SAW IV

Ratings : * Avoidable ** Average *** Good **** Must Watch

The film opens with the autopsy of the Jigsaw Killer and the discovery of a wax-coated microcassette in his stomach, which, when played for Detective Hoffman, promises that "the games have just begun." It then cuts to a mausoleum, where Trevor and Art are chained to a large device. Trevor's eyes have been sewn together, and Art's mouth has been sewn shut, making communication between them impossible. When the device begins pulling them together, they panic, and Art murders Trevor to retrieve a key from his collar.

Meanwhile, the police discover the corpse of Detective Kerry. After cautioning Lieutenant Rigg for barging through an unsecured door, Hoffman is introduced to FBI Agents Strahm and Perez, who deduce that Amanda Young, Jigsaw's apprentice, would need assistance with Kerry's death, indicating that there is another accomplice to the murder.

That evening, Rigg and Hoffman are kidnapped. Rigg is told that Detective Matthews is in fact still alive, and is given ninety minutes to save him. He is then given his first test, where he finds Brenda is slowly being scalped. He rescues her, although he is warned not to, and Brenda later attempts to stab Rigg; Rigg subdues her and learns that Brenda was told that Rigg was there to arrest her for prostitution.

Rigg's next test is at a motel, where he is instructed to abduct the manager, Ivan, revealed to be a serial rapist. Angered by seeing videos of Ivan's exploits, Rigg forces Ivan into a prearranged trap, which dismembers him. Rigg's next test occurs in a school where Rigg attacked a man acquitted of abusing his family, though Rigg's career was saved by Hoffman. In one of the classrooms, Rigg discovers the husband and wife impaled to a pole, with the man dead and the woman clinging to life. Rigg tells the woman that she must remove the spikes herself before leaving, pulling a fire alarm as he does.

Strahm and Perez arrive on the scene, where it is learned that all of the victims were defended by Art, who is also the lawyer of Jill Tuck, Jigsaw's ex-wife. After a photographer is accidentally killed on the scene, Perez finds Billy, Jigsaw's puppet, in the office. She is told that Strahm will "soon take the life of an innocent man" and that her "next step is critical". Ignoring past clues that she is in danger, Perez continues with the investigation before Billy explodes; she is rushed to the hospital in critical condition. Furious, Strahm interrogates Jill, who recounts Jigsaw's backstory. She was once pregnant with a boy to be named Gideon, but the baby was lost when Cecil Adams robbed the clinic at which she was employed and he slammed a door into her stomach. She and her husband grew apart and divorced. After learning that he had cancer and only a short while to live, Jigsaw placed Cecil in a trap which collapsed prematurely; Cecil then lunged at Jigsaw, but fell into a mesh of barbed wire. Strahm makes connections from Jill's story to the Gideon Meat Factory, the scene of Rigg's final test.

Strahm arrives but finds himself lost, accidentally trailing Jeff Reinhart, thus revealing the transpiring events to be happening concurrently to Saw III. Rigg, meanwhile, approaches his final test. In the next room are Art, Matthews, and Hoffman; it was revealed earlier that if the door was opened before Rigg's time was up, Matthews' head would be crushed between two ice blocks and Hoffman would be electrocuted by a complex device. Rigg charges through the door with one second to spare; despite Matthews' attempts to stop Rigg by shooting him, he is killed. Rigg shoots Art while, in another room, Strahm faces off with Jeff, who brandishes a gun, unaware that Jeff is frantically searching for his daughter. Strahm kills Jeff while Hoffman, who was never in any danger and is Jigsaw's other apprentice, rises and seals an injured Rigg and a bewildered Strahm in the factory.

The film then replays the autopsy scene from the beginning, revealing it to have occurred after the events of the film. Hoffman again hears that the games have just begun, and that he himself should not expect to go untested.

My Rating : ***
Genre : Horror/Thriller
Director : Darren Lynn Bousman
Cast : Tobin Bell, Scott Patterson, Lyriq Bent, Costas Mandylor, Betsy Russel, Donnie Whalberg.

