Blue

Anthony D'Souza had carefully handpicked all the ingredients to make a hit movie. Noteworthy is the cinematography which is top-notch. The underwater sequences are shot with aplomb. The background music is as good as any Hollywood movie. The songs from A R Rahman who is riding high on the success of Slumdog Millionaire are great. The choice of locales is great. And finally to rope in the international audience Kylie Minogue is roped in. The media is used effectively to generate curiosity and ensured audience is flocked to cinema halls. What else more can you ask for? Ahem - story please. Yes - amongst all the gloss and glitter somebody just seem to have forgotten to choose/ validate a proper story/ plot to base it leading to the entire affair falling like a pack of cards.

° Akshay Kumar yet again jumps on the other side to do an extended version of his character in "Ajnabee". And adopts his son's name as the screen name. BTW - the goatee didn't suit his looks in any manner.

° Sanjay Dutt was miscast. He was big, bulky and appeared averaged for the character. Also pairing with Lara seemed cradle-snatching.

° Zayed Khan makes an attempt to ultra-cool. The whole sequence of Rahul Dev and Kats is so badly written even a blind can see it coming.

° Lara is surely hots in Blue. For the first time I had to take note of her - seriously. She leaves no stones unturned to flaunts her figure in an aesthetic way.

°Kats adopts funky-techno look in her special appearance. She experiments her looks with the piercing and sadly doesn't look quite appealing.

° Rahul Dev is as usual dependable.

° Kabir Bedi role can be timed in seconds.

The execution is sleek and no two ways to that. In many movies one complains that length should have been trimmed to deliver the impact but it seems in "Blue" the editor has done a magnanimous job to extent that it fails to sink into the audience.

Mr. Anthony D'Souza - don't even think of any sequel to it ref: Air.

PS: And the "Sarkar/ Sethji" was literally getting on my nerves after a while.

Anthony D'Souza had everything going for him... Budget wise, Stars wise, Music wise, but despite all these cherry's... he fails to make a convincing fare. The script is a complete mess.

The first hr is very slow, the film doesn't move. Songs come up, including 'Chiggy Wiggy'. The second hr picks up, with the climax {which is the only proper Under-Water sequence in the film} standing out. However, the twist in the climax doesn't create any impact.

A R Rahman's music another sore point. One just doesn't get the feeling of the Legendary Music Director's genius in here.

Performance wise: Akshay Kumar is strictly okay. Sanjay Dutt is as usual, though he's looking very fat in the film. Zayed Khan is bland. Lara Dutta looks amazing and does a fine job. Katrina too looks gorgeous, as ever in a cameo appearance. Rahul Dev is good as the menace. Kabir Bedi is wasted.

On the whole 'Blue' disappoints big time.

If I may broadly categorize Bollywood films into two camps. One, the original works, which might even extend to remakes of films from the other regions in the subcontinent, but seldom seen outside of it. The masala formula would work its magic into creating an entertaining tale filled with a song and dance extravaganza. Then the other would be the stitching together of elements from other films, seldom referred to as paying homage or acknowledged if at all, and trying to pass them off as originals. These tend to be predictable, and plainly concealing a bad, if non-existent story. Blue unfortunately falls into the latter category.

I had originally wanted to watch this on the big screen, given its tooting of the horn that it's the first to feature stunning underwater photography in a Bollywood action film. But the result here, for an actioner, is something that left much to be desired. While references to Into The Blue can be discounted by virtue of it being just another treasure hunter movie set in the high seas, the other sequences here were something that you would have seen before, from boring MI:2 motorcycle chase scenes, the Bourne Ultimatum for fisticuffs on board a boat, to the one that takes the cake involving a gunfight that was a lift out from Bad Boys 2.

Lines were also found lifted from films like Hitch, but thankfully this was kept to a minimum. Set in the Bahamas with locations like Thailand also included, this film dwells on the search for the missing sunken ship Lady in Blue, which is said to contain treasures beyond a man's widest dreams. A simple, carefree fisherman Sagar (Sanjay Dutt) holds key to the location of the ship, given a diving expedition with his dad when young which resulted in a tragedy. His good friend, rich playboy Aarav (Akshay Kumar) desires that Sagar would come to his senses and make them both richer, but to Sagar it's a secret that he would bring to the grave.

Enter Sagar's reckless brother Sam (Zayed Khan) who's being pursued by thugs all the way from Thailand for a sum of 50 million dollars that he owes, and you know just what the solution is for our reluctant Sagar. As mentioned the film got made through the stringing of action sequences one after another, with room for some romance between Sagar and Mona (Lara Dutta, and Sam and Nikki (Katrina Kaif in a short supporting role), but the much touted underwater action scenes turn out to be nothing more than a drop in the ocean, much of it against faceless thugs who seem to appear quite conveniently to challenge our testosterone filled trio.

There's a nice twist to the story about families which gave the weak story some sense, but alas this was too little too late, as the finale was one hurried affair that seemed more like a haphazardly inserting a coda just for the sake of, damage having already been made by the uninspiring action and plot. If only it had taken time to further develop the characters beyond their cardboard caricatures, which would have made it all the more palatable in terms of story, rather than to stick its guns to the action which were cobbled from films made in the West.

