Meri Dad Ki Maruti

Starring 
Saqib Saleem 
Rhea Chakraborty 
Ram Kapoor 
Prabal Panjabi 

I’ve got a pretty active imagination and a very ticklish funny bone, so a Bollywood comedy is always welcomed. American humor and Indian humor are very different. Right now, what is big in America hasn’t really caught on in India…yet. The closest Bollywood comedy that parallels our penchant for uncomfortable situations and all out crass humor was Delhi Belly. I’ll leave that commentary for its own separate review. 
Meri Dad Ki Maruti simply translates to “My Dads Maruti” or more easily understood “My Dads car” They stress the type if car because in India, Maruti (Suzuki over here in the states) is a pretty sought after car. I would compare it to maybe a Lexus.
Anyway, the plot is actually very simple: Middle class loafer type kid wants to show off to an airhead hot girl on his college campus. His perfect opportunity to bag this bodaciously hot babe is to impress her with a brand new red hot maruti Irdiga, fully loaded and ready to roll. However it’s not meant to roll for him as it was bought for his sister as a wedding present, but we know how it goes. He sneaks it out of the locked garage 3 days before the wedding to take Jazzleen (Rhea Chakraborty) out on a date. The car gets “stolen” while being valet parked and the madness ensues. 

Newcomer and leading guy Saqib Saleem does a pretty fair job of acting but nothing, really, to write home about. His looks, of course, are above subpar because, just like Hollywood, sex sells and talent comes after. A model himself, Saleem is tall and handsome and of course he has a completely toned and hairless chest (yeah, that’s natural!) so it’s only fitting that he was picked.
For me, the real star of this wasn’t Saqib Saleem or his equally sexy, yet moderately talented, love interest Rhea Chakraborty, it's actually the best friend character played by Prabal Panjabi. He is not a model (actually he’s quite short (5’ 8”??) but his performance made the film that more funny. Great facial expressions and he really made me laugh.

The best part of the movie to me was the scene where his sister puts on this sexy dance for her fiancé and, boy, is the dance NSFW. Actually it’s not suitable for anyone with eyes! Its hilariously over the top sexual inuendos and quirky gyrations poke fun at traditional bollywood dance scenes.

Lighthearted fun that had a somewhat predictable ending. If you’ve got some free time then give it a shot but not a movie that you need to put in your Netflix queue anytime soon.

Article by the Diner's very own Bollywood reporter Kiva Ashby

Ek Tha Tiger

Who doesn’t love a good action movie?  Especially a long anticipated one.  I remember seeing billboards for Ek Tha Tiger all over Queens. I love me a good Bollywood action movie, mostly because the action part is usually so overly exaggerated that it makes it laughable and Oh buddy! does this movie deliver on that. 
Salman Khan plays the lead spy and he spends a good portion of the movie in short sleeve dress shirts riding around on a scooter.  This must be a whole new version of cool spy because, last time I checked, no 35 year old man ever looked cool riding around on a scooter; anyway, back to the actual spy activity.  Khan infiltrates this world renowned scientist’s house to find out some top secret information because, you know, isn’t that always what they need to find? Anyway cue the ridiculous action scenes! and I mean flying kicks, bombs going off in mid air and this spy must have the ability to fly because he defies gravity. 

No spy movie, of course, would be complete without a female counterpart.  Enter Katrina Kaif.  She makes being a female spy look like a walk in the park!
There’s a scene where she is being chased by numerous police officers, at least 20, because, typically, you need 20 armed men to take down an unarmed waif thin woman.  So she’s kicking and punching her way down 12 stories and, mind you, the entire chase her hair is flawlessly curled.  She doesn’t even have any fly aways! To make it worse, she’s wearing this frilly white top and, would you believe it?  She walks away from a hand to hand combat with the shirt completely intact! not a stain or tear, no, not even a sweat stain but, hey, like I said, if she did have any of those normal things then it wouldn’t fit in with the theme of ridiculousness. 
The rest of the movie follows suit with more unrealistic fighting and a very forgettable love story. The ending scene has to have car/motorcycle chases, explosions, gun fighting and a random plane.  Khan has to time his motorcycle jump to launch himself onto a plane that Kaif is flying. 
I forgot to mention that he gets shot in his arm but, you know, that’s pretty much the equivalent of a paper cut to him, so it doesn’t affect his performance at all. I’d be rolled up on the floor crying for my mother (I guess that’s why I’m not a spy).   

Overall it was truly a great fake action movie, well at least in my opinion it is but for some, like my good friend Samiksha Sheth, it is merely a “time pass movie”.

Article by the Diner's very own Bollywood reporter Kiva Ashby