Season of the patriot

yeh dil aashiqanaa: odeon (action, romance) cast: karan nath, jeevidha direction: kuku kohli rating: hh and 1/2 it had to happen. after all, popular cinema is the most sensitive barometer of these troubled times. it picks up the most sensational headlines and transforms them into technicolour drama, long before the event enters history books. sometimes, the drama ends up in arthouse ventures like roja.and sometimes it is regurgitated as pure pulp. as in kuku kohli's high octave film where masood azhar becomes a light-eyed, mute and bearded rambo, the lashkar-e-taiba becomes the lashkar-e-zeesth and the kandahar hijack incident is reduced to mandatory masala fare, liberally sprinkled with bytes on 'desh prem.' and this is just the beginning of the 'reflecting current reality' series. soon, we shall have an osama and his ilk breathing down the silver screen, crying jehad against diehard patriots like sunny deol and shatrughan sinha in films like ma tujhe salaam and bharat bhagya vidhata. maybe, even musharraf in blockbusters like loc. who knows? after all, it's the age of the terrorist and the season of the patriot. and 'sab chalta hai,' in order to make the box office jingle. director kohli goes back to his debut days when he created an impact with a b-grade hit called phool aur kaante. college romance with a bunch of newcomers (ajay devgan and madhoo) in the first half followed by high-adrenalin action in the second: this was the low-imagination formula that clicked. the filmmaker seeks a second coming through the same formula where college romeos end up as pawns in a terrorists' game. the girl is trapped in the hijacked plane. the boy plays national hero, sabotages the hijack and frees his beloved. end result? the kashmiri militant (aditya panscholi) feels the kashmir cause can only be met if he wipes out enemy number one: the college kid who declares that india doesn't need its soldiers and special forces to combat militants. all it needs is special college kids. does the film work? only as a b-grade entertainer, like phool aur kaante. but unlike the earlier film which gave the industry ajay devgan, the debut pair is here is quite a disaster. while karan nath (last seen in the disastrous pagalpan) is actually funny in the angry, young action hero bits, young jeevidha is just not cut out for stardom. neither glamour, oomph nor acting skills, she leaves you cold. don't say a word: pvr anupam (thriller) cast: michael douglas, sean bean, brittany murphy direction: gary felder rating: hhh give him the telephone directory to read aloud and you could stay riveted. that's the undying appeal of michael douglas. wrinkles may be ravaging that million dollar face. the sideburns may be greying quite fast. but the fire in the eyes remains undiminished and the charisma of the star continues to kindle and glow. so what if all he has here is a routine thriller where he is trapped between a young, mentally disturbed, neurotic girl and a ruthless killer. douglas delivers, and how! racing against time, dr nathan conrad (douglas) must cure young elisabeth (brittany murphy) of years of psychological trauma in just a few hours. the stakes are high. he must plug out a secret number from the recesses of her troubled memory in order to save his six-year-old daughter who has been kidnapped by a group of bad guys. the clock keeps ticking, even as the valiant doctor battles with cobwebs from the past, forgotten skeletons in a distant graveyard, a patient who is too young and too traumatised, a daughter who is mighty scared and a bunch of assassins who are desperate and wild. taut and smoothly paced, the film not only diligently follows the laws of a thriller, it boasts of some good acting too. specially young brittany who had already had a taste of the mental asylum in girl interrupted with co-stars winona ryder an angelina jolie.