I Don't Do Films To Prove Anything To Anyone, Says Sonakshi Sinha

Dabungg Actress Sonakshi Sinha, who has mostly acted in films centered around larger-than-life male characters, says she does not sign films to prove anything to anybody.

"I don't do films to prove anything to anyone. Nobody pin-pointed a finger at me about my acting. Right from my first film, people said I had a great screen presence. They said that she acts well and dances well. So I did not have anything to prove in that department," Sonakshi told .

Sonakshi, who made her Bollywood debut with Salman Khan-starrer 'Dabangg', later did films like 'Rowdy Rathore' with Akshay Kumar and 'Son of Sardar' with Ajay Devgn.

She feels actresses have an equally important role in commercial cinema.

"There are roles written in masala films for actresses too. Otherwise the films would have been made with actors only. I think even actresses have a part to play in commercial films," she said.

The 26-year-old actress says she enjoys watching and doing 'masala' entertainers.

"It is more challenging to make a film like that because they are larger than life. It is not something that happens in real life. In a film like 'Lootera', the lines are colloquial... very conversational... The way we talk in real life. Whereas in masala films, the dialogues are larger than life. So to do something is also challenging in a way, but it is lot of fun as well," she said.

While films like 'Dabangg', 'Rowdy Rathore', 'Son of Sardar', 'Dabangg 2' brought box-office success for Sonakshi, 'Lootera' brought her critical acclaim.

"I feel 'Lootera' was once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It was a beautifully-written role. When it came to me people told me I won't be able to do it. So I took it up as a challenge to prove them wrong, but not to prove that I can act," the actress said. 

However, despite giving several hit films, Sonakshi feels that she is not competitive. 

"I have never been a competitive person from the start. I don't know what my contemporaries are doing. I don't know who has signed which experimental film. If everybody is jumping into the well it does not mean I will also do it. I have always done things on my own terms and conditions without looking left or right," she said. 

She is now looking forward to her upcoming film 'Once Upon A Time in Mumbai Dobaara' a romance drama by Milan Luthria. 

For this film Sonakshi has teamed up with Akshay Kumar for the third time, after 'Rowdy Rathore' and 'Joker'. She had also done an item song in Akshay's home production 'Oh My God' and his forthcoming film 'Boss'. 

"I respect him a lot he was my second co-star after Salman Khan. We have a very good work rapport. That is why we have worked so many times. When you share a good rapport with someone it is always easy and nice to work with the actor," Sonakshi said. 

In 'Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai Dobara' Sonakshi will be working with Imran Khan, an actor from the younger lot. However, when asked the actress says she is not concerned about the age of her co-stars. 

"I don't look at the age when I work with somebody. It is all about forming a proper working relation be it with a actor or director or producer, age is not a concern for me. The seniors have lot of experience so there is lot more that you can learn from them. It is nice that I started off with them and got to learn a lot in the first few films," she said.

D-Day Movie Review: Is Much Better Than Bollywood Expect From Nikhil Advani?

Director Nikhil Advani’s one-line narrative – ‘To bring back world’s most wanted man to India’ – is given life on the big screen in the most convincing way possible by his stars, Rishi Kapoor, Irrfan Khan and Arjun Rampal. No such luck, though we can happily report that Rampal is aging beautifully. Admittedly he spends most of D-Day gritting his jaw and looking like he can’t figure out what’s going on, but then so does the audience.

From its trailer, D-Day appears to be the desi lovechild born out of a threesome made up of Zero Dark Thirty, Munich and James Bond. There is however a different film whose title it could have borrowed: Clueless. The film begins as a thriller, wanders into heartbreak, gets stuck on revenge, takes a sharp wrong turn with an outlandish twist and ends in no man’s land. This is a shame because D-Day begins promisingly and it’s realising a long-cherished Indian dream: to catch Dawood Ibrahim.

As Rajpal Yadav gyrates energetically to “Dama dam mast kalandar” at a wedding in Pakistan, D-Day opens with two men subtly setting a plan in motion. We don’t know what’s going on or why they’re doing what they are, but Advani has the audience’s attention. Swiftly it becomes clear that the target of the stratagem is a don who is believed to be responsible for all the recent terror attacks in India, including 26/11.

Iqbal (Rishi Kapoor) is a terror-monger modelled on Dawood Ibrahim. When we meet him, he’s sitting pretty in Pakistan and getting ready for his son’s wedding to a cricketer’s daughter. When a bomb blast tears through Hyderabad, the patriotic head of India’s Research & Analysis Wing decides he’s going to take a leaf out of the American military playbook and send a covert team to apprehend Iqbal. The project is titled Operation Goldman. The team is made up of two R&AW plants in Pakistan — Wali (Irrfan), who has been pretending to be a barber in Karachi and massaging an ISI agent’s head for 9 years in hope of uncovering intelligence, and Aslam (Aakash Dahiya), an ex-murderer. These two are joined by Zoya (Huma Qureishi), an explosives expert, and Rudra (Arjun Rampal), a rogue Indian soldier who can match camels’ strides and kill people in the messiest possible manner.

