Fashion - Movie Review

Apun Ka Choice: Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion is a nice but overlong movie that could do with some snipping. The movie tells an unending human tale of ambition, success, degradation and re-emergence set against the backdrop of the fashion industry. While Fashion ends up testing your patience, it does have many things going for it. For instance, the styling of the actors done by Narendra Kumar, Rita Dhody and Rick Roy. The songs in the film are woven seamlessly into the plot and it is here some filmmakers in apna Bollywood can learn from Madhur!

CNN-IBN: Fashion is all masala, no reality! Compare it to his some of his recent films, and Fashion is definitely a step ahead for Bhandarkar, but judge it as a stand-alone film and it falls short in so many places. Far from displaying a deep understanding of how the business works, Bhandarkar’s Fashion is a superficial study of the industry he claims to have covered. Stop thinking of it as a realistic expose and treat it as just another masala potboiler and chances are you won’t complain!

DNA India: Fashion was expected to expose the cold realities of India’s fashion industry, but, it ends up revealing Madhur Bhandarkar’s limitations as a writer and director. Fashion shows modeling as a dazzling profession on the outside but as brutal from inside and this is one of the drawbacks of the film. Every profession has its merits and demerits and perhaps the director shouldn’t have demonized modeling the way he has done in the movie. Bhandarkar’s Fashion will perhaps be remembered as just another superficial movie on the style industry like Hollywood’s Gia.

Glamsham: If Madhur had put as much energies into the script as he put into its promotion, the film would have been quite different. But here, the ‘Madhur Magic’ is missing. You expect much more from a (National) award-winning director because you know he is capable of bigger things.

Hindustan Times: A poke of coke, guzzling gallons of wine, smoking cigarettes like copper chimneys, sleeping around and modeling outfits that would scare the life out of Dior, Dolce and DKNY: it’s drizzling clichés out here! On the plus side, the ramp walk scenes have flashmatazz, Salim-Suleiman’s music score’s okay, and the show does belong to Kangana Ranaut, who once again after Gangster and Woh Lamhe, seems to be replaying something deeply disturbing within her.  Bottom line: For Bhandarkar’s ongoing affair with the real and the raw, Fashion is a must-try.

IndiaFM: Fashion has tremendous curiosity value and also shock value for the Indian audiences. Its subject - the behind-the-scenes working and drama of the fashion industry - is its USP. The solid reason, why Fashion works, is because Madhur brings alive everything you’ve read in newspapers or watched on TV, as an outsider, to the big screen. And that works and how!

Now Running: While Bhandarkar’s hard-hitting, but often tacky film making style acquires a much needed layer of polish, all the gloss on display also somehow results in Fashion being a far less moving, affecting or even unsettling watch when compared to his earlier body of work.

Rediff: Fashion feels like a story that has been told by someone with minimal first-hand experience of the world. Sure, there are anecdotal references, but it never feels like this is what it must really be like, behind the scenes in the fashion world.

Times Of India: With Chandni Bar, Page 3, Corporate and Traffic Signal behind him, director Madhur Bhandarkar has developed a trademark style of film making which has the word `realistic’ incessantly tagged on to it, by both the viewers and the industrywallahs. Well, Bhandarkar’s oeuvre may not exactly fall into the classic cinema verity cult, nevertheless, it does try to bridge the gap between art house cinema and mainstream masala with its declaration: Are you ready for the bitter truth? The film desperately needs some tight editing to cut out the flab. Nevertheless, go, witness woman power, in all its agony and ecstasy!

Image Via Official Site

Image Via Official Site

He earns over Rs 1.5 billion ($30 million) a year through endorsements, over Rs 10 million to grace an event, Rs 10 million per TV episode, Rs 15 crores per film and has now launched a Rs.109 billion real estate project in the UAE.

Actor Shah Rukh Khan, who turns 43 today, is much more than a Bollywood superstar!

With his dimpled cheeks, toned frame, impeccable dressing sense and unmatched wit and humor, the actor has enthralled audiences worldwide for almost two decades now with films like Baazigar, Darr, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Dil To Pagal Hai and Chalte Chalte.

King Khan, as he is fondly called, wears the diadem of the actor with the biggest pocket in tinsel town - rumoured to be around Rs 16 billion (Rs 1,600 crores) with his maximum earnings coming from commercial endorsements.

Shah Rukh, the actor-turned-businessman, who earns more than Rs.300 per minute as per experts, has successfully diversified into newer avenues with the same charismatic appeal with which he rules Bollywood, just as his fan following has spread over the rest of Asia-Pacific and into Europe, North America and Africa.

After a colourful 2007 with two hits - Chak De! India and Om Shanti Om, Shah Rukh has left the theaters devoid of his presence this year.

But the actor continues to be a phenomenon worldwide.

He made a quick profit of Rs 400 million/Rs 40 crores across the table by selling the world distribution rights of Om Shanti Om to Eros International for Rs.750 million as against the production cost of Rs.350 million. The profit that he earned from the deal was apart from the remuneration of Rs.50 million that he took as the lead in the movie.

His further business commitments to his Indian Premier League (IPL) team Kolkata Knight Riders and his stint on TV as the host of reality quiz show Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain this year have kept him off the big screen.

Shah Rukh has also been kept busy with his ongoing world tour - Temptations Reloaded.

“It’s very important for every actor to diversify and Shah Rukh is doing the same - exploring possibilities in other fields. He has all the qualities of an all-rounder. If he is cutting down on movies, it’s a good thing. This way, his fans would get to watch him do more quality cinema. This is a fantastic phase for him. After Amitabh Bachchan, he is the only actor who has an incredible career graph and I’m sure that he’ll be seen on the big screen for a long time ” said trade analyst Taran Adarsh.

The actor is one among the few to have a huge fan following in Bollywood. Even his colleagues can’t stop raving about him.

“I’m a huge Shah Rukh fan. I’ve always been one and even he knows that. I admire him since his earliest films and I’d like to see a lot more of him on the screen,” says Priyanka Chopra, who starred with him in Don.

Actress Eesha Koppikhar was all praise for the actor having achieved super-stardom without having any godfather. “Shah Rukh is a great performer, a lovely actor and a wonderful person. He comes from a non-film background and despite that, he has achieved the success and fame, that he enjoys today. He is a true achiever,” she said.

Filmmaker Aziz Mirza, who cast Shah Rukh in four out of five of his movies, said: “Shah Rukh has always believed in quality cinema. He is a workaholic and he does everything with dedication. He is an excellent actor.”

Although Shah Rukh was not seen on the big screen for most of 2008, he kept hogging the headlines, the latest for getting the Malaysian honor, Datuk.

His forthcoming releases are Billo Barber, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, My Name is Khan, Dulha Mil Gaya, a sequel to Don - The Chase Begins Again and a voiceover in animation film, Koochie Koochie Hota Hain.

Bollywood Buzz wishes Shah Rukh Khan a very Happy Birthday!