Dinesh Kamath’s column on ‘New movie-releases in Navi Mumbai’ (Investment, The Lunch Box (Dabba), 2 Guns, Phata Poster Nikhla Hero, Rush and The Family) that was published in Newsband

New movie-releases in Navi Mumbai

Investment

Investment (Marathi) is a 2013 Marathi realistic, socially relevant, hard-hitting film written and directed by Ratnakar Matkari and produced by Pratibha Matkari for Mahadwar Productions. The leading roles are played by Tushar Dalvi, Supriya Vinod, Sulbha Deshpande, Sanjay Mone, Sandeep Pathak, Bhagyashri Pane, Praharsh Naik, Soham Kolvankar and Milind Phatak who are prominent actors from the Indian Film Industry. The Director of Photography is Amol Gole, the sound design is handled by Shantanu Akerkar and Dinesh Uchil with Madhav Vijay providing the background score.

Investment tells us the story a typical ‘upwardly mobile’ couple, Aashish, an ambitious young man, about to change his job for joining an American firm and his wife, Prachi, who is encouraging and eager to move into a higher class of society. (This couple is indicative of the young people in urban areas thriving to achieve more, albeit at cost of social values). The couple has a twelve-year old son, Sohel, who is being brought up with much care and with a dream of raising a successful Politician of the Future, a field, which they believe, is promising due to its lucrative opportunities of growth, power and finance. Sohel is a rather spoilt and self-centered brat who believes and follows his father's motto of ‘always getting what he wants’. He sends a love note to his classmate Deepa Gangan who hails from a totally different social strata and her father informs Ashish and Prachi to keep their son at bay. Deepa is found missing and Sohel claims that he is unaware of her whereabouts. Deepa’s dead body is found by the police, the next day. From this point forward in the film the issues of morality of different characters comes to the fore with the resolution of the crime while testing and making a remark on the materialistic point of view with which today's generation is approaching moral values. The aftermath represents the slow but sure criminalization accompanied by the total lack of regret of the educated young middle-class, with subsequent disregard for moral values, and thus forms the terribly realistic and therefore shocking climax of the film.

The Lunch Box (Dabba)

The Lunch Box (Dabba) is a bollywood Hindi movie starring Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur and Nawazuddin Siddiqui in their respective lead roles. The Lunch Box movie is directed by Ritesh Batra and produced by Anurag Kashyap, Guneet Monga and Arun Rangachari. The story of this drama genre movie is written by Ritesh Batra and the music is composed by Max Richter. The Lunch Box movie is jointly produced under the banners of ‘UTV Motion Pictures’, ‘Dharma Productions’, ‘DAR Motion Pictures’, ‘Sikhya Entertainment’, ‘NFDC’, ‘ROH Films’, ‘ASAP Films’, etc. The Sony Pictures Classics acquired the distribution rights of The Lunch Box movie in North America.

The Lunch Box (Dabba) is a very beautiful story of a relationship between a normal middle class accountant Irrfan Khan and a very young housewife Nimrat Kaur. The Lunch Box movie is based on a very unique love story of a two common people who never met before.

The Lunch Box movie was shown at the Cannes Film Festival where it was supported and appreciated by a large number of peoples plus this film won an award in one category also.

2 Guns

2 Guns (stylized as 2GUNS) is a 2013 American action comedy film directed by Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur and starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg. The film is based on a graphic novel series of the same name.

2 Guns stars Denzel Washington as DEA Agent Bobby Trench and Mark Wahlberg as NCIS Agent Marcus Stigman, two undercover operatives who are unknowingly investigating each other.

Trench and Stigman are part of an elaborate scheme to heist $3 million from Mexican drug lord Papi Grecoa (Edward James Olmos), but end up with $43 million – inadvertently stealing stacks of cash belonging to a two-faced CIA bigwig (Bill Paxton) in cahoots with Papi Grecoa. The DEA and US Navy deny any knowledge of Trench and Stigman’s undercover activities and now the two fugitives are on the run, looking to strike a deal with the corrupt CIA in an effort to return the money and clear their name.

Phata Poster Nikhla Hero

Phata Poster Nikhla Hero (English: Poster Rips Open And Out Comes Hero) is a Bollywood action comedy film starring Shahid Kapoor and Ileana D'Cruz in lead roles. The film is produced by Ramesh Taurani of Tips Music Films and directed by Rajkumar Santoshi.

