Andhranews

Naksha

Cast: Sunny Deol , Sameera Reddy, Viveik Oberoi, Jackie Shroff
Director: Sachin Bajaj
Rating:**

Get this: there’s a map leading to something earth-shattering. A man has been killed over it. His sons are being chased by murderous villains who want that map, and the film takes time to snigger over a woman snoring. Not just a passing chuckle, a whole lengthy sequence built around it. No wonder Sachin Bajaj’s Indiana Jones- National Treasure inspired Naksha is such turn off.

The point of an adventure thriller is that it should thrill. Naksha ends up being exasperating for all the opportunities it lets slide. Why, for instance, waste time over a skirmish with a clan of pygmies (in the foothills of the Himalayas?)! Why halt the action at a crucial point to have an outdoor ‘item’ number? Would the villain take the time to give a long mythology lesson to the heroes he is about to kill — accompanied by an animation Mahabharat sequence?

Vicky (Viveik Oberoi) and Veer (Sunny Deol) are half brothers, whose father was killed by rival archaeologist Bali (Jackie Shroff) when he found a map to a ‘treasure’ that could change the course of history. Twenty years later Vicky finds the map and is joined by Veer to reach the hidden place before Bali and his men do. Ria (Sameera Reddy) is put there for the glamour, and to look suitably impressed when the men do something brave — though they could have packed her home on day one. Even Bali has an item girl in his gang, who would have frozen to death the way she’s dressed (mini skirt-bustier) in the mountains.

Unlike The Da Vinco Code and National Treasure, the quest for this grail is not unfolded through a series of clever riddles — it would take real brains and research to write a film like that. Bajaj relies on coincidences and contrivances — like somebody spotting Vicky studying the map, recognising it 20 years later, and informing Bali. The films is also quite behind the times in terms of technology (not a computer or cell phone in sight, though there’s a blatant plug for a money transfer service), and the special effects were better in the era of MacKenna’s Gold with a similar climax.

Some outdoor sequences like the river-rafting scenes are well shot, a couple of locations (Thailand, New Zealand) are picturesque, but audiences are used to more sophisticated action now, so the usual fisticuffs and cars blowing up, are not so exciting any more. Newcomer Sachin Bajaj started with a good idea, but messed it up in writing and execution.

Munich

Cast: Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Ciaràn Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler
Director: Steven Spielberg
Rating:***

With his latest film, Munich, Steven Spielberg forgoes the emotional bullying and pop thrills that come so easily to him to tell the story of a campaign of vengeance that Israel purportedly brought against Palestinian terrorists in the wake of the 1972 Olympics. An unsparingly brutal look at two people all but drowning in a sea of their own blood, Munich is by far the toughest film of the director’s career and the most anguished.

The film’s title suggests that this is the story of what happened at Munich in September 1972, and it is, though only in part. Most of the action takes place in the immediate aftermath of Munich, after 11 Israeli hostages were murdered by members of a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September. Based on George Jonas’s disputed book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team, and adapted to the screen by the oddball couple of Eric Roth and Tony Kushner, the film pivots on five Israeli agents, who, recruited to exact revenge by a country that will officially deny their existence, zigzag Europe as they hunt suspects over months and then years.

With its art-directed verisimilitude and promiscuous use of archival material Munich is one of those Hollywood fictions that seem to befuddle those who miss the nuance in the words “inspired by real events.” Here, those events begin with members of Black September scaling the Olympic village fence and taking both Israeli athletes and coaches hostage. Most of what happens next, including the agonising wait at the Olympic village and the catastrophic showdown, emerges piecemeal, in bursts of violence that periodically interrupt the narrative and increasingly trouble the sleep of the story’s quavering moral center, a former Mossad agent named Avner (the Australian actor Eric Bana).

What makes Avner memorable is that he is never more human than when faced with killing another person. More than the story’s slow-to-dawn ambivalence about Avner’s mission, more than the obvious effort made to ensure that the Palestinian terrorists are more than faceless thugs , it is Avner’s humanity, that gives Munich the weight of a moral argument. It’s an argument, though, that has little to do with whether Israel has a right to exist. Only this matters: blood has its costs, even blood shed in righteous defense.

Dil diya hai

Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Ashmit Patel, Mithun Chakraborty, Geeta Basra
Director: Aditya Datt
Rating:*

Aaditya Datt (the director of Aashiq Banaya Aapne) tries his hand at a dark romantic thriller with Dil Diya Hai, but it turns out to be slow-paced and laughably inane — not even half as effective as Kalyug, which was also set against the flesh trade. Here, the boss of a prostitution racket is Kunal (Ashmit Patel, no improvement), a cold-blooded, cocaine snorting creep, who wants more “brown skin” in his London strip joint — making it sound as if Asian girls were a rarity in the UK.

Sahil (Emraan Hashmi) is a down-on-his-heel travel agent, who desperately needs money for his mother’s operation. When giggly Indian Neha (Geeta Basra) comes to London with her family and flirts madly with Sahil, he ends up selling her to Kunal. The first half of the film meanders through Sahil touring London with the family, taking her clubbing, driving her to Scotland when she misses the train, and encountering a kind Indian couple Ronny and Michele (Mithun Chakraborty-Kitu Gidwani), on the way. It’s rather a lengthy prologue for the actual story that starts with Neha waking up at the strip joint, and Kunal falling in love with her. Naturally, Indian hypocrite that he is, he doesn’t touch her, though he paws all the white girls.

The guilty Sahil now wants Neha back and kidnaps her from Kunal’s den, with all his gun toting, six-foot hulks watching impassively. The sick mother conveniently forgotten, Sahil is on the run with Neha, being chased by Kunal’s men and finding shelter once more at Ronny’s isolated chateau. Ronny is the kind of guy who strums the guitar and delivers homilies on love, while his wife watches moony-eyed.

