Dinesh Kamath’s column ‘New movies that’ll get released in Navi Mumbai’ (Transformers – Age of Extinction and Ek Villain) that was published in Newsband

New movies that’ll get released in Navi Mumbai

By Dinesh Kamath

Transformers – Age of Extinction

Transformers: Age of Extinction is a 2014 American science fiction action film based on the Transformers franchise. It is the fourth installment of the live-action Transformers film series and stars Mark Wahlberg in the lead role. A sequel to Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the film takes place four years after the invasion of Chicago. Like its predecessors, the film is directed by Michael Bay and executive produced by Steven Spielberg. The screenplay is written by Ehren Kruger, who served as screenwriter since Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. This is the first film in the series to feature an entirely new cast of human characters and the first to feature the Dinobots. Returning Transformers include Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Leadfoot, and Brains.

The film has an interesting plot. The basic premise is that failed robotics engineer Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) “finds a Transformer” - Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) himself, in fact - while he’s hunting through junk. Unfortunately, the government, via Kelsey Grammer’s villainous Harold Attinger, has declared an unofficial war on the alien shape-shifters. The Earth-saving Autobots are not excluded from the search and execution crusade. Cade, his 17-year-old daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz), best friend/assistant Lucas (T. J. Miller), and Tessa’s secret lover/professional race-car driver Shane (Jack Reynor) get caught in the crossfire between Attinger’s minions – the most vicious of whom is the ruthless Savoy (Titus Welliver) – and the fleeing Autobot leader.

Meanwhile, Attinger has commissioned tech tycoon Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci) to create man-made and controlled Transformers via his company KSI. The aim is to use the manufactured robots as military weapons in this and all future wars, which as you can imagine is a totally flawless idea. Joyce utilizes the fallen  Decepticons, including Megatron, and several captured Autobots to reverse engineer his new-world-order machines. In a bid to end “the age of the Transformers”, and in keeping with the notion that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, Attinger has agreed to an uneasy alliance with Lockdown, a Transformer who swears allegiance to neither Autobot nor Decepticon.

Lockdown, who just may be the best and most prominent baddie this franchise has ever seen, seeks Optimus for his own purposes and cares little for the safety of the insignificant humans. To combat this new threat and protect his endangered brethren, Prime calls upon his own personal band of brothers: Bumblebee, Hound (John Goodman), Drift (Ken Watanabe), Crosshairs (John DiMaggio), and later, Brains (Reno Wilson).

Thus concludes the basic plot and the extent of the story that contains a logical through-line.

Ek Villain

Ek Villain is a romantic-thriller film directed by Mohit Suri. Starring Sidharth Malhotra and Shraddha Kapoor in the lead roles, Riteish Deshmukh makes his debut as an antagonist with this film. It is produced by Ekta Kapoor and Shobha Kapoor under Balaji Motion Pictures and ALT Entertainment.

The story is mostly narrated in flashbacks. The plot of the film is interesting. Guru (Sidharth Malhotra) is a silent but callous gangster in Goa working for his boss (Remo Fernandes). He is struggling with his previous aching past and is finding it difficult to come over as it comes haunting him again and again until he come across this happy-go-lucky girl Aisha (Shraddha Kapoor). She helps brining him out of his dark times of yore and finally Guru falls in love and marries her.

They shift from Goa to Mumbai to kick-start a new life but their tender life is given a jolt when Aisha is murdered in a rather suspicious manner. Filled with rage Guru is out for seeking revenge from the murderer. But finally when he comes across him, whose name is Rakesh (Retiesh Deshmukh), he finds it difficult to provide him any harm as surprisingly this murderer is apparently inoffensive and modest.

What is the past of this attacker and what probably led him to kill Aisha? Is he serial killer, a psycho or is highly obsessed with something? Mohit describes such intriguing tale packed with twists and turns.

The film has Sidharth Malhotra as Guru, Riteish Deshmukh as Rakesh, Shraddha Kapoor as Aisha, Aamna Sharif as Suloochna and Prachi Desai as Guru's sister.

Director Mohit Suri roped in Mithoon & Ankit Tiwari to compose music for Ek Villain. The soundtrack has 6 songs with one track being an unplugged version crooned by lead actress Shraddha Kapoor which marks her debut as a playback singer. Three songs are composed by Mithoon, The song Galliyan is composed by Ankit Tiwari. And a track named Awari is composed by Soch (Band). The lyrics are penned by Manoj Muntashir, Mithoon & Soch (Band Members).

Thus the film has songs like Galliyan, Banjaara, Zaroorat, Awari, Humdard and Galliyan (Unplugged).