SAW III

Ratings : * Avoidable ** Average *** Good **** Must Watch

This film begins immediately after the end of Saw II, with Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) escaping the bathroom he was left in by breaking his foot to slip out of his ankle chain. Later flashbacks depict his vicious fight with Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith), who eventually overcomes him and leaves him for dead. Before she leaves, Matthews shouts several angry parting comments, calling Amanda a "junkie bitch" and telling her she is nothing compared to Jigsaw, causing her evident distress. What she does next is not revealed at this time. Other flashbacks show that Amanda had been working with John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer (Tobin Bell), prior to the events of the first film, and had been the one who actually instigated the abduction of Adam under Jigsaw's orders. After the events of the first film, it is revealed, she had suffocated Adam in a mercy killing.


The film's present is set six months after Matthews' capture; he has been missing this entire time. Detective Allison Kerry (Dina Meyer), Lieutenant Rigg (Lyriq Bent) and Forensic Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) are investigating the corpse of Jigsaw's latest victim Troy (J. Larose), intrigued by the fact that his trap was inescapable (a break in Jigsaw's M.O.). When Kerry returns home, she is kidnapped and finds herself in a trap of her own. When the escape method given fails and Amanda arrives, Kerry realizes this trap is also inescapable and is killed.

Meanwhile, a dying Jigsaw orders the abduction of two more victims: a skilled but depressed doctor named Lynn Denlon (Bahar Soomekh) and Jeff Reinhart (Angus Macfadyen), a father obsessed with revenge against the driver that killed his son. A collar holding five loaded shotgun shell mounts, wirelessly connected to Jigsaw's heart monitor, is locked around Lynn’s throat by Amanda. The game is simple - keep John alive until Jeff completes his tests. If she tries to leave the area or fails, flatline indicator on the monitor will instantly arm and fire the collar device. Jeff is led through an abandoned meat packing plant where he is given the choice of rescuing three prime targets of revenge from a variety of temporal traps. His initial hesitancy in each case ultimately dooms each one; even though he does save the lenient Judge Halden (Barry Flatman), his attempt to save his son’s killer Timothy Young (Mpho Koaho) leads to the deaths of both Timothy and Halden. After Jeff completes his tests, he continues forward to finally meet the maker of his torment.

Lynn succeeds in keeping John alive, but during the course of an improvised brain surgery, he semi-consciously professes his love for a woman named Jill during a dream. Amanda believes his words are directed toward Lynn. After the operation, Lynn and John talk privately and it is revealed that Lynn's ordeal has given her a new appreciation of her life and family.

Now disillusioned with John's attempts to change his victims' perspective, Amanda admits to him that she set up the inescapable traps for Troy and Kerry. She refuses to release Lynn, despite John's pleading, and instead shoots her in the back. Lynn falls into Jeff's arms as he enters the room, whereupon he shoots and fatally wounds Amanda using a gun he has picked up in the warehouse. As Amanda bleeds to death, John tells her that she has failed the test he set up for her: "Your will is being tested--your will to keep someone alive." These words, spoken as if meant for Lynn, were instead directed toward Amanda, who had not known until this point that Jeff and Lynn were married.

John now offers Jeff the chance to forgive him or take revenge, since he is responsible for Jeff's torment throughout this game. If Jeff forgives, John will call an ambulance to save Lynn. As Jeff says, "I forgive you," he picks up a circular saw and slashes John's throat, causing Lynn's collar to detonate and kill her as the door to the room closes and locks. A microcassette recorder in John's hand delivers the message that he himself was the final test of forgiveness; by killing him, Jeff has failed. In addition, John is the only person who knows where Jeff's daughter Corbett is hidden, and Jeff will have to play another game in order to find her before her air supply runs out. He is left screaming in despair.

My Rating : ***
Genre : Horror/Thriller
Director : Darren Lynn Bousman
Cast : Tobin Bell, Shwanee Smith, Donnie Whalberg, Bahar Soomekh, Angus Mcfadyen

SAW II

Ratings : * Avoidable ** Average *** Good **** Must Watch

After an argument with his rebellious teenage son Daniel, Detective Eric Matthews (Donnie Wahlberg) is called to the scene of yet another death perpetrated by the Jigsaw Killer (Tobin Bell). Following clues from the scene, he is able to trace Jigsaw's lair to an abandoned steel factory. In a control room therein a set of computer monitors shows several people trapped in a mysterious house, among them Daniel and Amanda Y oung (Shawnee Smith), Jigsaw's only known survivor. Jigsaw himself is present in the factory, though considerably weakened by cancer. He promises that Matthews will see his son in a "safe, secure state" if he will converse with him patiently.

