The excuse of a hero Vikas Sagar(Zayed Khan) who is supposed to be one of the best journos in India accepts a 3 month assignment from Al-Johara, a controversial Istanbul based news channel. At about the same time, Vikas is about to divorce his news caster wife Anjali (Shreya Saran). In Istanbul, Vikas meets Oswais Shah(Suniel Shetty) the head of the news channel and Ghazni(Nikitan Dheer), the boss of Al-johara channel.
Oswais is bumped off in Afganistan. Vikas happens to meet a disappearing character called Rizwan (Viveik Oberoi) at Oswais’ funeral. Rizwan is a Turkish commander who had lost his family in terrorist attack and now wants to protect Vikas(pray why!) Rizwan lets Vikas know that the news channel head Ghajini is behind all the killings and terrorist attacks. The reporter Vikas turns into a hacker and goes to the dreaded 13th floor of the channel building to hack all confidential data of Al Johara and put it in his pen drive. There are lot of pointless chases and dishum dishums, with gun shots and bombs exploding everywhere without any need. To sum up, the erroneous story comes with the premise that Al Johara channel has taken the idea of the dead dreaded terrorist Abu Nazir and is deliberately keeping terrorism and fundamentalist ideologies alive in his name.
Technicalities:
Some of the actions scenes are good although they are not the best you’ve seen. The editing is slick but that is the only feature that warrants a comment. Nothing else impresses.
Best scenes of Mission Istanbul:
The End (we are not kidding)
Minus points of Mission Istanbul:
1. Mission Istanbul looks like a vehicle to promote sponsoring brands Mountain Dew and Aaj Tak News Channel.
2. Extremely irritating songs and to more woe, they crop up at the wrong times. Abhishek Bachchan’s item number is pathetic.
3. One cant digest a scholarly looking news reporter fighting, like an ace army man attacking and killing terrorists. Farfetched to the core. Also he is shown to hack confidential high end systems like piece of cake, even “unlocking the password” like it is nobody else’s business.
4. Pathetic direction. Meandering plot. Can’t believe it is the same guy who made Shoot out at Lokhandwala. Or was that Sanjay Gupta?
5. The George Bush duplicate used in the movie is totally irrelevant. Forget making fun of George Bush, his scenes look forced and totally out of the place. Though it is meant to be humorous, nobody in the theatre really laughed.
6. The pack-a-punch dialogues that was reminiscent in Shoot out at Lokhandwala is missing in Mission Istanbul.
Performances:
Most of the films released in 2008 have been pathetic ventures and Mission Istanbul is no less. But some of these flops films had good performances but Mission Istanbul falters the most in histrionics department. The acting is very amateurish. Zayed Khan acts dumb, in fact, he should only do a dumb man’s role because whenever he opens his mouth, it is tragedy. Shweta Bharadwaj can’t act to save her life. Shreya Saran disappoints too. The dependable Viveik Oberoi may have been right in grousing that he didn’t get enough roles. He tries hard but the weak characterization of the role fails him. Thank God, Suniel Shetty made a wise decision as a producer, to give a brief performance only.
Conclusion: Mission Istanbul suffers from weak characterizations and a bad plot. It isolates the viewers from the thick of things. At no point does the viewer feel connected to the script. Suniel anna, you have got brains, please invest in good cinema. Looks like Tashan and Love Story 2050 has competition!
Friendship: a relationship Indian cinema has explored countless times. In fact some of our classic movies are based on this theme, whether it's Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander, Dil To Pagal Hai or Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. These are your typical filmi depictions of friendship. E Niwas and Abbas Tyrewala now bring to you friendship with a twist. How far would you go to stop a friend from making the biggest mistake of his life?
This film showcases friendship in an entirely new avatar. It actually admits that sometimes lies and secrets are needed to keep a friend safe. E Niwas' creativity probably won't be accepted right away because audiences want yet another typical dosti flick with friends-forever tracks and emotional teary climaxes. But De Taali delivers something totally different, emerging from a new genre we like to call drama-edy. The core of the movie is drama. However, the packaging is comedic and this may not work in favour of the film. For Indian cinema, this genre is still growing and has yet to be whole-heartedly accepted by audiences. As usual, E. Niwas is up for trying something new and for those who love a refreshing storyline and a great laugh De Taali will definitely click with them.
The movie is filled with surprises, the first one being that Rimi Sen can indeed act! The actress shows immense amount of potential especially in the scene after Kartika's secret is revealed. It makes it rather devastating to look back at all the movies in which she has been wasted. We hope to see her doing more of such roles. The second surprise is that Riteish Deshmukh is not just made for comedy. The actor gets a chance to show a different side to his talent, not drastically, but definitely enough to convince people that he cannot be typecasted.