The drama of the situation appeals to Ronny, more so when Kunal’s goons shoot down all the glass in his house, and also put a bullet through Michele. Ronny is a man with a past and that past surfaces now to protect the runaway lovebirds. The cops are nowhere in the picture — the Indian community in the UK seems to live in its own universe, with its own exclusive Mafia. Might actually have been interesting to explore the dark side of the Indian community there, but then Dil Diya Hai is meant to be a no-brainer.

If the tragedy in the film evokes titters, the little comedy there is, comes across as absolutely tragic. Himesh Reshammiya has composed the music on his low days, so no relief there. Only loyal Emraan Hashmi fans could put up with this one — and who knows how many will remain loyal afterwards?

Britney Spears reportedly checked into hospital to deliver her second child by a secret Caesarean section recently. The Baby One More Time singer and husband Kevin Federline have allegedly scheduled an appointment at the UCLA Santa Monica Medical Centre, in California, exactly one week before son Sean Preston’s first birthday, according to website Dlisted.

Kevin recently told reporters that Britney was due to give birth in October. It is common among the rich and famous to give birth by elective C-section approximately four weeks before the baby is due. The procedure is carried out for cosmetic reasons, as the stomach skin most commonly stretches the most in the last month, so having the baby delivered early limits the possibility of unsightly stretch marks.

Nicole Kidman has hit out at Angelina Jolie for using her charity work for publicity. The Australian actress, who is about to make her first trip to India as goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women, claims that the Tomb Raider star gets far too much recognition for her good deeds. Nicole is quoted by Scotland’s Daily Record newspaper as saying, “It’s not like Angelina is any better than a nurse working in a hospital, but she’s getting the publicity for her contribution.”

She continued, “I have a friend who is a doctor and every year he works in Africa for two months for no money. So everyone is on the same playing field, whether you offer your services as the doctor or as Angelina does.” Like Nicole, Angelina is also a United Nations goodwill ambassador. The Alexander actress, who gave birth to her first biological child, Shiloh Nouvel, with boyfriend Brad Pitt this year, is known for her charity work. She has previously visited victims of the 2005 Pakistan earthquake disaster on behalf of the UN.

Christina Aguilera “knows” her first child will be a boy. The Beautiful singer, who married music executive Jordan Bratman last November, says, when the time comes for her to have children, she is sure her first-born will be a baby boy. She said, “I have the prediction that I’m going to have a boy first. But I’d be overjoyed with either.” Christina also wants to have cooking lessons before she becomes a mum, so she can be a better parent.

The pop superstar is desperate to improve her domestic skills, because she wants to be able to cook her future children special treats. She told Glamour magazine, “I want to be able to have the same kind of relationship with my children that my mum had with me, and one of the things that I love coming home to is her cooking.”

Drew Barrymore has a same-sex crush on Cameron Diaz. The actress, who starred alongside Cameron in the Charlie’s Angels’ movies, has admitted she has a soft spot for the In Her Shoes star. She told Elle magazine, “Cameron and I are good friends. I am totally into girl love. It’s the ultimate coolest thing ever. You can be each other’s outlets for your dreams and creative aspirations and make them come true.”

Drew, who is dating The Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti, has also said she will never feel pressured to become a Hollywood waif and will always be proud of her curves. She insisted, “I’m never going to fall prey to that. I don’t have enough room in my life for the neurosis of other people’s expectations. If you’re too thin, they kill you and if you’re too fat, they kill you.” She continued, “There’s no such thing as perfection and someone else’s definition of it is not good enough for me. I love food too much to live in fear or starvation. If I could eat macaroni cheese every day then I’d be happy. I live for crispy tacos.”

Robbie Williams may be sued by his ex-manager Nigel Martin-Smith. Nigel, who helped Robbie find fame with boyband Take That, is reportedly holding talks with top lawyer Andrew Caldecott about suing the Angels singer for libel. The final straw came after Nigel heard Robbie has penned another nasty track about him on new album Rudebox. A source told Britain’s Daily Mirror newspaper, “Nigel has always kept a dignified silence despite Robbie’s remarks but this time he has overstepped the mark and Nigel is upset and angry”.

In new track The Nineties, Robbie says he’d like to stick knives in the eyes of his former manager. Robbie says the song confronts the issues he has had with Nigel since he quit the band in 1995 and was sued for breach of contract. He claims the band were never paid for their Euro-pean tour and says Nigel was either a “thief or a rubbish manager”.

Lindsay Lohan had her Hermes handbag stolen from a London airport, which reportedly contained jewellery worth around $1 million. The theft happened shortly after the Mean Girls star arrived at Heathrow recently. Lindsay’s spokesperson Leslie Sloane Zelnick said the 20-year-old was “very upset” about the stolen bag, which as well as the jewellery contained her asthma medication, passport, an expensive cashmere sweater and an undisclosed sum of cash.

Leslie added, “She is begging for the return of the items. She doesn’t care how she gets them, she just wants her stuff back.” Lindsay arrived in the British capital fresh from promoting her upcoming movie Bobby at the Venice Film Festival. The film, which is about the days immediately before and after the assignation of Senator Robert Kennedy, which received rave reviews, is part of her quest to be taken seriously as an actress.

Meanwhile, Lindsay’s mum has dismissed reports claiming the actress is engaged to boyfriend Harry Morton. The rumours started after the Hard Rock Café heir was spotted buying a diamond ring at Cartier, in Beverly Hills, last month. Dina Lohan insists that her daughter’s billionaire boyfriend is “an angel”, but that “it’s not an engagement ring, but a very sweet gift.”