The protagonists are searching for a treasure ship that was traveling from Britain to India, and was lost at sea in the Bahamas.. yes Bahamas is en route to India! The acting is horrible, the dialogues are especially cheesy and dialogue delivery made me want to throw up. All the actors make a mess, cant actually blame them if the script was this bad. It has scenes lifted from movies like Torque and Hitch, and has an overall feel of Fool's Gold.

I liked the setting, and cinematography is quite breathtaking. It has a few decent action sequences, though the editing leaves a lot to be desired. The story is very weak and predictable, go for this one only if you have absolutely nothing else to do.

Starring :- Sunjay Dutt

Akshay Kumar

Zayed Khan

Lara Dutta

Kylie Minogue

Director :- Anthony D'Souza

Rating :- * 1/2

Since the past one month or so wherever i go, be it a night club, or a wedding, or just usual hangout spots, i noticed the songs of "Blue" playing over 'n' over. That's called excellent publicity. It would do good to any movie, only if, with a BIG "IF", the movie is good, or at least decent. That is not the case with "Blue".

Excellent publicity can't do good for a really BAD and PATHETIC movie. When i first saw the promo of the movie i thought this might not be the most critically acclaimed film of the year but it should be a "Fun to watch popcorn movie". But no, it turns out to be a stinking affair, smellier than Mr Akshay Kumar's socks which he's wearing since his last successful film "Singh is Kinng" although that movie wasn't a good one, but still it was way better than "Blue".

First lets just get to the premise of the film. The plot revolves around the trio mainly Sunjay Dutt(Sagar), Akhshay Kumar(Aarav, Sagar's friend) and Zayed Khan(Sam, Sagar's younger brother). Also there is Lara Dutta(Mona, Sagar's better half) and Katrina Kaif(Nikki) and Rahul Dev(Gulshan).

Sagar and Aarav are friends, together they go fishing and have an occasional boxing face off. Aarav tries to convince Sagar to go treasure hunting with him, because only Sagar knows the whereabouts of it. But Sagar refuses due to the reason that his father lost his life while searching for that treasure and blames himself for his father's death.

The story cuts to Sam, who is in Malaysia doing bike races, he gets a job from Gulshan(Rahul Dev) to deliver a package, but he loses it on the way, now Gulshan wants either his package back or $50 million. Nikki(Katrina, Sam's love interest and also working with Gulshan( advices him to leave Malaysia and go somewhere else, so he goes to Bahamas to his elder brother Sagar, that's where the main story begins.

Coming to the main highlight of this film, the underwater sequences, believe me they were that good. Excellent lighting and camera angles and shots makes it look like an international affair. But that's the only thing good about "Blue". The action sequences are passable to say the least. No thrilling action sequence is to be found here. Only lame-money-spending-good-for-nothing kind of action sequences are there. Specifically the bike chase sequence, the one involving some 4-5 bikes and a train was so lame, the bikes which were supposed to be on the chase seems like they are out on a picnic and are grouping together to enjoy the sight-seeing, including the guy on the bike they were supposed to be chasing. If that doesn't make you shake your head in disbelief then the dialogs would definitely do that, for instance Aarav saying "Lets go take out the treasure from the sea", as if he's talking about going for window shopping and that too for a toothbrush. Also there's another one Mona saying "Can't we just talk peacefully with them?", even when she and Sagar are being attacked by armed men. These do work as "Unintentional jokes". And believe me there are many more.

Also the plot holes are so big you can virtually make Jupiter pass through it. For instance, the "So-Called" treasure which is lying in the bottom of the ocean is so mysterious that many people even doubt its existence and people who tried to take it out lost there lives, but our protagonist Sagar(Sanjay Dutt), sleepwalks his way through the ocean and finds out the treasure just like "that". Either he is a combination of Columbus and Sherlock Holmes or the director and his team of writers were too busy thinking about the cinematography part that they forgot about the minor details in the story.

Talking about the "so called" surprise ending of the film, the only surprise you will get is that you'll notice that most people are actually laughing at what had to be a serious moment in the film, "Unintentional Laughs" arise universally.

The second highlight of the movie is Lara Dutta, who is looking like a zillion-gazillion bucks, she rules the waves and many a hearts too. The perfect eye candy.

The cinematography is top grade, but under that glossy finish lies a decomposed chunk of wood, that is being eaten by termites and at the end what is left is that glossy finish with a BIG HOLE inside.

The music is average, although some notes are easy on the ears, but still considering A.R. Rahman is the music and background score director, the music is disappointing and so is the film.

And don't get me started on the script, like Akshay's previous outing "Kambakkht Ishq" the script is "Missing". Although at some points in the movie you feel like there's a decent script developing, but as soon as you think that, the director puts all your doubts aside and comes up with another blow up.

With holes that BIG, even the unsinkable Titanic sank, and sadly so does "Blue", but with the sinking it stinks too.

I go for * 1/2 out of five for director Anthony D'Souza's "Blue"

An opportunity lost, this film made me wonder why am I even reviewing it.

Under all that gloss lies a BIG HOLE that takes "Blue" down that smelly drainpipe which hasn't been cleaned since the medieval ages.

Watch it only when someone threatens to kill you for not watching it.