In the house, the eight learn from a microcassette that, though the doors to the house will open in three hours, a toxic nerve gas which will kill them in two hours is leaking into the house and that they must find antidotes, one of which is in a nearby safe. Gus is soon killed by a shotgun when he and Xavier test the rules that Jigsaw has presented.

The story now intercuts between Jigsaw's lair as Matthews talks with him in an attempt to buy time while the video signal is traced, and the captives in the house trying to secure antidotes. Obi (Tim Burd), an accessory to the other victims' kidnappings, is burned alive while attempting to retrieve two antidotes in a furnace. The group later finds a pit filled with thousands of hypodermic syringes, with a key to an antidote hidden within. Xavier, the intended victim, throws Amanda into the pit rather than search for the key himself. Amanda retrieves the key, but Xavier fumbles with it and fails to unlock the door to the antidote before its timer runs out.

Meanwhile, Jigsaw explains his evolution into a criminal to Matthews and reveals to him that the victims trapped in the house are criminals that Matthews has framed, and that his son is in danger should his identity be discovered. Matthews, growing impatient with Jigsaw's philosophical ramblings, trashes the models and plans but fails to move Jigsaw.

Xavier, having abandoned the others, realizes that one number of the combination to the safe has been written on the back each of the victims' necks. After killing Jonas, he begins stalking the remaining four, who have been made aware that Daniel is the son of their arresting officer. Laura soon dies from gas exposure, and Addison's arms become trapped in a glass box containing razors.

Matthews, meanwhile, loses control and violently assaults Jigsaw, eventually forcing him to take him to the house at gunpoint. As they depart, the tech team discovers the signal and follows it. In the house, Xavier pursues Amanda and Daniel through a hidden basement, which leads to the bathroom of the first film, where Daniel then collapses. Amanda remarks that Xavier has no way of learning his own number, and he slices off a piece of skin from the back of his neck to read it. After he threatens Amanda, Daniel, who is revealed to have been playing possum, cuts Xavier's throat open with a hacksaw.The SWAT team arrives at the location of the video signal, but it is not the same house that has been shown on the monitors in Jigsaw's lair; the events in the house took place on a previous occasion, and were broadcast from tape. Matthews then enters the bathroom, now empty, and is injected in the leg by an unknown assailant and quickly loses consciousness. At the abandoned lair, a timer expires and a safe opens, revealing a hyperventilating Daniel inside wearing an oxygen mask. Matthews awakens to find himself chained to a pipe. An audio tape lying next to him reveals that Amanda has put him there. In a series of flashbacks, we learn that Amanda has become Jigsaw's protégé. Amanda appears in the door and says "Game over," before closing the bathroom door, Matthews screaming threats and abuse; though different characters, the scene is otherwise identical to the ending of the first film. Outside the house, a badly beaten Jigsaw slowly forms a smile.

My Rating : **

Genre : Horror/Thriller

Director : Darren Lynn Bousman

Cast : Donnie Whalberg, Tobin Bell, Shwanee Smith, Erik Knudsen, Franky G, Glenn Plummer, Timothy Burd

SAW

Ratings : * Avoidable ** Average *** Good **** Must Watch

Saw opens in an industrial washroom, where photographer Adam Faulkner (Leigh Whannell) and Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) are chained by their ankles to pipes at opposite corners. Between them is a corpse (Tobin Bell) holding a revolver. From a microcassette, Lawrence is told that he must kill Adam in eight hours, or his wife and daughter will die and he will be left in the bathroom. Hacksaws are soon discovered; neither is sufficiently sharp to cut through chain, and Adam accidentally snaps his in frustration. Lawrence realizes that they are meant instead for their own feet.

He realizes that their captor is the Jigsaw Killer, named due to his practice of cutting piec es of skin in the shape of a jigsaw puzzle piece from his victims, though Lawrence comments that the name is a misnomer, as he never directly murders anyone and his intentions are for his victims to survive with a better appreciation of life. We are presented with flashbacks of his previous victims, including his only known survivor, a highly traumatized heroin addict named Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith), who believes that her experience in the test has made her a better person in the end.

As Adam and Lawrence search for alternative escape routes, Zep Hindle (Michael Emerson) breaks into the Gordon house and captures Lawrence's wife, Alison (Monica Potter), and daughter, Diana (Makenzie Vega). Through flashback, we learn that Zep is an orderly at Lawrence's hospital who witnessed Lawrence coldly informing an elderly patient, John Kramer, that he had terminal brain cancer. (We also recognize John as the corpse in the bathroom.) While psychologically toying with Alison and Diana, Zep monitors Adam and Lawrence through video surveillance.

