Go Goa Gone (2013): Zombies Bring a Whiff of Fresh Air along with Comedy to Bollywood

"I keel dead people"
Oscillating between Russian and Delhi ka 'dilliwala' accent appears blonde hair Boris. He is armed with guns, choicest slurs and an attitude and he does kill dead people.

Welcome to the world of zombie comedy or zomcom. Not new for most of us who have been brought up on praising Zombieland and for more serious 'Dawn of the Dead' or 'Night of the living dead'. Go Goa Gone brings in the genre of zomcom to Bollywood and directors Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK do quite an endearing job in doing so. Though down the line the directors (who are also the writers of the film along with Sita Menon) loose the hold on the already thin plot. Second half of the film is as struggling with comedy and plot as the first half seems greasily fresh (it will make you fall on jokes and humor, in parts).

Go Goa Gone focuses on three leads and their friendship and their sex-drugs infected life (wait, is it too soon to use this word?!!) Film introduces us to stoned-sex-starved Hardik (Kunal Khemu) and Luv (Vir Das), and their straight as an arrow friend, Bunny (Anand Tiwari). Bored out of getting stoned on their couches, being unlucky in love and sex, and stuck in no-interest jobs Hardik and Luv decide to crash in on Bunny's business presentation that is to happen in Goa. The three go to a rave party on a deserted island nearby. The things go out of hand , well what did you expect its a rave party!!, in a slightly more unconventional way than expected. A new drug introduced at the party turns its consumers into zombies. The three hazed, dazed and broke leads are now on a zombie infested island, along with Luna (Pooja Gupta) and gun-loving, Russian mafia don Boris (Saif Ali Khan).

First half works really well for the film. High on Delhi Belly style humor and bro-bonding, director duo focus on three leads and their antics. Watching some of these real-life urban-youth moments on screen bring in hilarious lol scenes along with thick dialogues, what a combination the director duo cooks off. Lots of 'In-your-face' jokes fly in from all sides. The interesting first half begins to loose its charm in the second one. In the second half it feels that the directors lost focus of where to take the plot further and it just ended up being filled with zombie chases and killing scenes. The humor in the second half is filled with cliches.

Though the film is filled with many politically incorrect and too crass violence moments but it handles that part quite well, surprisingly. My particular favorite scene is the one where three friends come face-to-face with three female zombies. After all the fight on who would handle (rather, tackle) the hot one or the fat one, three use everything from logs to legs to umbrellas and dialogue-baazi to fight them off.

Acting is really good. Best ones in the film came from Kunal Khemu and Saif Ali Khan. These 'soon to be  real-life brother-in-laws' share a very awesome comic scene where both play-off on each other's comic timings. An interrogating scene where it is being debated if Hardik interacted the zombie virus, because he had sex with one of the drug-infested girl (firangi) at the party. Vir Das plays the role of hazed and dazed love-stoned Luv nicely. Anand Tiwari works well as the straight as arrow, self-acknowledged side-kick. Puja Gupta looks real and pretty and works well in the plot, holding her post among these four-male protagonists.

Go Goa Gone does bring in a whiff of a new genre to Hindi cinema, hopefully it just takes it ahead on a positive note (before the likes of Sajid's and Rohit's shed it into tear it into piece of crass shit!!). I would give Go Goa Gone a rating of 3 out of 5. The film brings in new genre (not zombie but zom-com), real-life characters, violent comedy and some really good acting altogether. The director duo to deserve a pat on their back, especially for playing such a gamble with the predictably-unpredictable Indian cinema goers.

Go Goa Gone (2013)
Directed by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK
Produced by Illuminati films
Starring: Kunal Khemu, Saif Ali Khan, Vir Das, Anand Tewari, Puja Gupta
Written by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK and Sita Menon
Cinematography by Dan MacArthur and Lukasz Prachnik
Editing by Arindam Ghatak
Music by Sachin Jigar

ABCD: A Watchable Film Filled with Predictable Clichés

Any Body Can Dance, ABCD, is India’s first true blue-blooded 3D dance-genre film, full of clichés. ABCD is predictable in all sense of the word yet it is quite watchable, and what better team to direct India’s first true dance film than some of country’s finest dancers? After seeing Remo D’Souza’s directorial debut, Faltu, it was certain that come what may, Remo D’souza cant direct a film. Well for his second film he stuck to a theme he knows and understands the best, Dance.

ABCD is a film about dance and dancers. Vishnu (Prabhu Deva) is a celebrated, successful and dedicated choreographer of Jahangir Dance Academy. Vishnu finds himself at a loss when the dance academy’s proud and boastful owner, Jahangir (Kay Kay Menon), ousts him out of the academy with a new American choreographer to replace him. Disappointed and disheartened Vishnu is ready to leave Mumbai forever, but a good friend and talent of young dance enthusiasts of a ‘basti’ (a slum-like settlement), makes him return to his passion of dancing. Vishnu takes on himself to bring together this undisciplined and rowdy bunch of passionate dancers, to form a team (KKR) and compete in a dance competition.

The film’s best part and most important part is it’s dancing. All the dances in the film are not just beautiful but quite interesting as well. Especially the 3D, made these dances even more enjoyable to watch. When you see dancers like Remo D’Souza, Prabhu Deva, Ganesh Acharya, and the young dance enthusiasts from television’s most celebrated talent search show, Dance India Dance, then you realize the actual power of ABCD being, what I earlier wrote as well, a true blue-blood dance film.

Coming to the film’s story, if Remo D’Souza accepts that he rehashed all Step Up films to make ABCD, then I think every question arising on all the predictability in the story should be put to rest. But even if he does then also the clichés in the script are hard to pass by. All the strands of greed versus talent, rowdy undisciplined disciples working as a team, underdogs being driven to win a title…cliché, cliché, cliché.............

To read the full review of ABCD please visit the link:

http://notjustfilms.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/abcd-review/