Hello

The casting department has done a wonderful job of selecting the right person for the role.

¤ Sharman Joshi:: The devil's advocate part was crass.

¤ Gul Panag, Isha, Amrita Arora:: Apt choice for the role.

¤ Sohail Khan:: Restraint is the keyword dude.

¤ Sharat Saxena:: Apt choice, however should the role should have been more resilient as in the book.

¤ Dalip Tahil:: Apt choice but should have been honest to his character in the book by using more management jargon's.

¤ Suresh Menon:: Oh just shut up and go away!

¤ Salman Khan & Katrina:: Pass.

Conversation with God:: A more powerful voice would have apt. And since it forms the crux of the movie, should have been fleshed out better.

The costumes could have been paid more attention. Visually aesthetic in "live" isn't necessarily on-screen as well.

It is a rarity to see a book effectively translated to screen and needless to say this attempt tanks. The execution plays truant and and to a certain extent screenplay is to be blamed too. The movie appears to be Cut-and-paste of 15-minute chunks. In addition, there was no need incorporate everything in the book (Bridget Jones Diary should be a good moot point!)?

Is Atul Agnihotri a worse director than actor? Well that's a discussion not worth having. His debut film ripped off 'Return To Me' and it was a pathetic movie. This film is pretty bad (though not as bad as other disasters of the year such as 'Drona', 'Krazzy 4' etc) and the worst thing about both of Agnihotri's films is the direction. The guy should have given up after his first attempt and perhaps do something not-related to cinema (perhaps follow the footsteps of another non-talented ex actress like Twinkle Khanna who has now become an interior decorator).

I haven't read Bhagat's book but what convinced me to give this movie a chance were Isha Koppikar and Gul Panag. The movie really drags at several sequences and the dialogues are stale. The romantic scenes are corny and dull e.g. Priyanka proposing to Shyam. The songs are irritating and of the fast-forward quality. The characters are not well-developed and as a consequence, some of the performances suffer. The entire God sequence appears forced and ridiculous and the Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif track are cringe-inducing. The film is offensive to non-Indians and there is even a forced 'patriotic scene' about how Westerners use Indians and then treat them like nothing etc etc. The resolution is presented in an amateur way.

'Hello' is carried by Sharman Joshi and the actor does a fairly adequate job. Sohail Khan is mostly annoying but there are a few scenes where he displays signs of good acting. Amrita Arora shows some improvement in acting as she's cast against type. Sharat Saxena too is good. Anusha Dhandekar makes a funny appearance as the bimbo girlfriend. Salman Khan's scenes are puke-inducing. He looks and acts like a 50 year old haggard has-been retarded popstar (who has gone under the knife and thinks he's 20 and cool). His fake hair and age are oozing out of the implants and, as always, he's stripping again (ghastly!). Katrina Kaif has never been able to act and she is laughable (unintentionally of course). A gorgeous Isha Koppikar and a sensual Gul Panag are sufficient (but this is far from their best works). The rest of the cast are truly abysmal (especially that office rapper)

There are a few funny moments and I liked the chemistry between the five main actors. But, overall, it's a very weak film. Atul Agnihotri should give up on cinema (and so should Salman). Perhaps one can give it a go if they are fans of the actors but otherwise, there isn't much to miss.

Based on a bestseller "One Night at a Call Center" by Chetan Bhagat, the movie is a good example which teaches that we need to do a lot of changes and additions on the scripting stage if we want to make a movie on a novel. In "Hello", the director has made some additions, but the add on's are there only to sell the movie and grab attention of the audiences. By only taking Salman Khan for few scenes and shooting a catchy number with shirtless Salman, does not mean that you can ignore the other important aspects of movie making. Sadly "Hello" becomes the culprit of the same thought.

Last week, I noticed and mention it for "Kidnap" and this week we have the same drastic mistake repeated in "Hello". I cannot simply understand that "How can a movie start straight away with a four-five minute song?" As the viewer excitedly sits to watch the movie, he is simply served a song at the start. This is a definite indication that you are going to watch a mediocre product. And as the time passes, you know that the outcome is not what you were expecting.

An interesting and novel idea gets spoiled with a very poor script and execution. It was hugely promoted as a movie in which a phone call is made by "The God" himself to some call center employees. And the greatest flaw of the movie is that the phone call comes after almost half the movie is over. You keep on waiting for that but the director, Atul Agnihotri is more engrossed in giving scenes to all his characters and in describing the tragedies they are facing. Suddenly the phone call sequence comes and also finishes off in minutes. You don't feel excited while the call is being attended by the characters on the screen. The scene is not capable of generating any extraordinary thrill in the viewer. And as the "Call from the God" sequence ends, you also end having any interest in the movie. Morevoer, you also don't find any great results in the movie, even after the God has called.

Performance by the entire cast is simply professional like they are just doing another film. So nothing special is there to write about any specific actor. Only Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif seem to be more interested in contributing to the movie than all others. They both are there enacting "a special appearance" in order to provide a star element to the movie. A catchy title song with Salman, is good to watch, but it should have been there in the end titles instead. The special and heartily efforts of Salman & Katrina are not able to save the movie which is unexpectedly a poor product based on a best-selling novel.

It's nice to see that we are again picking up good books and novels for the stories in our movies. This practice was done way back in the Black and White era and in later years too by some great film-makers India has seen. But in the current and fast changing times a lot has to be re-shaped and re-written to transform a successful book into a Hit movie. Unfortunately, "Hello", fails in doing that.

Of course. Agree to that fact that, even though you cant judge a book by its movie and movies cant live up to the book at all. (except Godfather and Gone with the Wind). What if you make a movie out of a _________ book (fill in the blanks) that has gained enough popularity un-necessarily. The only good thing about this "one night @ a call Centre" authored by Chetan Bhagat is that i could finish the book straight three hours. No more comments on the book anymore.

On top of that you have the author of the book being the scriptwriter, then this got me thinking, why would i purposely spoil my own product?? As the author would be thinking "Dont i love what i am creating, I have already created a book which people have not liked too much, and some people have. Now I will write for the movie too. Make it even worse and look at the box office figures the audience loves it." Clearly, not one of my best movies that i watched, but the experience of watching this movie Hello was good, because I watched for some Rs. 60 /- balcony where people the audience was actually directing Sharman Joshi what exactly to be done in the car with Gul Panag, during a censor board certified sex scene in the movie.

Gul Panag is not any more counted as one of my favourite actress. Post Dor, it was her performance that bowled me over. But after this movie, it was just about nothing.

Bummer ! Yes, Bollywood does it yet again, successfully adding one more flop flick to it's "2008 flop-list" and simultaneously increasing the odds in favor of my ever growing thoughts of putting a full stop to viewing their movies whence I'm afraid I must admit, if I don't get a hit and I betcha, I really mean a big hit soon Bollywood won't see my face again with its movies that are no more than a blot of mustard on the shameless faces of the entire crew involved, needless to mention the so called "promisingly huge cast" being used for the greater bad and acceleratingly increasing unrepairable damage being caused, primarily mental, to the blockbuster-expecting viewers inhabiting God's whole green earth who enter the theater happy-face like an expecting mother and come out ruined-face as if the mother just unexpectedly lost her baby whilst causing me no dismay or even a bit of concern as I never enter a theater expecting anything great from Hindi cinema and that is the least I'm asking from you in lieu of this this entire one-sentence review...LOL