho goes missing, his two pals, played by Madhavan and Sharman Joshi, set off on a quest to find him.

Three Idiots opens on Wednesday, December 23 at the AMC Loews Pipers Alley 4 in Chicago, Big Cinemas Golf Glen 5 in Niles, AMC South Barrington 30 in South Barrington and AMC Cantera 30 in Warrenville. The movie has a listed runtime of 2 hrs 15 min.

The South Barrington 30 is carrying over Paa and Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year through Thursday, December 24.

Other Indian movies showing in the Chicago area include the Malayalam movie Palery Manickyam, which runs at the Golf Glen 5 through Thursday, December 24. Opening the same day at the Golf Glen 5 is Neelathamara, also in Malayalam.

The Tamil film Vettaikaran is currently showing at Sathyam Cinemas in Downers Grove, and it will continue its run through the weekend.