Box Office Report: 'Yamla Pagla Deewana' vs 'No One Killed Jessica', good going!: January chill hasn’t stopped the cine-goers from stepping out and enjoying the movies. The only condition is that the movie has to be good. If Yamla Pagla Deewana is doing extremely well in the northern belt, Bollywood lovers are having good time watching the past releases No One Killed Jessica and even Band Baaja Baaraat. After making a heady start, Yamla Pagla Deewana fared phenomenally, especially on single screens. As per reports, the weekend business is above expectations with a figure of approximately Rs 22 crore. The movie is doing extremely well in North India but its business in Maharashtra and South India is not up to the mark.
On the other hand, No One Killed Jessica is doing good business at the multiplexes. The movie had a satisfactory second weekend collection of around Rs 19.50 crore. The collections on the weekdays were reported to be rock-steady. It stands a chance of crossing the Rs 30 crore mark.
Now let’s move to Band Baaja Baaraat - the movie continues its dream run at the box office. In its fifth week, it overtook Tees Maar Khan which is running in its third week. The fifth week collection of Band Baaja Baaraat is around Rs 1.50 crore while Tees Maar Khan collected approx Rs 1.15 crore in its third week.
This Friday, be ready to visit Dhobi Ghat as Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao bring to you a simple, sensitive, stirring movie.
Box Office Report: No One Killed Jessica vs Tees Maar Khan: The year’s first major release hasn’t disappointed the cine-goers. No One Killed Jessica took a slow start at the box office with 30-35% occupancy on its first day, but revved up and saw a good weekend business of Rs 12.50 crore approx.
The movie, which is based on the Jessica Lal murder case and stars Rani Mukherjee and Vidya Balan, is expected to do well at the multiplexes. As per trade reports, the movie’s Friday collection was approximately Rs 3.15 crore; on Saturday the collections jumped to Rs 4.50 crore; and on Sunday it was approx Rs 4.75 crore. So the graph is going up. Let’s see how the movie will perform in the coming days, crucial to decide its box office fate.
The other releases of the week: Impatient Vivek and Vikalp were very poor with almost zilch collections. The films will go unnoticed at the box office.
Coming to Tees Maar Khan, the movie saw a heavy drop in its second week, with around Rs 10.50 crore approx business. The film has a two-week total of Rs 59.50 crore approx which makes it a semi-hit, if not a flop. Same was the trend in the overseas market too. The movie couldn’t do well in its second weekend. The film is reportedly heading for a business of around $4 to 4.25 million (Rs 18-19 crore) from all the markets abroad.
'No One Killed Jessica' Review - Rani, Vidya play a lead role: Manish Bhardwaj (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayub) wasn’t No One. A pampered son a politician and therefore high on the sense of power that comes with such pedigree, he cold bloodedly gunned down Jessica (Myra), a model doubling as bartender in an elite Delhi restaurant, with a dozen witnesses to the crime, just because she refused to serve him a drink. A clear open and shut case it was, or could have been. But Manish’s powerful dad, egged on by the murder’s mother’s constant whine “mere Monu ko kucch nahin hona chahiye” no less than by his blind parental love, pulls the strings, coerces witnesses and manipulates the system to get his pyara beta and his accomplices acquitted. Scot free goes the killer, cocking a snook at everyone with his system-mocking impunity.
Not done, cries Meera Gaity (Rani Mukherjee), a feisty news reporter and anchor given to hardball journalism and smoking ciggies and mouthing profanities, not excluding the F word and the desi G word. Joining forces with Jessica’s sister Sabrina (Vidya Balan) who’s been running pillar to post to seek justice for her dead sister and also taking care of her frail parents, Meera sets out to set the wrong right. “Justice has been denied and I can’t live with it,” she yells at her boss, perched doggedly on his car’s bonnet.
And that’s what the film is primarily about: turning the tables on the powers-that-be and giving the aam aadmi one last say.
