Joker (2012) Reviews

• Do You Need To Watch This ? NO! NO! NO!

  shikhar-warrior292012-09-01

  Remember 'Tees Mar Khan' ? where we got our balls crushed by the amount of dumbness it had , well this one's no less. I thought if a person can make a good movie like 'Jaan-E-Man' he knows how to make cinema . But alas i was wrong. Shrish Kunder proves that he can over-do himself. Though this one's not as boring as Tees Maar Khan But its senseless and has NO HUMOR (read : NONE) i don't remember smiling more than 2wice. Laughing is another story. I wonder why Akshay Kumar does movies like this. I am insured that he now does movies for money only. Sonakshi Sinha on the other hand has no role at all. She has like 30 Min's of the screen space, and she is disappointing. Shreyas Talpade with the 'Kalaa Guss Ghuss' is damn irritating and so are the other villagers. Except for the Hotness of Chitrangada Singh in the item song 'Kaafiraana - I want just you' there is nothing in the film that will entertain. Give it a skip. Doesn't even deserve a DVD watch.

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• A Nutshell Review: Joker

  DICK STEEL2012-08-31

  The producers, himself included, would love for you to believe otherwise. The signs are there reflecting a troubled production, with the making of the film stretching as far back as 2011, and deciding to abandon its plan of post-converting this to 3D, after the none too stellar outcomes of both RA.One and Don 2. But what's more criminal here, is how Shirish Kunder, in his second film outing as director, failed to capitalize on the fun premise that could have made it a more memorable film, rather than to now market this as for the kids market segment, hoping that the younger demographics would be more forgiving in what it had tried to achieve. Having started on a journey, but making no headway, then pinning it on a misunderstanding from the start, doesn't provide any confidence. This marks the second time that Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha are paired together in leading roles in as many times, immediately after Rowdy Rathore. While the latter film was a lot of Masala fun, their outing here proved to be somewhat lacklustre. Akshay plays Agastya, a Non Resident Indian living with his stay at home girlfriend in the USA, working on a technology single-handedly that can communicate with the truth out there, but finds himself making no progress. I mean, it's an expensive project, and the dweeb of a trillion dollar company decided to put all its eggs in one basket, and one employee. Sure, he may be a genius, but even geniuses need help. So he's given one month notice to show results, or be shut down. Some moping later, Sonakshi's Diva picks up a random call from someone from India telling her that Agastya's father is breathing his last breath. It's only 10 minutes into the story, but already the convenience with how things progressed, is showing signs of narrative trouble. Agastya had told Diva he's an orphan, and now some random call from a stranger comes in, claiming to be Agastya's brother (whom we find out only talks gibberish), citing some medical emergency back home, sees her packing up for the both of them, ready for the next flight out to India. Right. I guess Diva's only demonstrating that she's a real Joker alright, only that she's really serious about Agastya making that trip despite his work deadline, to attend to what could have, in any day, been a prank call. But this is a film, so they do make their way to his village, in fairly comical fashion, and we see that things are still backward. The prologue had shown that lunatics have taken over the village just before Partition, and the maps having drawn such that this village was dropped out from paper existence, but it's still there, and amongst the madness comes Agastya's genius, who had decided to move out and overseas to make a name for himself. He returns, is moved by everyone's sincerity in seeing him back, and some Tarzan swinging antics later, is convinced to stay put, and make his village visible to the outside world again. The plan? To kill multiple birds with one stone, by crying wolf - that aliens have come, his device works, and having the world's attention focused on the village. It all goes down from there however, as the ludicrous is piled upon by more ludicrous, and the jokes are just plain unfunny. Perhaps the item number Kafirana is just abut the best thing in the film with its energy, and provided for more livelier moments in the movie, but otherwise everything, moving like the expected clockwork of trouble finding its way to Agastya's plan like a spanner in the works, spelt boredom. It was fun to have the loonies dress up as would be aliens using very common household items and crops, but those cute moments dragged out for far too long. And as mentioned earlier that Agastya's brother speaks rubbish, well, actor Shreyas Talpade who plays him, speaks gibberish all through the film, that sounds rather familiar, like the chants heard over UTV's logo introduction, repeated ad nauseam. Sure it's a kids movie, and one can point out that it shouldn't be taken too seriously, but I reckon kids should probably enrich their time by watching another alien film with more entertainment value, that of Steven Spielberg's ET. That's not to say there aren't some positives from the film though, but they belonged to the more technical aspects. The production sets here are incredibly beautiful and wonderfully designed, which is a pity given that it's adorning a story that finds itself losing steam from the get go, and not exploiting its art direction fully. The CG work used to recreate the aliens and their wares is adequate, not fantastic, but would still barely work to engage children who couldn't care more about the design, but only the presence of something out of this world. There was bewilderment when the title of the film was announced, until Sonakshi Sinha tweeted that the Joker is found in a deck of cards not belonging to any suite. I guess that's true, that this film, in its current incarnation, doesn't find itself belonging anywhere nor fitting in, trying to be a lot that it isn't, and falling flat. The joke's clearly on us all, the audience, and you'd do yourself a favour by not falling for this joker. I hate to say this, but this goes into the shortlist as the duds the year has experienced so far. It's a real pity that Akshay Kumar had this to show for as his centurion body of work.