He is unaware, however, that the house is being observed by Detective David Tapp (Danny Glover). Tapp grew unhealthily obsessed with the Jigsaw case after hearing Amanda's testimony, and, following a lead, he and his partner, Steven Sing (Ken Leung), illegally broke into a warehouse that turned out to be one of Jigsaw's lairs, where they saved a man from being killed by drills. Before they could secure Jigsaw's arrest, however, Sing was gunned down by a booby trap, and Jigsaw escaped. Tapp was later disbarred from the police force, and is now stalking Lawrence, convinced from planted evidence that he is the Jigsaw Killer.

Meanwhile, Adam attempts to stage his death, but a strong electric shock is sent through his chains, foiling the ruse. Lawrence later finds a cell phone that cannot make calls, but receives one from Alison, who warns Lawrence that Adam knows more than he is telling. Adam explains that he had been paid by Tapp to trail and photograph Lawrence and shows him a pile of photographs that he found with the hacksaws. He then turns from defensive to offensive, showing Lawrence evidence that he has been cheating on his wife. The two begin arguing, but are distracted when Lawrence notices a picture of Zep in his house. They deduce that Zep has placed them in the bathroom. Just as this realization is made, however, Adam realizes that it is six o'clock, the deadline.

Tobin Bell as John Kramer, the corpse in the bathroom.Allison frees herself from Zep, and a struggle ensues. Gunshots are fired, which attract the attention of Tapp, who distracts Zep long enough for Alison and her daughter to flee. Zep shoots Tapp fatally and races to the sewers, intent on killing Lawrence, who is only aware of the sounds of gunfire and screaming. Flung into desperation, he uses his hacksaw to cut off his foot and shoots Adam with John's revolver. Zep arrives to find Lawrence in tears. Before Zep can kill him, however, Adam springs from the floor, as his wound was in fact nonfatal, and beats Zep to death with a toilet tank cover. Lawrence crawls away to find help, despite Adam's pleas not to leave.

Adam searches Zep's body for a key, but finds another microcassette player. As the series theme, "Hello Zepp", begins to play, Adam learns that Zep was only a pawn in Jigsaw's game who acted under threat of death. He then hears a moan behind him and turns to see John slowly rising to his feet. Adam reaches for Zep's handgun, but John stuns him with another remote-controlled electrical current. As he flicks off the lights, he asks Adam if he is now grateful to have been alive. He then shouts, "Game over!" before slamming the door, sealing Adam in the bathroom as he screams in despair.

My Rating : ***

Genre : Horror/Thriller

Director : James Wan

Cast : Cary Elwes, Leigh Wannel, Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Michael Emerson, Tobin Bell.

Hostel II

Ratings : * Avoidable ** Average *** Good **** Must Watch


Beginning where Hostel ended, Paxton (Jay Hernandez), now in seclusion with his girlfriend Stephanie (Jordan Ladd), disregards her pleas to report his friends' deaths. In the morning, Stephanie discovers Paxton's decapitated body in the kitchen. In Slovakia, a mysterious package is delivered to Sasha (Milan Kňažko). In Italy, art students Beth (Lauren German), Whitney (Bijou Phillips) and Lorna (Heather Matarazzo) are convinced by Axelle (Vera Jordanova) to join her on a spa vacation.

The party travels to a small S lovak village and checks into the local hostel and retires to their rooms, allowing the desk clerk time to upload their passport photos to an online auction website, where American businessman Todd (Richard Burgi) bids on and wins Whitney and Beth, for himself and his best friend Stuart (Roger Bart).

Later that night at the village's "Harvest Festival," as the girls socialize with the locals, Lorna discovers that Beth previously inherited a vast fortune from her mother. As Todd and Stuart observe the girls from across the river, Stuart approaches Beth and the two share a friendly if awkward conversation before separating. An intoxicated Lorna leaves with Roman, a charismatic local, on a boat ride to a secluded shore, where Lorna is kidnapped by Roman and two accomplices. Beth and Whitney leave the party, while Axelle volunteers to wait for Lorna.