No one among us, I’m sure, is unaware of the Jessica Lal case on which the film is based. Perhaps that was the root of a niggling apprehension I had before watching No One Killed Jessica. After all what’s the point of making a film now that justice has been done and the killer is wasting away his youth and mid-age behind bars, not considering the one stray parole he got in 2009 to perform the last rites of his grandmother but was caught clubbing. If the objective of the film was mere documentation of what happened in the Jessica case, one might have better browsed through the archives of national newspapers, the headline of one having inspired the film’s title. But no. No One Killed Jessica goes beyond that. It provides a recollection to the - pardon the cliché - ‘collective conscience’ of us as a society that the gun-toting brats with influential papas and mollycoddling mommies can’t have their way if we the people, including the media, set out to see that justice is done.
Kudos to director Rajkumar Gupta - delivering another ace after his debut film Aamir - for making a brave film that keeps you hooked for the most part, dipping only slightly in the second half when it stretches on needlessly. Most impressive is his re-sketch of the entire Jessica case, with characters plucked literally out of real life and their names changed only for storytelling reasons. The witnesses turning hostile, the journalist who’s covered the Kargil war, the defence lawyer, the swish set of Delhi (caricaturized more than they should’ve have been) one after another proclaiming to have seen ‘nothing’ on that fateful night - we all know who these folks are and connecting the dots here can be a sweet sadistic exercise.
No One Killed Jessica rests equally on acting performances as on its director’s storytelling skills. Rani Mukherjee is back. Those who had written her career obit will need to do some rethinking. In a performance, that goes hardly over the top given the character’s sketch, Rani breathes fire, kicks arses, and ah! is totally at home in shooting off cuss words. Vidya Balan comes up with a restrained performance, befitting her character. Neil Bhoopalam (as key witness) and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayub as the killer Manish leave their mark.
Amit Trivedi’s music, particularly the ‘Dilli Dilli’ number, stands out and so does Anay Goswami’s camerawork.
Never preachy, never facetious despite having sufficient doses of satiric humour, No One Killed Jessica is a film that everyone but kids below 18 must watch. If you are looking for a piece of good cinema with some goose bumpy moments, this is it.
The dance reality show that is aired on Sony Entertainment Television is creating a great platform to all the contestants as they are able to explore their talents not only in certain patent dance moves but also in very experimental dance forms. The episode on Monday was a tad bit sad for the evicted contestant Renuka Shahane and her partner, but apart from that it was a mind blowing experience to see the other contestants shaking their legs in almost a varied form of dances that has never ever been seen before.
The episode had Sushant and his partner mesmerizing the audiences with their amazing dance moves in a dance form called the Chau, which was inspired from a movie. The two had reportedly called in a professional to teach them the right moves as the show organizers had allowed anyone who wanted outside help to get it in this particular round. They scored a perfect full on the score board with the best dancer of the day title.
The other contestant who made a distinct mark was Ragini. She along with her partner were excellent in a Tollywood number and most deservingly were awarded a full 30 on 30 by the judges along with the best dancer of the day award too.
The two had come to promote their forthcoming film No One Killed Jessica, and were astounding with their moves too. Rani Mukherjee got really mesmerized with Madhuri Dixit and declared that she was a self proclaimed fan of the great actress.
Rani Mukherjee, Vidya Balan lip lock on stage!: Bollywood actresses Rani Mukherjee and Vidya Balan have pulled off a new feat in front of media cameras. The normally quiet girls got naughty at a promotional event in the recent past.
Well, we know that both Rani and Vidya do not shy away from playing bold roles onscreen, but that the two women could pull off such a stunt for the television camera is something that their fans were not prepared for. According to reports, Rani Mukherjee and Vidya Balan engaged in a passionate lip-lock at a stage event held in the recent past.
The videos doing the rounds on the net are evidence of the fact that the earlier warring actresses Rani Mukherjee and Vidya Balan have kissed and made up, literally! Ever since the promotional clips of their upcoming film together No One Killed Jessica was released on television, people started praising Rani Mukherjee, considering that her character of a journalist is a more powerful role compared to Vidya Balan’s role of Jessica’s real life sister Sabrina Lal. And it was this fact that was apparently giving Vidya Balan sleepless nights, also the root cause of her cat fight with costar Rani Mukherjee.
However, the fight is a thing of the past now. Both actresses are professionals in real life and thus they agreed to take that extra step to promote No One Killed Jessica well. So is the lip-lock only a promotional gimmick? Though many will be thinking so, Rani Mukherjee and Vidya Balan looked really happy and enjoyed each other’s company while performing the lip-lock on stage!
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