In order to stay inconspicuously undercover, Rudra shacks up with a prostitute who has literally been scarred (Shruti Haasan, with a fake scar). While waiting for the big day, he smoulders, smooches and commits a couple of murders in broad daylight in order to establish he is an impressive soldier and a romantic. He brutally beats up an ISI agent in a bus (while Wali is following the bus in an open-air auto, pointing a gun at the grappling duo). Then, in order to win fulfill his lover’s wish, Rudra follows the man who had disfigured the prostitute’s face and (with a witness present) kills him in a way that leaves Rudra drenched in blood.

Did I mention all this is happening in Pakistan and Rudra is undercover?

He’s not the only one breaking the law in the name of patriotism. Zoya also has to prep for the operation by committing one sexual act — sadly, her partner is nowhere near as lovely as Rudra’s — and one murder. Wali and Aslam are the only ones who don’t indulge in random acts of violence at this stage (although they more than make up for it in the latter half of the film).

By and large, the acting in the film is competent. Kapoor, weighed down by a patently fake moustache, hams occasionally but manages to mix bombast and menace to create his take on Dawood Ibrahim. The script doesn’t allow Irrfan’s character the luxury of being logical, so the actor attempts to give his role some emotional heft. The role of his Pakistani wife, Nafisa, is played by the lovely Shriswara. Qureshi is convincing, but barely utilised. It’s better than the scenes of mindless violence that are Hassan’s character’s lot.

However, even if D-Day is ultimately a boys’ bash and Zoya is sidelined, at least Qureshi’s role relies less on the usual clichés that make conventional Bollywood heroines boring. Advani attempts to be balanced in terms of politics and religious sentiments too. Unfortunately, while he gets A for effort, he also gets a F for credibility.

Still, if you don’t look for realism in its ludicrous version of how politics, governments and covert teams work, the first half of D-Day is actually quite fun. Everything seems to be coming together: performance, strategy, stunts, music, cinematography. The script tries to mesh facts with its fiction by referring to actual terror plots and it’s effective in parts. As pulpy drama goes, D-Day is true to genre until interval and without nauseating jingoism.

Then comes the second half, also known as the altar at which logic, causality and common sense are sacrificed. People yell, tyres screech, bullets are fired and a twist is thrown into the mix. (After all, the Indian agents have to do something to entertain themselves while completing Operation Goldman. So, among other things, they stand in the middle of a deserted highway and yell at each other like squabbling, hormonal teenagers in an American road movie.)

The Indian government washes its hands off the patriots in R&AW, disowns the undercover agents, leaving them to die or be captured. Almost no one in Pakistan recognises the Indians even though their mug shots have been published and circulated widely by the Pakistani military and police. Buying stuff like guns and RDX is no big deal either. It is quite staggering how much violence D-Day believes can be explained away with, “It’s happening in Pakistan.”

The real surprises, however, come right at the end. First, the conclusion presents a very alarming vision of “new India” (Rudra’s words, not mine), in which self-respect is a warm gun. Second, thanks to D-Day, there’s finally something against which the ISI and R&AW can, for once, present a united front: Bollywood’s inane depiction of intelligence agencies and their operations. Finally, with the last shot of the film, you realise that if this was how the story had to end, the film could have ended after the first 10 minutes. That means you have to sit through about 143 minutes of D-Day for no good reason. Sometimes, good things don’t come to those who wait.

Rating: 4 Out Of 5

Watch: D-Day - Official Trailer

Once Upon A Time In Mumbai Again New Teaser: Akshay Kumar Fit To be A Villain?

Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai Again is obviously a war between the hero aka Imran Khan and the villain aka Akshay Kumar, over a pretty girl aka Sonakshi Sinha.

After making this clear in the first trailer itself, the makers create a new three-minute plus trailer just to make the same point all over again. And just in case we did not know what a hero and a villain really imply, Akshay explains it to us with the help of an unexciting, slow and deliberate narration. Along the way he quite unwittingly also reveals why he did not do Imran’s role!

So what do we look forward to in this movie then? Not to be negative, but we just hope that there is some shocking twist in the tale that washes away all the impressions created by this sneak peek. Take a look at this new trailer and tell us what you think of it.

watch:Once Upon A Time In Mumbai Again New Teaser