The next morning the three girls, assuming Lorna is enjoying Roman's company, travel to the local spa. Meanwhile, a naked Lorna is shackled upside-down in a large room, where a woman (Monika Malacova) enters, named Elizabeth Báthory in reference to the infamous serial killer. She undresses and lies beneath Lorna in a candlelit recess. After ripping into Lorna's body with a scythe and bathing in her blood, she slits Lorna's throat with a sickle. At the spa, Beth awakes to find herself alone and her belongings stolen. As she looks for her friends, she notices two men approaching her, and escapes into the forest, where she is ambushed by the "Bubblegum Gang" before being rescued by Axelle and Sasha. As Beth is taken to Sasha's mansion, she realizes that Sasha and Axelle are responsible for Whitney and Lorna's disappearances and tries to hide, uncovering a room filled with severed heads, including Paxton's, before being kidnapped.

Deep inside the factory, a sobbing Whitney is strapped to a chair in a cell and teased by Todd with a circular saw. Overwhelmed with excitement, Todd accidentally maims her face and in his ensuing panic and revulsion refuses to kill her, prompting the guards to kill him for violating his contract. The guards bandage Whitney and show her photograph to other clients in adjoining cells, offering her at a discount. Stuart, now torturing Beth, accepts the offer and kills Whitney. As he returns to Beth, she tricks him into releasing her and traps him in the chair. After inadvertently activating the alarm, summoning both the security guards and Sasha to the cell, Beth offers to buy her freedom with part of her inheritance. When Sasha explains to her that she must kill somebody to leave, Beth cuts Stuart's genitalia off and tosses it to the guard dogs who eat them, and then she leaves him to bleed to death. Per the standard contract, Beth is given an Elite Hunting tattoo. In the closing sequence, Axelle is lured from the village festival into the woods by the Bubblegum Gang, where Beth surprises and decapitates her, allowing the gang to play soccer with her head.

My Rating : **
Genre : Horror/Thriller
Director : Eli Roth
Cast : Lauren German, Bijou Philips, Heather Matarazzo, Jay Hernandez, Jordan Ladd, Roger Bart, Richard Burgi

Hostel

Ratings : * Avoidable ** Average *** Good **** Must Watch

In Amsterdam, backpackers Paxton (Jay Hernandez), Josh (Derek Richardson) and Icelandic Óli (Eyþór Guðjónsson) meet Alexei (Lubomir Bukovy), a Russian man who tells them about a Slovak hostel filled with American-loving, promiscuous women. The backpackers board a train to Slovakia, where they meet a Dutch businessman (Jan Vlasák) long enough to be unnerved by his bizarre behavior. Upon arriving in the small village, the backpackers check into the local hostel and find themselves sharing a room with Natalya (Barbara Nedeljáková) and Svetlana (Jana Kadeřábková), two attractive, single women who entice the backpackers to a spa and a disco before sleeping with them.

The next morning, Óli is missing. A young Japanese backpacker named Kana (Jennifer Lim) also reports that her friend Yuki (Keiko Seiko) has disappeared. A MMS photo sent from Yuki's phone shows Yuki and Óli beneath a smokestack of an abandoned factory, the word Sayonara written beneath it. Paxton and Josh decide to leave Bratislava with Kana the following day. Later that night, while partying with Natalya and Svetlana, Paxton and Josh succumb to the effects of alcohol. Josh stumbles back to the hostel while Paxton passes out in the disco's storage room. Hours later, Josh wakes up handcuffed to a chair in a dungeon-like room surrounded by power tools and weapons. The Dutch businessman enters in a leather apron and gloves and begins torturing Josh, explaining his unfulfilled dreams of being a surgeon. Despite Josh's pleas for his release, the businessman continues to torture him before finally murdering him.

Across town, Paxton awakens and returns to the hostel to find both Josh and Kana missing. In his room are a different pair of beautiful women inviting him to a spa, eerily similar to Natalya's and Svetlana's offer from before. When the local police chief (Miroslav Táborský) proves unhelpful, Paxton locates Natalya and Svetlana and demands to be taken to his friends. They drive to a factory on the outskirts of the town where inside, Paxton is ambushed by thugs who drag him past cells filled with other backpackers being tortured by various clients. Paxton is taken to his own cell and restrained to a chair, joined minutes later by a German client (Petr Janiš) who as he begins torturing Paxton, inadvertently saws off Paxton's handcuffs along with his index and middle finger before slipping on the blood from Paxton's injury onto the floor. Paxton breaks free, shoots the client with a nearby gun and conceals himself in the client's outfit before escaping to the upper levels of the factory, where outside he can see police officers conspiring with the factory men. Paxton dresses himself in the clothes of the previous client when he discovers a business card for Elite Hunting, now revealed as a secret, worldwide, murder-for-profi t organization. An American businessman (Rick Hoffman) arrives and believing Paxton to be another client, discusses his intended victim and asks Paxton whether to kill her quickly or slowly. Paxton advises administering a quick death, but the American businessman disagrees and decides to resort to torturing, leaving behind a no longer needed firearm before exiting. Paxton steals the firearm and escapes to the courtyard when he hears a woman scream. Unable to ignore it, he returns to the factory and kills the American, now in the middle of burning Kana's face with a blowtorch.

