Nonureva Really Surprised!

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

bob the moo Rahul is quite well off, hard working, young and handsome. However when he tells his mother and grandmother that he has been seeing a white woman, they bully him into letting them help him select a nice Asian girl – a promise he made to his dying father convinces him to give it a try. Naturally it is a disaster but he cannot get out of it now. Consoling himself in a bar he meets a woman called Sue – she looks a bit East Asian but maybe Spanish, regardless she could certainly pass for Asian if it wasn't for her very western attitudes and dress. It occurs to him that she may be able to help him and he offers her money to pretend to be his Asian girlfriend. She accepts but getting her dressed correctly is only the first step.Sold as an affectionate cross between the structure and style of an American (well, Canadian) romantic comedy and the Bollywood films, this film manages to have enough of each to be recognisable and still produce sufficient mutual good to be enjoyable. In truth, neither cinematic culture is that well represented here because neither is the best it has to offer but the mix still works for the most part. The story is pretty obvious but, aside from the odd moment here and there, flows well with a bit of spark and energy. From the "American" side of things it is engaging and occasionally sweet even if it plays pretty much to formula the whole way. The Bollywood stuff is mainly the song and dance routines and, although they are OK, they don't quite have the size and style of the best that Indian cinema has to offer – although the film still does well enough and the songs are quite cool.The cast take to the mixed material well. Khanna plays up the Indian background well in contrast with his Canadian home; he isn't great but he does the job. Ray is a lot more fun because she has a sassy character that works well with her as an actress. Her looks and her attitude make her an appealing character and actress and she helped the energy level of the whole film. The rest of the cast are so-so but nothing special. I enjoyed the turn from Pathak but Chowdry, Malik and Mann weren't that good.Overall this is an OK film that I quite enjoyed but not one that will still in my memory for that long. It has enough life to it to be entertaining without ever threatening to be that original, clever or memorable. Worth a look if you like Bollywood films because it does work as a slightly different take on them but generally it probably isn't good enough to draw a much wider audience.

Aam Aadmi Is Deepa Mehta a US-born or settled Indian? Is she US citizen or Green card holder? Does she have the faintest inkling about the lives of US-based Indians, let alone their kids? How on 'Earth' is she qualified to address this topic? She ought to be 'Fire'd from her job for this lousy portrayal of Indian Americans. There is NO merit to this story and the characterization. The plot (?) doesn't hold 'Water', the actors better attend class before their next flop (might redeem their sorry souls).There! Its so easy to make up a cliché of a review to show how easy it is to dish out crap.Just because it is supposed to be a spoof, does not mean the technical aspects, production and all else should be flushed down the toilet. Dipa Mehta thinks people will enjoy her movie, no matter what, just because of her name. Wrong! C'mon, a person like her shouldn't take for granted the sensibilities of her audiences and display utter contempt. The NRI crowd is at least proud of, and loyal to, its culture despite all the cheap potshots taken at NRIs by just about every 2-bit roadside director. What about Mehta??This is a third-class film even by Bollywood standards. Avoid it.

ausum When I saw the first scenes of this movie, I quickly knew there was something nice going to happen, although I also knew that my sudden interest was not for what was going to happen, but for how it was going to happen. Maybe that's why for most of us moviegoers that do know about Indian movies, the 'how' was full of a smooth and unusual self laughing, telling by the performance of the main actresses performing the mother and the grandma (which have based their careers in the Indian way of rising soap operas to the category of mainstream movies), to whom you would never believe they were also capable to make you laugh by portraying two funny old ladies anxious to get this Ross-like grown kid married. You have to like Indian music to enjoy it as a musical, so that doesn't count too much. But one of the things that makes it universal is the way it drives us to think about one of the dilemmas in modern couples when they face marriage. What are we after when we look for a lifetime partner?: From a guy perspective, should we accept the randomly crazy, next-door, average Rachael we all come up to get to know some time?, or should we look for the trust and confidence generally associated to old values? In that sense the movie does succeed at providing funny (and musical)moments, beauty, and a happy ending to our own thoughts. I strongly disagree to those who qualify it as a bad movie. Hey, would Casablanca ever have a chance to be a blockbuster nowadays? No way. You have to know about movies to fully enjoy it in the 21st century. With Bollywood/Hollywood it happens exactly the same. You would need to have seen some previous Indian productions to understand the keys and the reflections inside. Otherwise you'll focus only on technical details like the editing or the story timing, which will probably bias your judge unfairly.

meitschi First of all: I LOVE Bollywood movies. I know quite a lot of them. I think I got most of the references to Indian culture/Bollywood here. I loved the trailer and expected an exhilaratingly funny parody.But after having seen this movie, I just thought it was utter cr*p.The dialog had a terribly "papery" feel to them - as if someone without any sense of humor had tried to write something 'funny'. (Akshaye Khanna saying about his real-life brother Rahul 'He's like a brother to me' - oh, what a laugh!)And worst of all: the song/dance scenes are just bad - they are boring, badly directed and choreographed, and utterly uninspiring. This is probably the worst thing one can say about any movie that tries to have something to do with Bollywood...The only redeeming feature here is Lisa Ray who is indeed a very charming, lively actress. So it is even sadder that she had to star in such a bad-bad film....P.s.: 'Fire' was a quite good (albeit not perfect) movie though - maybe Deepa Mehta should stick to dramas instead?!