Mugdha Godse had won rave reviews for ‘Fahsion’ and she had also won a warm and close friendship with her ‘Fashion’ co-star Priyanka Chopra on the sets of the movie. So, it did not come as a surprise when Priyanka was seen giggling and enjoying her self on Sunday on the celebration of Mugdha’s 27th birthday.

Also present were her ‘Jail’ co-star Neil Nitin Muskesh and director Madhur Bhandarkar. Neil and Mugdha were seen enjoying each other’s company. Mugdha Godse really got drunk at the party.

Things take a turn when after a series of unfortunate events he suddenly wakes up in jail- handcuffed slapped on his wrists, continuous questioning by Cops, being slapped and beaten by them. What follows is the young man’s hard journey trying to adjust to place where he does not belong- dirty, crowded spaces, inedible food, hostile cellmates, angry Policemen and weird rules of the place….

Neil has already played a role a bit similar to this in ‘New York’. Lets wait and see how he performs in ‘Jail’.

Now Fridays will be no more spent in aimless shopping, cafes or other time pass spots. Movies are said to take their place back in their big screened homes. The waters seem to have calmed down on the shores of theatre and film business fronts.

With Yash Raj Films’ movie ‘New York’, it brought relief among the film buffs and it seems the season of movies have set on hereafter. ‘New York’ is said to be an outcome of minimal budget and yet went out to capture the audience both in India and abroad.

The land of movie lovers had been parched with lack of new releases past couple of months and with this one, movie seekers hungrily expects for more. Down the line this season, are couple of movies which are soon going to pull the audience back to the theatres. One can look forward movies from big banners like ‘Kambakkht Ishq’, ‘Love Aaj Kal’, ‘Kaminey’, ‘Luck’ and many more…

The wait is over, people!

When a hardcore commercial flick gets a standing ovation and a huge round of applause at the end of the show, you know that there is something definitely right that the director has done. In this regard, Kabir Khan can take a bow because he has done exceedingly well in making a film that is not frivolous, has a message and still carries enough commercial ingredients to reach out to masses as well as classes.

His “New York” is a gripping dramatic thriller that has all the trappings to finally end the drought that Bollywood has been facing for an entire year so far.

The film gets on to the point right away. The entire sequence of events involving FBI and the round up of suspects is brilliantly executed that makes you further believe that Kabir Khan knows the job right.

If in his first attempt “Kabul Express” he gave a documentary start to the film by showing actual clippings of 9/11, in case of “New York” too he doesn’t shy away from showing the world what US has become post 9/11.

So what one gets to see is not just America’s mentality after 9/11, but also the way suspects are detained for months and tortured in spite of lack of concrete evidence. However, to the credit of the filmmaker, the brutality being demonstrated is pretty much under control. Even though the desired impact is created for the audience to be a part of the lives of John Abraham, Neil Nitin Mukesh and Katrina Kaif, nothing goes over the top or something that cannot be swallowed.

With a subject like “New York” where one of the protagonists is labelled as a terrorist and the other is out to prove that he isn’t, the film could have become a grim drama, more so because it deals with real issues. Still, the makers do not allow the film to go beyond the boundaries where it could possibly have been classified as an art or an offbeat film.

Instead, a strict eye is kept on the box office hence making sure there is enough drama, thrills and emotional moments to keep audiences thoroughly engaged in the not-so-lengthy movie.

John can finally do away with his trunks and ignore coming out of the sea and show his body beautiful for next few years. The acting potential in him has finally been tapped by Kabir Khan and he gives his career’s best performance so far in the movie. Watch out for the scenes in the detention centre or the film’s climax – they are surely going to bring a lump in your throat.

Neil has the most complex role of the three as he has to be a part of the proceedings in spite of being on the peripherals. Without revealing much about his part, it can be comfortably said that all the flak that he got post the release of “Aa Dekhen Zara” would be forgotten once audiences see him in this author backed role.

His scenes with Irrfan Khan, who plays an FBI officer and is extremely effective once again, need a special mention. They are extremely well written and enacted.

Katrina too suits the role to a T and after “Namastey London” again gets to play a part where she actually contributes to the film’s plot.

With the kind of subject that “New York” has, it could have easily become a sermonising or a pseudo exercise in motion. Thankfully, Aditya Chopra, who has written the film’s story, doesn’t allow that to happen. He keeps it all under check to ensure that “New York” reaches out to the masses while also ensuring itself quite a few awards when the best of the best are announced at the end of the year.

Neil Nitin Mukesh is the fairest of them all and his fairness lead to him being detained at the US airport recently.Reason, the US airport folks refused to believe that he was an Indian national ‘coz he is too fair.Neil says, “The officer who detained me said I didn’t look Indian. According to him, I was too fair to be an Indian! I told him to check my passport, but he just wouldn’t listen. I finally asked him to do a net search on my name. Even after that, his ego didn’t allow me to go. So, he kept me for a bit longer and then let me go.

The much acclaimed and awaited movie which will see its screening this weekend is “New York”. John Abraham, “In its own strange way, ‘New York’ begins where ‘Khuda Ke Liye’ended. That’s the interesting part of the film,” Both films deal with the issue of how legal detainees were treated after the gruesome 9/11 attacks in the US. Some sequences in the promos of “New York”, which will be released Friday, are reminiscent of scenes in “Khuda Kay Liye”.

“Each director has his own way of interpreting and researching the plight of legal detainees…that’s why Kabir and the ‘Khuda Kay Liye’ director have different interpretations of it in their films,” John said.” But if the legal detainees were put up in a particular way and interrogated in a certain way in reality – then that can’t change. So there are certain things that are bound to look similar in both the films. But obviously stories, people and characters are completely different in ‘New York’,” he added.

John was here Monday along with co-stars Neil Nitin Mukesh, Katrina Kaif and the director for the promotion of “New York”, which is about post-9/11 prejudices in the US. Set in New York, the film’s narrative is spread over nine years and revolves around three young friends whose lives take an unexpected turn after the terrorist attacks. John, who has teamed up with Khan for the second time after “Kabul Express”, predicts that“New York” will pick up “every popular award in the book”.

“When we were shooting in Afghanistan for ‘Kabul Express’ and bullets were flying off our heads, I had told Kabir that you would get a National Award for this film. And he did get one (for best debut director). After watching ‘New York’, which is a very commercial film, I told Kabir that he will walk away with every popular award that exists,” said John. After having spent over half a decade in the film industry, the 36-year-old supermodel-turned-actor, who was seen in a completely different avatar in Oscar nominated “Water”, says he is yet to achieve what he had set out for through his work.

John’s source of inspiration is late Hollywood actor Heath Ledger who got a posthumous Oscar for playing the Joker in “The Dark Knight”. “When Heath Ledger’s parents came up to collect the Oscar award on his behalf after his death, they said that Heath would be really happy because there was always this silent determination to be accepted by all of you as a fraternity.

“For me, there is a silent determination to be accepted by everyone in the audience as a complete person and also a complete actor. I believe with the kind of roles and films that I have done, I have probably reached 70-80 percent of what I had to. But the rest of crucial 30 percent is very important.” Now John hopes to do something “radically different that it affects and alters people’s mind positively”. After “New York”, which is produced by Yash Raj Films, John will be seen in David Dhawan’s comic affair “Hook Ya Crook”, Nagesh Kukunoor’s “Aashayein” and Abbas Tyrewala’s “1-800-Love”.