Producer: Sailesh R Singh, Vinod Bachhan, Surya Sonal Singh. Director: Aanad I Rai. Cast: R Madhavan, Kangana Ranaut, Jimmy Shergill.

MUMBAI: Director Aanand I Rai laments that Indian cinema has all the money required but has no ideas! He puts money where his mouth is and opts for a tried and tested age old idea, a sort of Taming Of The Shrew; a love story for all seasons where the hero goes all out, puts all that he has on stake to win the girl in his film Tanu Weds Manu.

R Madhavan is a London settled heart specialist on a visit home and as all Indian parents do, his want him to marry the traditional Indian way to a traditional Indian bride before he returns to London.

Madhavan starts his bride choosing rounds and is presented with an unconscious Kangna Ranaut as the first prospects, reportedly on sleep inducing drugs because of a viral infection but, down because of a generous dose of Vodka mixed with sleeping pills according to her own confession later.

The cupid strikes Madhavan in an instant who says yes to marry Kangana. However, Kangana has different ideas on love, romance and marriage. She can make the ‘Burn your bra‘ era look orthodox with her views; she even gets her last boy friend‘s name tattooed on her bust. She tells Madhavan it is No Go with marriage and asks him to buzz off in no uncertain terms.

Mdhavan now eats, drinks and dreams Kangana and they meet soon. And, what better place to meet then at an Indian wedding which can make the film colourful, fill your frames and share burden of the lead players?

As it often happens in Hindi films, Madhavan‘s best friend is marrying Kangana‘s best friend. Does not matter that Madhavan‘s best friend has not bothered to invite Madhavan, he lands up there, in Kapurthala. The usual twists and turns follow, so does some teasing. And, like a good old Indian film, there is a gun totting villain too in the form of Jimmy Shergill.

The film traverses its script in the Hindi belt, it is about people from UP, Delhi, Punjab, Patna as if as a justification to some crude characters or may be that‘s the area the maker is more comfortable with. While the second half drops pace a bit, the director still shows a capacity to tell a regular Indian story which works. Musical score is pleasant with a couple of good numbers. Dialogue is contemporary. Photography is good to the extent that the film is visually eye-filling.

There are some natural performances here: Madhavan, as the all sacrificing Indian male is good till he cries for his woman. Kangana Ranaut portrays her sluttish side ably. Jimmy Shergill is miscast; neither does he look like a villain nor would any girl drop him for Madhavan! Eikaz Khan and Swara Bhaskar are natural. Deepak Dobriyal is good. Rest of the cast, consisting mostly of reputed and veteran artistes, gives good support.

Tanu Weds Manu is a fun film in most parts. While it may earn enough appreciation, its box office prospects may improve only a little considering it has nominal face value and other oppositions like Cricket World Cup to contend with.

Satrangi Parachute: A movie to avoid

Producer- Director: Vineet Khetarpal. Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Rajpal Yadav, Sanjay Mishra with child artistes Siddharth Sangani, Rajiv Patel, Shubham Sharma, Azaan Shah, Shlesh Raja, Adeeb Shahnawaz, Hussain, Mayur Mondal, Rajvi Suchak.

As India comes of age in technique and other aspects, the children‘s filmmakers seem to go more senile! Satrangi Parachute is about a bunch of small town Nainital boys who set out to find a parachute to ‘show‘ to a blind girl! She sees/ hears about it from TV and wants to see it in real! How is she going to manage it when she is blind?

So the boys know parachutes are available in Mumbai where they land and are told to look for them in Bada Bazaar which is somewhere in Mumbai where Pakistani terrorists are lurking and black cat commandoes; they are always ready with full make up for shooting (the film, not terrorists) whose greatest brave act in the film is pointing their automatic weapons at these runaway kids!

Satrangi Parachutes is a children‘s film, any child would have done more justice to. As it is now, it is an insult to Indian filmmaking not to mention an insult to an intelligent new generation kids of India.