Anil Kapoor is Decent in 24

By SearchIndia.com on January 17, 201014 Comments

Is this the first time we’re watching 24?

Maybe.

Who cares.

Right now, we’re watching Anil Kapoor oops President Omar Hassan, head of a Middle Eastern country, in the premiere of Season 8 of the TV series 24 on Fox.

Omar Hassan is in the U.S. for a crucial meeting with Madame President Allison Taylor.

And there’s a conspiracy afoot to derail the peace process.

Anil Kapoor has put in a decent performance. Thank God.

Imagine the humiliation to all desis here, if it had been the bozo Abhishek what’s-his-name playing President Hassan. We’d all have to wear a burkha tomorrow.

OK, the commercial break is over and we’re back to the drama on the screen.

Who knew there could be such tension in a TV series episode and plausible side stories too!

Folks, it’s 11PM EST and the show’s over, for today that is.

Overall, we found the Season 8 premiere of 24 slick and neatly executed.

All the actors did their parts well. And the plot moved along at a brisk clip.

Folks, if you are watching 24 on the East Coast, the season’s premiere continues at 8E/9C tomorrow on Fox.

We expect to see more of our Anil ‘President Omar Hassan’ Kapoor tomorrow.

Anil Kapoor is Decent in 24 added by SearchIndia.com on January 17, 2010
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14 Responses to "Anil Kapoor is Decent in 24"

Twig January 17, 2010 at 9:48 pm

Oh! Come on. Anil Kapoor is always a decent actor if you forgive his horrendous dancing skills.

SearchIndia.com Responds:

True, for the most part.

BTW, is 24 big in India?

(Thank God for commercial breaks.)
Twig January 17, 2010 at 10:01 pm

@searchIndia: “BTW, is 24 big in India”

I don’t know about whole of India but at least my friends are glued to it. Heard each episode on an avg is a one hour real time.

SearchIndia.com Responds:

So far so good with this one.

Omar has been pushed into the elevator and the journalist …..
Jump a Lahiri January 17, 2010 at 11:38 pm

I liked the first season of 24 the best(when Kim(Elisha Cuthbert) was a hot teenager).. the novelty probably wore off for me.. but I still make sure that I’ll watch the season premiere.. and then lose interest in subsequent episodes.

GG for Avatar.. looks like it will be another big haul for Cameron at the Oscars.

SearchIndia.com Responds:

1. Most likely, this was our first complete episode of 24.

We’ll watch it tomorrow too.

2. Golden Globes for Avatar is hardly a surprise.

But we’re elated that Christoph Waltz won the Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe for his superb performance in Inglourious Basterds.

Here’s an excerpt from SearchIndia.com’s review of Inglourious Basterds:

For us, the marvellous revelation and discovery with Inglourious Basterds is above all Christoph Walz.

An Austrian actor, Walz is drop-dead brilliant (any less a word would be an insult, folks) in his portrayal of the Nazi officer and “Jew Hunter” Col. Hans Landa.

By turns endearingly smiling, casually witty, unfailingly polite and menacingly violent, Walz as Col Landa turns in one of the finest performances we’ve seen on the big screen in a long time.

In one of the memorable scenes, with a smile that you know portends grave danger to come anon, Col. Landa tells the French dairy farmer LaPadite:

I love rumors. Facts could be misleading. Rumor, true or false, could be revealing.

Or as he makes the distinction between himself and other German soldiers:

I can think like a Jew. They can think only like a German or more precisely like a German soldier.

Any surprise then that Walz walked off with the Best Actor award at the Cannes festival in May.
- mihi_rex January 18, 2010 at 3:58 am
  
  At the Oscars, should HAAAAAAAAANS LAAAANDAA…..i mean Christopher Waltz win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor? FUCK YES!!!!!! Its not like he has a competitor that is of greater magnitude this year. Its like Heath Ledger’s role as The Joker last year, likewise, NO COMPETITION!!!!
  
  But regarding Avatar…..oh boy… i fear that the “visual tour-de-force,” as you described, will blind the Academy from taking notice to the weak and hackneyed story/screenplay that is Avatar. BTW, im only saying this regarding the Best Picture category, but any awards belonging to the set direction and visual/sound categories solely belongs to Avatar.
  
