Dinesh Kamath’s column ‘New movie-releases in Navi Mumbai’ (Citylights, Blended, Maleficient, Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi and The Raid 2) that was published in Newsband

New movie-releases in Navi Mumbai

By Dinesh Kamath

Citylights

CityLights is a 2014 Indian Hindi drama film directed by Hansal Mehta starring Rajkummar Rao and Patralekha in the lead roles. The film is a remake of the BAFTA nominated British film Metro Manila (2013). The film is presented by Fox Star Studios in association with Mahesh Bhatt and Mukesh Bhatt.

The story of the film is about a poor farmer from Rajasthan coming to Mumbai in search of livelihood. Deepak Singh is a farmer in Rajasthan. When his life is struck by a tragedy, he migrates to Mumbai, with his wife and young child, hoping for a better life. However, upon arriving, he soon discovers the challenges of life in a big city. The film has a love story too put against the backdrop of a thriller.

Thus City Lights’ story revolves around the poor man who belongs to a village, comes to Mumbai for the sake of livelihood and then faces many hurdles which give him to learn something; so one day he succeeds in achieving his goal. He learns that with passion and struggle, anybody can achieve anything in his life but there should be strong determinations to achieve it.

The film has Rajkummar Rao as Deepak Singh and Patraleka.

The soundtrack is composed by Jeet Ganguly. The film has songs like Muskurane sung by Arijit Singh, Darbadar by Neeti Mohan, Ek Charraiya by Arijit Singh, Citylights (Title Song) by Rashid Khan & Usha Uthup, Soney Do by Arijit Singh, Ek Charraiya (Unplugged) by Jeet Ganguly and Muskurane (Unplugged) by Mohammad Irfaan.

Blended

Blended is a 2014 American romantic comedy film directed by Frank Coraci and written by Ivan Menchell and Clare Sera. Starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore the film has an ensemble cast featuring Bella Thorne, Emma Fuhrmann, Terry Crews, Joel McHale, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Kevin Nealon and Shaquille O'Neal.

After a bad blind date, single parents Jim Friedman and Lauren Reynolds find themselves stuck together at a resort for families in Africa, where their attraction grows as their respective children benefit from the burgeoning relationship.

The setting is a Hooters in Georgia, where Lauren (Drew Barrymore) and Jim (Adam Sandler) are meeting on a blind date. She's a divorcee with two boys, he's a widower with three girls. Aside from being single parents with kids, they have nothing in common

Sandler and Drew Barrymore play single parents with zero dating experience whose first blind date is, naturally, a disaster. Their characters married before college graduation, managed to spawn five kids between them, and yet, despite spending almost two decades with their former spouses (one dead, one a dick), have never learned anything about the opposite sex. He's the schlub who mans a sports store with Shaq; she's the pearl-clenching workaholic who co-owns a closet-organizing company.

Will she school him on responsibility? Will he teach her to loosen up? Will Blended take two hours and a trip to Africa to get there while implanting uncomfortable messages like "girls aren't pretty without long hair"?

Maleficient

Maleficent is a 2014 dark fantasy adventure film directed by Robert Stromberg from a screenplay written by Linda Woolverton. Starring Angelina Jolie as the eponymous Disney Villainess character, the film is a live-action re-imagining of Walt Disney's 1959 animated film Sleeping Beauty, and portrays the story from the perspective of the antagonist, Maleficent.

Maleficent explores the untold story of Disney's most iconic villain from the 1959 classic Sleeping Beauty and the elements of her betrayal that ultimately turned her pure heart to stone. Driven by revenge and a fierce desire to protect the moors over which she presides, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) cruelly places an irrevocable curse upon the human king's newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Aurora (Elle Fanning) is caught in the middle of the seething conflict between the forest kingdom she has grown to love and the human kingdom that holds her legacy. Maleficent realizes that Aurora may hold the key to peace in the land and is forced to take drastic actions that will change both worlds forever.

The film has Angelina Jolie as Maleficent and Ella Purnell and Isobelle Molloy as Young Maleficent.

Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi

Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi is a 2014 Hindi comedy, romance, drama film directed by Aman Sachdeva and produced by Ekta Kapoor & Bejoy Nambiar. Siddharth Gupta is playing the title role in the film.

The film has Siddharth Gupta, Simran Kaur Mundi, Pallavi Batra, Ashish Juneja, Siddharth Bhardwaj, Amit Sial, Raj Singh Arora and Tanvie Parab.

Kuku Mathur Ki Jhand Ho Gayi is a fun and quirky slice-of-life comedy, set in Delhi. The film is about a no-holds barred friendship that turns crazy when competition seeps in.

With the film dealing with the life and times of a young boy who has quite a few dates with regular 'jhands' in his everyday life, Simran somehow fits into the scheme of things as the leading lady. She is obviously the love angle in the film. Siddharth Bhardwaj plays the antagonist Himanshu Gulati and does oppose the protagonist (Siddharth Gupta), but it is not a grey kind of character.

KMKJHG is a typical Delhi comedy. It's a kind of comedy with a lot of Delhi slang.

The Raid 2

The Raid 2 (Indonesian: The Raid 2: Berandal — English: "Thug") is a 2014 Indonesian martial arts crime action film written and directed by Gareth Evans; it is the sequel to the 2012 hit The Raid: Redemption.

Iko Uwais reprises his role as Rama. The film also stars Arifin Putra, Julie Estelle, Alex Abbad, Tio Pakusadewo, Oka Antara, and Cecep A. Rahman. The film also features Japanese actors such as Ryuhei Matsuda, Kenichi Endo, and Kazuki Kitamura.

Taking place shortly after the first movie's ending, Rama (Iko Uwais) is assigned to go undercover and infiltrate a crime family in Jakarta. He grows close to the crime lord's son, Uco (Arifin Putra), and from there he must gather evidence to help save the city from these not-so-kind people. While the first movie only had a handful of characters that mattered, this one opens the flood gates by incorporating a huge cast and establishing a much bigger world.

The film picks up hours after the first film left with Rama (Iko Uwais) being asked by Bunawar, Chief of Jakarta’s anti-corruption task force to join his team. Rama initially refuses but later changes his mind when a young up-and-coming gangster, Bejo (Alex Abbad), has Rama’s brother killed. Bunawar sends Rama deep undercover with the task of finding evidence of corruption to bring down the Goto and Bangun crime families as well as corrupt Jakarta police commissioner Reza (Roy Marten). To do this, Rama has to befriend Uco, Bangun’s son who is in prison and work his way into the Bangun crime family.  What follows is a story of ambition and betrayal that worked pretty well. While Rama is trying to get the evidence he needs so he can be pulled out and go back to his family, you have Uco & Bejo working to collapse the fragile truce between the Bangun & Goto crime families. It’s like watching a bunch of small bombs being placed which all start to explode at the same time at the end of the movie.