The film has Shahid Kapoor as Vishwas Rao, Ileana D'Cruz as Kajal, Darshan Jariwala, Saurabh Shukla, Sanjay Mishra, Padmini Kolhapure, Deepika Kamaiah and Nargis Fakhri (special appearance in an item song) and Salman Khan as himself in a special appearance

The film follows the story of Vishwas Rao, an aspiring actor mistaken as a super cop and lleana D'cruz as "Kajal" will be seen as his love interest.

Ileana D'cruz plays a self-proclaimed social worker in the movie. In one of the songs, Ileana is depicted as a Marathi mulgi in a kashti saree (a traditional Marathi style of saree). Padmini Kolhapure plays Shahid's mother in the film and she wants her son to be a police officer but her son wants to be an actor. It's a full fledged comedy film. In this film, Shahid has been shown as a big fan of film stars, particularly Salman, one of the most happening stars today.

Rush

Rush is a biographical action film directed by Ron Howard and written by Peter Morgan about the 1976 Formula One season and the rivalry between drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda.

The film has an interesting plot. After a catastrophic crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring that could have killed him, Formula One driver Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) returns to face his rival James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) in their pursuit of the 1976 World Championship at Fuji in Japan.

Formula One champion James Hunt smoked, drank and reportedly slept with 5,000 women. The legend has been printed. Rush, Ron Howard's gloriously fun biopic about the hotheaded rivalry between McLaren's English playboy and the austere, Ferrari-driving Austrian Niki Lauda, colours it in and has it enamelled.

The film narrates a rollicking tale of lunatics and dreamers. Of men aiming for excellence in an era when a death toll of two or three drivers per year was part of the sport.

Thus the film has Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl playing Hunt and Lauda, the oil-and-water opponents whose fierce competitiveness would come to a head in the extraordinary season of 1976. Hunt has a recklessness that can push him into pole position. Formulaic, disciplined Lauda is the more consistent driver and – despite Hunt's flashes of wit – the more interesting character. Brühl gives the young racer an aged sadness to go with the giant overbite that nature has planted on him. Lauda was alien to Hunt. It is the beginnings of a modern athlete. He didn't smoke or drink. He was careful with what he ate. He cared about the car and the race.

Hunt is shown as a carousing ladies man, but he's tough to love on his own. Morgan has him seducing nurses in A&E, lamping damned shabby journos at press conferences.

Thus Rush is shimmering with petrol fumes, drunk on lens flare, sunwashed and blanched, but it's a racing film that lets you forget the racing. There's plenty of glistening car parts, tons of 70s rock and so on. Rush offers a great human drama, two dangerously talented men pushing each other to risky victory. It is a real story honed down to aerodynamic sleekness. Rush is one of the fastest, most enjoyable rides you'll take this year.

The Family

The Family, also known as Malavita, is a 2013 English-language French crime comedy film co-written by Tonino Benacquista and directed by Luc Besson, starring Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Tommy Lee Jones. The film follows a mafia family under the witness protection program that want to change their lives. The film is based on the novel Malavita (Badfellas for 2010 English translation) by Tonino Benacquista.

De Niro plays an aging version of characters he created in Goodfellas and Casino. This time he is Giovanni Manzoni, an ex-Mafioso who decided to spill the beans on all his criminal connections. The FBI has put him and his family in a witness protection program and sent them to France. There they are ordered to lead a quiet life and not call attention to themselves. But they can’t quite leave their violent ways behind them. Giovanni, now known as Fred Blake, is not used to arguing politely with unaccommodating French plumbers and businessmen. The same is true of his wife Maggie (Michelle Pfeiffer), teenage daughter Belle (Dianna Agron) and son Warren (John D’Leo). This gang is like the Soprano family abroad, and the humor comes from their impatience at trying to behave like a meek brood of American tourists.

The best scene is the shopping expedition that ends with Maggie blowing up the store in response to the arrogance of the snooty French merchants. Belle and Warren prove to be just as deadly to their antagonists at the local lycee.

While the family is adjusting uneasily to their new digs in France, imprisoned gangsters back home are trying to locate the snitching family and wipe them out. So there’s a chase element added to the fish-out-of-water comedy.

The final gun battle between the family and their enemies is well executed; it seems to come from a different, far more conventional movie.