It is a well established fact now that Ayesha Takia is a bundle of talent. The actress is top notch once again and looks great. Her comic timing is excellent and proves to be a big asset in proving her versatility. She is quickly proving to be a chameleon as she transforms beautifully in any role.
Apoorva Lakhia's Mission Istanbul roars into theaters this July 11th. It is a full-on action thriller that stars Zayed Khan, Suniel Shetty, Shabbir Ahluwalia, Shreya Saran, Nikitin Dheer and Vivek Oberoi. As you can tell by the title, the film is set in Turkey, so the music for the film has a Bollywood, R&B, Turkish flavored mix. Lakhia used not just one music director but four: Mika Singh, Shamir Tandon, Chirantan Bhatt and Anu Malik. Each song has its own style and it all fits together to make a soundtrack that after a few listens is quite good. Great? No, but pretty good.
Mission Mission is written and sung by Hamza Faruqui and has Chirantan Bhatt as the music director. Now Mission could be a great song except for one thing, and this may seem picky, but the odd pronunciation of the word Mission ("MEEshun") really does distract you, and it is almost annoying. Maybe it should have been 'Operation Istanbul'? The other English lyrics are also not that great, or maybe it is just that they don't fit into the cadence of the song. The inflections of the singers on the lyrics are brill but the lyrics themselves do not work. Besides that, the song totally rocks in the musical sense. The score and the club/rock beat definitely give you the feeling that you will be seeing an action film. I would give the song a thumbs up for the music and singers but a hmmmm for the lyrics.
Jo Gumshuda is composed by Anu Mallik and not only has Shaan and Mahalakshmi Iyer, but also the addition of the Turkish singer Ege. Ege totally steals the track with his voice and amazing guitar playing… I could have just listened to him for the whole thing. Ege said, "It was a wonderful and a new experience to join hands with the Indian film industry and render such a beautiful song. The way in which Apoorva explained the number didn't let me have second thoughts about singing it." When Shann and Mahalakshmi come in they make the song their own as well, and you like it even more. A beautifully composed track, it is a mixture of percussion, orchestra and Ege's guitar that blends Bollywood, Turkish and western flavors wonderfully. I loved the musical refrain; it has such a cool sound with the mixture of all the styles. This track is the best of them all, a must add to your bollymix playlist or a song to start a new one like bollymix 2. (Though if you are like me you are probably on bollymix 25.) There is a remix, and if you had not heard the original, this mix would be really excellent. I prefer the original, but don't skip the remix: give it a listen because it's worth it.
Javed Ali and Sunidhi Chauhan are the voices of Yaar Mera Dildaara. The track has lyrics by Sameer and is the second track composed by Anu Malik. The haunting flute at the beginning is really wonderful and then amazing percussion joins in making you sit up and say, nice! It too has the Turkish flavor and Javed sings the song with great intonation and energy. Of course, you can always recognize Sunidhi Chauhan, and she infuses the track with her great voice; she makes the song even better. It will get your head dancing and maybe your feet too. A song that gets better with each listen, it made it to the playlist as well.
He is the composer, lyricist and singer. His deep voice is joined by Pretti and Priya and they are all fab. This too has the Mission lyric that does not quite work, but then it expands to other lyrics and is another wicked track. It is an R&B flavored song that has lots of cool sections. It has a pounding beat, but it also is a mix of many different musical styles and they all work together to make a great song. Love the 'hahahahaaaaa'. Definitely could see gorgeous Vivek dancing to this. Tt may just be a background song since Vivek himself said, "Music of the film has been used very intelligently. It's not that suddenly the narrative stops, and a song is inserted. It is used in the backdrops. The story has international flavour so we didn't want to create any breaks. It is a non-traditional script." It will be interesting to see when this appears in the film.
Nobody Like You is sung by Neeraj Shridhar, Anoushka and Ishq Bector. With Chirantan Bhatt as music director again, the lyrics are by Hamza Faruqui and Ishq Bector. This is actually one song where the English lyrics don't sound ridiculous as they have in so many songs we have heard recently. They are not bad and are sung excellently by the singers. It has a fast beat that backs up their voices well. I enjoyed listening to this one. The remix is less club, purer, and I liked it just as much or more. The remixes on this album are making me change my mind about them being included on soundtracks.
Mallika Sherawat has the tendency to be part of some of the most bizarre couples on-screen, having been paired with Nana Patekar, Rahul Bose and Akshaye Khanna — none of which look particularly great with her. In her next, Ugly aur Pagli, she reprises the role of 'Pagli' while Ranvir Shorey does the honours as 'Ugly'.
The Talli Remix by DJ Amyth is like any other remix — faster, racier and heavier beats. In that sense, it's everything a remix should be, but naturally the original is slightly better.