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• Horrible!!

  nisakki92012-09-30

  Joker is a pathetic movie! Yeah believe me guys,I'm saying it myself!! Wondering 'WHY' Akshay Kumar is doing these type of movies?? You are a lotus in a dirt pond, Akki! Sonakshi Sinha, Shreyas Talpade, Minissha Lamba I mean rest of all are wasted! Thank god Akshay Kumar backed out from the promotion of Joker as he was cheated by the director Shirish Kunder. I just hate Shirish Kunder after watching Joker. How can a man just make this type of a ridiculous movie! It was because of his wife that he got two biggest stars of Bollywood in his two films, but he doesn't deserve biggies anymore!! I'll rate it 3/10, no need to tell but if you're still thinking to watch then go ahead Joker is your flick! :P

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• A rare movie that touches upon very relevant underlying theme in today's context

  sreekanth-venkataraman2012-09-03

  Don't be fooled by the poor rating and poor reviews this movie has got. This movie deserves far better. It is one of those rare Bollywood movies where a lot of thought has gone behind the 'title'. 'Joker' is not about any central character in the movie. Rather, it is about an important underlying issue in the context of the country. The theme is – It has been more than 70 years since independence and yet nothing seems to have changed for the villages and villagers in the countries. No political party is willing to do anything for them. They are the forgotten lot in today's India by both the media and the politicians. That it could take something as outrageous as aliens landing in one of the villages for anyone to take a serious note of them or their plight is the central message of the movie. It is a very well-crafted story with all the actors playing their part efficiently. In short, this movie tries to convey an important message in a light hearted manner. So, don't go expecting a slapstick comedy because this is not a slapstick comedy but this movie provides for some funny moments. And all the songs in this movie are definitely worth lending your eyes to with 'Jugnu' being the pick of the lot. In short – if you go expecting a slap stick comedy and fail to appreciate the underlying theme of the movie, you will give this movie a very low rating. Otherwise, you will definitely appreciate this movie as one of the better ones in recent times. You can do much worse than watching this movie!!

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• Not as bad as everyone is making it look

  pulkit-22042012-11-09

  i just watched the movie yesterday night and was surprised how the movie was not at all as bad as everyone is reviewing it... its a simple story of how one person tries to get his village noticed and on the map of India so that there problems can be solved... and the best way they come up is to show that there are extra-territorial activities happening in their area... so that everyone takes notice of their small village.. though the start of the movie does look bad, boring and slow.. it picks up the pace after mins or so and you actually start enjoying the movie.. my advice to all would be at least give it a shot and find out for yourself how the movie is actually...

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