Bipasa Enjoying Year -2008

Race has so far proved to be the biggest blockbusters of 2008 and Bipasha is one woman who seems to be on cloud nine. However, Race’s success hasn’t calmed down the dusky actor as she is working round the clock to keep up her success rate high!

Soon after actively participating in the massive promotional activities of Race, Bipasha left for Australia to shoot for Siddharth Anand’s ‘Bachna Eh Haseeno’ along with Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and Minissha Lamba. The film has also been shot in Venice and other European locales. The film’s shoot is still on! If extensive travelling for Bachna was not enough, Bipasha chose to travel to Bangkok to shoot for her next venture with Neil Nitin Mukesh. Phew! Bips will be seen juggling two films at a time.

Bipasha’s stamina and never say die spirit has to be appreciated as where her male co-star– Ranbir chose to sit back and take rest in the break of Bachna’s shoot, Bipasha did otherwise.

“I am currently shooting for my film Freeze with Neil in Bangkok and Eros is producing the film. My shoot for Bachna is also on and I’ll be back to Mumbai only in June”, replied Bipasha through an SMS.

Where the rest of Bollywood’s heartthrobs choose to go slow and steady after they deliver a hit at the box-office, Bipasha is one actor who is in no mood to go slow and look back!

We hope Bipasha’s hard work pays and her success streak continues.

Saif Ali Khan becomes a part of the big league in bollywood

Life could not look better for actor Saif Ali Khan. The actor, who had a particularly bad year in 2007, can now safely count himself as being part of the big league in Bollywood after the success of Race.

Race, the Abbas-Mustan thriller, is being labeled a blockbuster by the trade pundits. The film is believed to have raked in Rs 29.5 crore in the first five days of its release. It is being counted as one of the two hits of this year, the other being Jodhaa Akbar. With the success of Race, Saif can easily set aside the bad memories of 2007 which saw his films like Ta Ra Rum Pum and Eklavya bombing big time at the box office. Also his personal life was in a mess following his breakup with Rosa Catalano and reported link-up with Bipasha Basu. But life seems to have finally stabilized for this Khan. His love life seems to be rocking and his career seems headed the same way with this one hit. And the year promises to only get better with Yash Raj's Tashan set to release as well.

Too many twists spoil the plot in “Race”

Akshaye Khanna and Katrina Kaif die, and Saif Ali Khan and Bipasha Basu split the cash with Anil Kapoor , after giving him a death threat. That is the climax of the latest Abbas-Mustan film, Race.

Abbasbhai and Mustanbhai are veteran practitioners of the fatafat produced thriller, but this their biggest budget effort by far tries to be slick and stylish while actually trying to cling on to a plot. There's nothing wrong with unpredictability, but it needs to be thought through. A-M bhailog, these many twists suit jalebiwallahs better than filmmakers.

Our film opens with horse races, but aside from having a few whinnying stallions in the background every now and then largely to frame a shirtless Saif -- there's really not much about that world in this film save for a couple of races, fixed with painful, amateurish obviousness. This is Durban and top horse owners are archrivals Saif and Dalip Tahil, the latter again forced into an inconsequential, villain-caricature role.

Anyway, Saif plays a gruff and stubbly millionaire not given to much emotional expression, hiding most of them behind his big sunglasses. He does, however, intensely love his stepbrother Akshaye, a good-for-nothing drunk with a hipflask surgically attached to his palm.

Saif's sexy secretary Katrina is in love with him that is informed by Anil Kapoor's voice in the sort of inconsistent know-it-all narrative that smells fishy, rather like scarlet herrings. Kapoor also tells that Saif is quite hot and heavy with Bipasha, who models Provogue garments for South Africa.

And now begins the carnival of twists, with each character stripped bare to show money-lust where some shred of morality would usually lie. Here, it is only the characters that lie, throughout the film.

And while it's perfectly acceptable for a thriller to be dark and cynical and let the characters chart their own sordid course, it is vital to either have somebody in the whole film that actually has a code of ethics or create characters compelling enough to root for, despite their hardcore darkness.

Here, the directors take another route the one that presumably stands for the all-important word 'commercial.' This is a simple route: it asks to focus on the stunts and the skirts, and let the twists lie there just for impact. Unfortunately, unlike the Dhoom 2 that this film is desperately craving to be, Race can't go all the way into the insubstantial and gets caught up in actually trying to tell a story and it's a helluva loopy tale. And it's nowhere near as slick as it needs to be.

Saif Ali Khan is completely wasted in the film, his apparent preparation for the character being not to shave for a while, and to perhaps trim a few kilos so that the immense suspension of disbelief doesn't seem as abrupt. Not that it helps. He grunts mannequin-like through the motions, mostly looking like he wandered on the sets from another film.

Akshaye Khanna has the film's main role, and while his smirk and his shrug manage a couple of lines alright, this really isn't a performance to talk about. Never convincing, the otherwise competent Khanna too seems to be phoning in this role, more at ease grimacing behind the wheel than actually delivering his constant, overwritten punchlines.

The girls? Bipasha Basu looks visibly uncomfortable in the part, squirming from one inappropriate costume to another, and really needs to work on her 'casual' English. Katrina Kaif looks significantly hot dressed in raunchy secretary gear, but the more she's kept away from the dialogues the better. Sameera Reddy plays Kapoor's bimbette assistant, and perpetually wears the disbelieving grin of a girl who can't believe she's getting to share screen space with Saif and Anil.Kapoor, despite being armed with nothing but fruits and groan-provoking lines, emerges as the only character to like in this vague mess. Not only does the actor carry off a horseshoe moustache like it's nobody's business, but his post-interval entry into the film injects some life into the random 'thrills.'

All in all, it's a rank amateur effort. The actors do their bit, but they too are mostly detachedly going through the motions hoping the camera and the cool moments would carry them through. They don't. This is a boringly shot, shabbily edited film, and it's hard to imagine anyone watching it and actually feeling the twists without laughing at them.

Who is The Hottest Babe in Race?

It's a tough job being a Bollywood hero.

Imagine, for example, having to pick between the Race stunners.

One on hand there is the leggy and luscious Katrina Kaif.

Then there's the voluptuous and bold Sameera Reddy.

And finally there's the sizzling, increasingly desirable Bipasha Basu.

So it depends on public to decide who is The Hottest Babe?

Sameera Reddy is the hidden USP of RACE

DHOOM-2 was a blockbuster hit last year which was not only talked about for it's breathtaking action, but also for its lead artists like Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai, Abhishek Bachchan and Bipasha Basu.

However, it was the dusky Bengali beauty, Bipasha Basu who really wooed the audience with her surprising double role. Her second role that of a sexy dumb bimbette, went down very well with the viewers, who yearned for more.

It's obvious that Bipasha cannot do the same thing over and over again. But no need to despair, as we have an equally deserving name, with almost similar curriculum vitae to boast of! No more suspense, we are talking about another sultry beauty, Sameera Reddy, who will be seen holding her own, against the likes of Anil Kapoor, Akshaye Khanna, Saif Ali Khan, Bipasha Basu and Katrina Kaif, in Abbas-Mustan's upcoming thriller, RACE.

As the sources say, the dusky Southern beauty Sameera Reddy's surprising bimbette act is one of the hidden USP's of RACE. To give an approximate account of her act, its almost similar to Bipasha's role, that of a dumb, glam doll in DHOOM-2. In case there is any confusion, Sameera's role can also be equated to the lovable dumb secretary, 'Kitty', played by Sushmita Mukherjee, in Pankaj Kapoor's cult detective serial, KARAMCHAND.