Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

suite92 From the opening in Goa, this seems to be a film about the relentlessly meaningless problems of the entitled, the rich, the decadent, and the pointless. That is, the fat-cat parasites who live in lavish settings in the resort city of Goa, India. Gambling seems to be one of the main tools for separating fools from their money. As the film progresses one sees other means of separating the money: exotic dancers, gigolos, corruption in the film industry, and so on. Playboy/gigolo Rocky seems to be at the center of everything; we'll see how long that lasts. He seems to enjoy staying with Sonia Chang at 36 China Town, the address/name of her mansion.Meanwhile, in Mumbai, Raj made a music video which a director likes. However, he blew his savings making it, and no longer has the 1 million he needs to bribe the director to get a lead role. Priya thought she had a boyfriend interested in marrying her. Instead, he wants from her father a couple of million to start a business; if the business goes well, perhaps another million will lead to a marriage.Priya and Raj (after a rocky start) 'adopt' a missing child in order to collect a 2.5 million reward. They just have to travel to Goa to collect it from the child's putative mother, Mrs. Sonia Chang. Unfortunately for them, the ultra-wealthy Sonia gets murdered 60 minutes into the film.An alternate thread follows two hopeless gamblers through their ups and downs. Major losses, good-sized wins, bad blows to family fortunes are detailed. Sounds like possible homicide motives.Priya and Raj find 36 China Town. The lights are dim and the doors unlocked. Bad signs? They go in anyway. They discover the body. They call in the murder anonymously, but Raj gets apprehended by Inspector Karan when he goes back to the scene. He manages for a bit to keep Priya and the baby out of it.Meanwhile, one of the gamblers finds body parts in one of his suitcases. Great stuff. Priya gets noticed, then arrested. The gambler and his wife get arrested when the body parts are discovered. Karan sorts things out. He finds the other gambler and asks to talk to his wife as well. Ah, the construction of lies is such a convoluted thing! Kana arrests the second gambler as well.Kana lets his seven suspects go, and tells them not to leave Chinatown's Silver Jubilee.Lovely ending. Three stars goes to four.------Scores-------Cinematography: 8/10 Pleasant to the eye for the most part. The reverse video passages seem both needless and repellent.Sound: 4/10 Yikes, major problems here. First, the subtitles are absent in passages. Second, where they are present, they tend to be sixty or so frames lagging behind the video. Third, conversations tend to have the hollow sound associated with badly miked actors.Acting: 7/10 Reasonable. Liked the performance of Akshaye Khanna, as I did in Aap Ki Khatir.Screenplay: 7/10 Needs compression. The story does move along, but has too much filler.Musical Numbers: 7/10 Mixed bag. The single biggest reason I watch Bollywood films is the presence of good musical numbers. The dancing, the vibrant singing, the frequent humor, and the good-hearted silliness are a treat. In this film, though, there is way too much use of audio filters that cancel out the quality of full frequency singing. The filtering delivers castrated mush; the usual richness is defeated. It's like dropping back to 1960s audio quality. Some of the later ones were better.

naveen-13 Even though Abbas Mastan claim that the inspiration for this movie came to them while watching Chinatown (1974), the movie is actually a scene-by-scene lift of the 1992 Hollywood comedy Once Upon a Crime, starring John Candy and Cybill Shepherd. Interestingly, that movie was also billed as a comedy-mystery, but was also much more comedy than mystery, like this one.The roles played by Shahid Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor were played by Richard Lewis and Sean Young in the original. The plot has been Indianized: the main events in the original happen in Monte Carlo, and here, they happen in Goa, which is kind of the Monte Carlo of India. Several other aspects of the plot have been Indianized: for example, the two protagonists in the original are returning a lost dog (in this, they are returning a lost child). But several things are not changed at all, including the character of the married-for-money Paresh Rawal (played by John Candy in the original), the suave Casanova Upen Patel (played by George Hamilton in the original), and the inspector Akshaye Khanna (played by Giancarlo Giannini).Despite having seen the original, I found this version to be highly entertaining. Especially impressive was Shahid Kapoor, who has excellent chemistry with Kareena. Akshaye Khanna does not have a very strong part, but still tries very hard. Overall, the movie does not disappoint.

katochnr This movie is a typical bollywood film, keep your thinking caps at home and you can enjoy the movie thoroughly. The first half an hour drags on with 3 (!!) songs, but after that the things pick up. In fact all the scenes seem to have been stretched to give the film its running time. Akshaye Khanna makes an entry just after the interval. Now if the film followed the logical rules of life, it should have ended after half an hour from the interval. But all the suspects lie like kindergarten kids and complicate the matter. Even after all this there is hardly any suspense at all. But the ample comedy, good songs and Upen Patel makes up for all this. Upen Patel's performance deserves a mention, he really exudes that cool persona. Rest all are usual. So all in all its a good enough time pass, provided one is not paying the multiplex prices.

anandasane Of course this starts with the usual Bollywood movies..with a lot of songs...But the story starts taking its grip gradually. Great chemistry between Shahid and Kareena, real good comedy by Paresh, Johhny...Upen Sucks!!! but this guy has potential to do something gr888...Upen needs to be selective in his role....All in all a great entertainer and would be really more entertaining for you too, if you just go ahead and watch the movie without knowing the ending. Its just superb...The songs are good and the title track is the best one...Watch out for the remix version at the end..its really picturised very well...Go ahead and enjoy the MASALA!!!!