  I just hope Up In The Air takes home the Oscar for Best Picture. Oh well, as you once said, Hope springs eternal in the human breast. 🙂
  
  SearchIndia.com Responds:
  
  You write: At the Oscars, should HAAAAAAAAANS LAAAANDAA…..i mean Christopher Waltz win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor? FUCK YES!!!!!!
  
  We second that once.
  
  We second that twice.
  
  We second that a million times. 🙂
  
  Up in the Air was a touch of class too.
guruprasad.s January 17, 2010 at 11:40 pm

You can expect an above-average performance from Anil Kapoor in most of his Hindi movies, except in those where he has to do an outlandish character (such as Bhaiyaji in Tashan).

But you never know in English movies, because he has to get the accent and expressions right, which may not be easy for someone accustomed to Hindi movies.

Such could have been the reasons for Dilip Kumar to decline a role in Lawrence of Arabia, which finally went to Omar Sharif.

SearchIndia.com Responds:

Since Anil Kapoor played a Middle Eastern character here, the accent was obviously not an issue.

Not sure if we screwed up the settings while fiddling with our TV earlier today but we thought the lighting of some scenes in today’s 24 left a lot to be desired. Seemed too dark in some scenes.

Offtopic: BTW, the Malèna Review was not postponed sine die. 😉
SRINIVAS January 18, 2010 at 1:10 am

anil kapoor was once a competitor to Amitabh in terms of box office popularity …..when we were growing up …….your favourite hindi film hero had to be Amitabh OR Anil …..great actor ….and has performed a variety of roles in different movies …..

Eeashwar , Kishen Kanhaiya , Mr India , Beta , Tezaab , Qurbaani , Meri Jung , Ram Lakhan , Parinda etc

SearchIndia.com Responds:

Anil Kapoor was not in Qurbani (Vinod Khanna, Feroze Khan, Amjad Khan and Zeenat Aman).

Our favorite Anil Kapoor film was Mr.India. Seems very crude and garish when you watch it now. Remember the famous Hawa Hawaii song featuring Sridevi? 😉
Aswin_Kini January 18, 2010 at 2:09 am

Oh, so 24 is a televison series. No wonder I couldn’t find anything on 24 in Anil Kapoor’s movie profile. Thanks for the update, reading one of your earlier posts, I thought 24 was some new film.

America not only produces fine movies, but some good family sops and TV Series too.

It’s a pity that India is far behind Hollywood even in the Serial Sagas. Our mega serial directors are so bad. To call them THRASH would be belittling the word.

The only TV Series I liked was the one called CID (Based on Mumbai’s Crime Investigation Department). This series started in 1997 in Sony TV and has been running successful til date. This TV Series is a refreshing change as every episode is based on a Crime which is solved successfully by the members in the CID. The serial crew comprise of good actors like Shivaji Satyam and Abhinav Srivatsava.
Unlike other useles indian serials, this one focuses on unique plots based on real-life crimes and how the CID team solves it.

SearchIndia.com Responds:

Your CID series sounds like the Indian version of Law & Order.

We have seen few TV series, whether in India or U.S.

Our sole claim to fame in life is that we did not watch even a single episode of Ramayan. 😉 The only Indian TV series we’ve watched is a few episodes of Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi featuring Shafi Inamdar, a good actor who died young.

But for Anil Kapoor, we wouldn’t have watched 24, which apparently is a popular series.
rakeshbaba January 18, 2010 at 9:15 am

20 days back nagarahaavu ramachari (vishnuvardhan) died,today his master nagarahaavu chamaiah mestru (k.s.ashwath) died

SearchIndia.com Responds:

Baala baejar aagidhe kaeli (sad to hear that).

As we wrote in our review of Naagarahaavu:

Under the aegis of Puttana Kanagal, Vishnuvardhan and Ashwath have most likely delivered their career-best performances in Naagarahaavu.

To praise Vishnuvardhan or Ashwath is not to detract from the performances of Aarti or Shuba or the other actors in the movie but an acknowledgment of their larger roles.

