Films to watch out for in 2013

Bullet Raja: Tigmanshu Dhulia who last year ripped the box-office open with his brilliant Paan Singh Tomar is back with a tale of crime, commitment, Read More">compulsions and convictions in Uttar Pradesh. Saif Ali Khan plays the rustic outlaw and the underrated Jimmy Shergill is his partner in crime. The film promises to give us aRead More

Bullet Raja: Tigmanshu Dhulia who last year ripped the box-office open with his brilliant Paan Singh Tomar is back with a tale of crime, commitment, compulsions and convictions in Uttar Pradesh. Saif Ali Khan plays the rustic outlaw and the underrated Jimmy Shergill is his partner in crime. The film promises to give us a humorous insight into the anatomy of small town outlawry without trivializing crime. That's Dhulia's forte.

Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani: Going by what the promising debutant director Ayan Mukerji did with Ranbir Kapoor in Wake Up Sid, one can't wait to see the magic created between these two in their new film, an out-and-out musical romance in the tradition of the Nasir Hussain films in the 1960s. Ranbir who has never done a conventional boy-meets-girl film before is excited by the challenge of for once, not playing a victim of unrequited love (ref: Saawariya, Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, Rockstar and Barfi).

Shootout At Wadala: We’ve seen innumerable dramas on gangsterism in Mumbai. This one promises to be the real thing with real gangsters without fictional names. Shot on actual locations, featuring stars who abandon their vanity to get into character and written with the ink of sweat blood tears and semen, Read More">Sanjay Gupta’s crime thriller recreatesRead More

Shootout At Wadala: We've seen innumerable dramas on gangsterism in Mumbai. This one promises to be the real thing with real gangsters without fictional names. Shot on actual locations, featuring stars who abandon their vanity to get into character and written with the ink of sweat blood tears and semen, Sanjay Gupta's crime thriller recreates the events and episodes from Manya Surve's 'encounter' killing on 1 November 1982. This one should do to the genre of gangsterism what Ram Gopal Varma's Satya did a decade ago.

Lootera: Vikram Aditya Motwane who gave us the striking Udaan two years ago returns with a love story based on an O'Henry short story about a leafy love-bond that refuses to fade with the seasons. One doesn't know how much passion Ranveer Singh and Sonakshi Sinha can whip up in the saga. But the producers are leaving no stone unturned to ensure this becomes Bollywood's answer to David Lean's Dr Zhivago.

Race 2: Abbas-Mustan’s 2008 thriller Race returns racier than before. As is the norm in sequels the male cast Saif Ali Khan and Anil Kapoor is repeated while the female actors from Race are replaced by Deepika Padukone Jacqueline Fernandez and Ameesha Patel in Race 2. Sorry, Read More">guys no Katrina or Bipasha this time. ButRead More

Race 2: Abbas-Mustan's 2008 thriller Race returns racier than before. As is the norm in sequels the male cast Saif Ali Khan and Anil Kapoor is repeated while the female actors from Race are replaced by Deepika Padukone Jacqueline Fernandez and Ameesha Patel in Race 2. Sorry, guys no Katrina or Bipasha this time. But there's John Abraham as a beefy bonus, if that's any consolation.

Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola: In Vishal Bhardwaj's latest quirky drama Imran Khan plays Matru. Anushka Sharma plays Bijlee and the fabulous rarely-seen actor Pankaj Kapoor plays Mandola. And yes, Shabana Azmi plays a politician who has the hots for Pankaj Kapoor. This one looks like something that Anurag Kashyap would love to do if only Vishal wasn't doing it before him.

Read More">Chennai Express: Shah Rukh Khan teams up with Ajay Devgn’s favourite director Rohit Shetty for the first time in a romantic drama set in a train. The film promises a change of image for both SRK and his leading lady Deepika Padukone and for the director who for too long has become associated with slapstickRead More

Chennai Express: Shah Rukh Khan teams up with Ajay Devgn's favourite director Rohit Shetty for the first time in a romantic drama set in a train. The film promises a change of image for both SRK and his leading lady Deepika Padukone and for the director who for too long has become associated with slapstick comedy.

Himmatwala: Remember Sridevi and Jeetendra cavorting amidst the pots and pans to the tune of Bappi Lahiri's 'Nainon Mein Sapna'? Sajid Khan recreates the 1983 potboiler. Hopefully the pot would be boiling this time in a different brew, what with Ajay Devgn and Southern glam-doll Tamannaah all set to give the tale a different spin.

Special Chabbis: A heist caper from Neeraj Pandey, the director of A Wednesday the gripping 2008 anti-terror drama Special Chabbis recreates, blow-by-blow, events connected with the dare devilish broad-daylight heist on 19 March 1987 when a bunch of men masquerading as income tax officials ‘raided’ a jewellery store in Mumbai. Sure, Read More">this one just mayRead More

Special Chabbis: A heist caper from Neeraj Pandey, the director of A Wednesday the gripping 2008 anti-terror drama Special Chabbis recreates, blow-by-blow, events connected with the dare devilish broad-daylight heist on 19 March 1987 when a bunch of men masquerading as income tax officials 'raided' a jewellery store in Mumbai. Sure, this one just may end up glorifying fraudulency. But what the hell! We live in morally subverted times. It should be fun watching Akshay Kumar and his gang of co-stars pull this one off.

Besharam: Post-Dabangg director Abhinav Kashyap refused to direct the sequel to Dabangg. Instead he chose this crime drama about a con-person from Delhi (Ranbir Kapoor) trying to escape the law with two Haryanvi cops (played by Ranbir's parents Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh) hot on his heels. Dunno about real life. But crime certainly pays on celluloid.