It's review time folks!

Having a grih-pravesh back to my online blogging home with these easy going reviews...

Iqbal - A Story Above Cricket
After a long time has Bollywood come up with a movie which makes you smile, laugh, and cry - all at the same time. This movie is simply amazing (A-M-A-Z-I-N-G, in case you missed it!) With Nagesh Kuknoor (of Rockfor and Hyderabad Blues fame), Naseeruddin Shah, Girish Karnad, et al it's bound to be good.

Right from the first scene till the last, this movie keeps you glued to your seat, sharing the journey of Iqbal - a deaf and mute boy, the fact which is easily lost within five minutes of the movie - sharing his dreams of playing professional cricket for the nation, sharing his failures, his joys, and his sadness.

Don't skip this movie if you think that it'll be serious and the rona-dhona types just because it's about the struggles of a deaf and mute boy. If that's exactly what you're thinking, then for a minute imagine you're playing cricket and for some odd reason your captain has actually sent you in to bat! So you're on the pitch, all padded up, standing with your bat about a foot away from the pad. The bowler bowls a yocker right between that 'hole' and you come back to the pavilion even before the Maggi noodles are ready. So you're imagining it - right? Yes - so my point is, that the bat is what you're thinking about Iqbal, and the pad is what the movie actually is - and as Siddhu would put it - "The gap between bat and pad is so much that I would have driven a car through it..."

So you get the point!

The music is simply amazing - especially the "Aashayein" song... the melody, lyrics, timing, everthing about the song is amazing.

Shreyas Talpade, the boy who played Iqbal, and the little girl who's played his sister, both, have done an amazing job! Not to forget the female who's played the role of Iqbal's mother.

Net-net (new lingo that I recently learnt :-) everyone has done an excellent job. No overplaying, no underplaying, no excessive rona-dhona, no majboor-lachaar praanis - just feel good!

Nagesh Kukunoor has proved it again - and has succeeded in keeping Subhas Ghai away from direction.

And you love the fact that the movie gets over in a little more than two hours without the elaborate song and dance sequences. Which reminds me - the SC (that's the shortie for the Supreme Court, you idiot!) has recently passed an order asking Ketan Mehta and team to stop the screening of Mangal Pandey cuz his (Mr. Mangal's) descendents feel bad about the fact that their dada-pardaada may have had a relationship with a prostitute! Bah!