Here’s the obit of Chamaiah Maestru a.k.a. Ashwath.
shadowfax_arbit January 20, 2010 at 3:17 am

Downloaded the first 2 seasons and the 8th. Is it something like I should have seen season 1-7 to understand the eighth??

Not sure if 24 would suit my taste – Prison Break didn’t, Lost to a certain extent while Desperate Housewives and House MD did.

SearchIndia.com Responds:

You write: Is it something like I should have seen season 1-7 to understand the eighth??

No. This is independent of the earlier opens.

We can’t recollect watching the earlier episodes and yet liked this one.
- Jump a Lahiri January 20, 2010 at 10:44 am
  
  24 is not very complex to follow.. it can be watched from any season.. I liked the first season the best. I like odd Chloe for some odd reason.
  
  I didn’t like Prison Break either.. but it seems to have a cult-following.. Lost is very complex.. we need to have watched all seasons.. too much for my puny Tamil-movies-fed brain.
  
  SI wouldn’t even have heard of “House” (what sort of American are you??!! — let me try to tempt you.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_MD).. if that is not tempting enough, there is character called “thirteen” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_(House).. She is bisexual and doesn’t reveal much about herself.. just like you..
  
  Guiltily admit that I used to like Desperate Housewives too, but only wifey watches it nowadays.. frankly, those housewives aren’t hot enough to warrant a watch.
  
  SearchIndia.com Responds:
  
  We vaguely remember reading about House somewhere. Must confess we haven’t watched even a single episode.
  
  On a slightly related note, Harrison Ford’s Extraordinary Measures is releasing this Friday. In the movie, Ford plays a medical scientist trying to find a cure for Pompe disease a.k.a. Glycogen storage disease type II.
  
  The movie is said to be based on Geeta Anand’s book The Cure.
fugitive143 January 20, 2010 at 3:40 am

sammandhame illama why r u dragging abhishek bachchan into this? 🙂 hehe..haven’t seen 24..will try to watch it tmw…
plz let me know if u like any new restaurants around the Edison, Brunswick areas.

1. You write: sammandhame illama why r u dragging abhishek bachchan into this?

There is a connection.

Anil Kapoor is a Bollywood actor and Abhishek Bachchan is a wannabe Bollywood actor. Now, do you see the connection? 😉

2. You write: plz let me know if u like any new restaurants around the Edison, Brunswick areas.

Haven’t seen any new ones lately.

For South Indian vegetarian, we like Swagat. For Gujarati food, our favorite is Jhupidi.

Real Bad: Saravanaa Bhavan Review – Murder Most Foul
Asha Tampa January 20, 2010 at 7:31 am

My favorite line from this post – We’d all have to wear a burkha tomorrow 😀

SearchIndia.com Responds:

We hear the junior Bachcha has its own TV show now …some Bingo wateva.

Have you seen it (we mean the show). 😉
Asha Tampa January 21, 2010 at 1:34 am

When asked about luck, Bachchan junior apparently replied, “…being an actor requires one per cent talent, one per cent hard work and 98 per cent luck.” Could he have really said that?! I mean, that is such a filthy and pompous statement to make! 😐

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Taking-a-Chance/569822/

SearchIndia.com Responds:

Abhishek didn’t say that exactly. He said:

As actors we deal with luck on a day-to-day basis. I’ve always been told that being an actor requires one per cent talent, one per cent hard work and 98 per cent luck. My parents are my lucky charm.

BTW, Ash seems to have a penchant for attracting losers.

Salman ‘unwanted‘ Khan, that-forgettable-face-Vivek-now-acting-in-RGV’s-Telugu-film and now Abhishek…maybe it’s in her kundali or wateva.

With all the advantages of the Bachchan name, Abhishek is still nowhere in the reckoning. A completely irrelevant fella in Bollywood.

If tomorrow Abhishek were to abandon Bollywood and become a builder, mithaiwalla, vet or whatever, nobody would even realize he wasn’t there.
The Mahatma April 5, 2010 at 9:45 pm

I am thinking that you would have abandoned 24 after the first episode?

SearchIndia.com Responds:

No, we watched two or three episodes.

We may not have watched even those but for Anil Kapoor.

BTW, the other day we skimmed through a story that 24 was nearing the end of its life. Did we really read it or is it the Gin talking?

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