The next track is feel-good and may not go down as a classic, but it serves its purpose well! Titled Yeh Nazar, Sunidhi Chauhan gets the majority of this track while Shaan comes in later. Both singers do a decent job, but the track isn't too challenging to sing and it's clear that they breeze through it. Nevertheless, it's not a track that you want to skip and it's fun while it lasts!
On a more sombre note comes Yaad Teri Aaye which turns out to be a very well-crafted track courtesy of simple music by Anu Malik, perfect lyrics by Amitabh Verma and a soothing rendition by Mohit Chauhan. With all the other tracks in the album being relatively fast-paced, this one brings everything to a close quite well and should work extremely well on-screen during emotional moments.
Money Hai Toh Honey Hai, directed by choreographer-turned-director Ganesh Acharya, is a comedy brimming with stars, including Govinda, Manoj Bajpai, Celina Jaitley, Aftab Shivdasani, Ravi Kishan, Upen Patel, Kim Sharma, Hansika Motwani and Isha Koppikar. Nitin Arora and Sony Chandy headed up the musical direction for the soundtrack, and Sameer penned the lyrics. The trend these days among composers seems to be to try something new; on some albums this has worked and on some albums it has not. For this film’s soundtrack, Arora and Chandy packed a very mixed bag with 2 straight-up Indian tracks, 2 western songs and the other four aspiring to be hip hop. The hip-hop songs definitely did not work, three others were pretty good, but only one was pure music! One must admire thinking outside the box, but as you listen to the album you wish that on a few songs they had not gone so far out! Let’s take a look at the great, the OK and the bad, and rate each song separately.
Nitz’N’Sony and Harshdeep Kaur performed the title track Money Hai Toh Honey Hai. It is very hard to describe - it’s one of those tracks where you wish they had stayed more within the lines. It starts off very oriental but gets a bit more odd because your hear an engine-start whining as part of the beat and some ear-drilling bird sound. It gets better when the percussion line joins in with its thumpin’ beat and some techno thrown in as well. If it were just this section you would think it was a pretty cool song and actually think the car sound is a cool addition, but then it changes again and becomes a jumble. The refrain is not too bad but it is repeated too many times. It had some OK sections, but I cannot say some of the sounds were music. It makes you wonder what were they thinking. I hope this song is not an indication of what the movie is going to be like. 1 star
Awaara Dil has a cast of singers almost as big as the cast of the actors. On the track you hear Adnan Sami, Shruti Pathak, Nitz'N'Sony, Arya, Bob, Ishq and Shantanu Hudlikar. Like the title song, the composer decided to add in an interesting sound, this time a creaking door. But besides that oddity, the back up music is great. There is a splendid piano and the back up beat just stomps. Of course, one always recognizes the brilliant Adnan Sami, and he makes the song worth listening to! There is also a rap section with a reggae flavor that is good, but they put too many sounds in one song along with too many different sections that did not fit together. There are high screaming notes and another loud rap as well as other voices. The ding da ding was another bit that was out of place in the song. They should have kept it simple - it is just a huge mess of a song. It was terrific vocally and musically but with so many varied sections. Overall, it just did not work. I would listen to it again for the Adnan parts and the back beat so I will give it a 2.5.
Labh Jhanjua & Sunidhi Chauhan sing the Indian-pulsed Chhuriyaan. They are both in good voice on the Punjabi flavored track. It has a bit of hip-hop but so little it is superfluous. It is a good song, and maybe I am listening top hard, but again there are some additional sounds that were just strange. Anything special? Nooo. Anything really wrong with it? Nooo... just OK! 2 stars
I have to admit that when I first heard Rangeeli Raat, I thought I had heard it before recently. But then I remembered that it was not a different album, I had heard it during part of Govinda’s performance at IIFA. A very Punjabi bhangra influenced dance track, it is jammin' all the way through. Guaranteed to get you moving, it makes you want to join in dancing with the fab Chichi. Sung with pizzazz, Daler Mehndi keeps the pace going while the gorgeous voice of Sunidhi Chauhan adds some calmness that is great. An awesome track that redeems the album! 3 stars
With Dance Master, we again have a “huh? What is this?”. There was some odd sound I could not identify in the beginning, and throughout the song there were grating noises and voices. The fast paced music was OK in parts, and Shaan and Sivamani sang the vocal line with energy. I did not care for the refrain at all. There was no direction to the song or even a single style, just a bit of this and a bit of that. I was ready for it to be over with still a minute forty left. Then all of a sudden at one minute to go, it became a completely different song for about 30 seconds... I have no idea why but it was jarring. Maybe this is one that will be explained when seen in the movie but I doubt it. 1.25.
Music: Pritam
In a strange turn of events, an attempt on Lucky’s life is foiled by a well-intentioned Happy who fights off the attackers by risking his own life.
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