Paxton and Kana flee the factory in a stolen car and drive to the railway station, now filled with waiting policemen and factory guards. Kana, who notices the disfigured reflection of her missing eye, is unable to live with her hideous scars and throws herself into the path of an incoming train, distracting the guards and allowing Paxton to escape aboard another train. Once aboard, Paxton hears the familiar voice of Josh's torturer, the Dutch businessman. As the train stops in Vienna, Austria, Paxton follows him to a public restroom and throws the Elite Hunting's card under his stall. When the Dutch businessman reaches down to pick it up, Paxton grabs some of his fingers from the outside and cuts them off. He then breaks in the stall and nearly drowns the Dutch businessman in the toilet bowl before slitting his throat, killing him. Paxton then leaves to board another train out of Austria.

My Rating : **

Genre : Horror/Thriller

Director : Eli Roth

Cast : Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson

Taare Zameen Par

Ratings : * Avoidable ** Average *** Good **** Must Watch

Ishaan Awasthi, an eight-year old dyslexic child has difficulties in reading, and spelling. His world is filled with wonders that no one else seems to appreciate; colours, fish, dogs and kites are just not important in the world of adults, who are much more interested in things like homework, marks and neatness. And Ishaan just cannot seem to get anything right in class. For this, he gets punished time and again.

In contrast to this, Ishaan's elder brother, Yohaan is always at the top, be it in sports or studies. However, Yohaan is supportive of his brother. When Ishaan's academic report sinks to a level too low for his parents (specifically his father) to bear, he is packed off to a boarding school to be 'disciplined'. Things start turning out no different at his new school though, and Ishaan has to contend with the added trauma of separation from his family.

One day a new temporary art teacher Ram Shankar Nikumbh(Aamir Khan) joins Ishan's boarding school. Nikumbh, with his characteristic teaching style that is markedly different that his strict predecessor, soon becomes popular among the students. Nikumbh soon notices that Ishaan is unhappy, and a non-contributor to activities in the class despite the atmosphere in the class that actively seeks contribution from the students. He sets out to discover why.

Nikumbh approaches his parents and tries to convince them about Ishaan's condition. He tries to underscore that Ishaan is a perfectly normal child who needs only a helping hand from teachers and some patience to improve his grades. To support this argument, Nikumbh highlights Ishaan's artistic ability as demonstrated by his many paintings and creative works-of-art. Ishaan's father remains skeptical and continues to brood over how Ishaan might not do well in the outside world where earning money is considered important for faring well in life, and not "useless" artistic skills. Undaunted, Nikumbh pleads to the school principal for some additional time and effort from school staff for boosting Ishaan's development. The principal finally gives in with a condition that these efforts must bear fruit by the end of the semester, otherwise he will have no choice but to expel Ishaan.

With the Principal's assent thus secured, Nikumbh takes it upon himself to develop and improve Ishaan's reading and writing abilities. With Nikumbh's unique style of teaching, Ishaan soon develops interest in language and mathematical skills to the point of mastering these skills. To jumpstart an interest in painting and art in general, Nikumbh organizes an art fair for staff and students alike. Ishaan, with his strikingly creative style is declared the winner, while his teacher, Nikumbh (who paints Ishaan's portrait) is declared the runner up.
At the end of the year, when Ishaan's parents meet the teachers, they are speechless to see the change in Ishaan. Ishaan has an above average grades in all of the subjects and has a commendable grade in painting. Ishaan's father is in tears upon seeing this change, and realizes his mistake. Before leaving for the holidays, Ishaan runs to hug his teacher who tosses him in the air.

My Rating : ****
Genre : Drama
Director : Aamir Khan
Cast : Aamir Khan, Darsheel Safary, Tisca Chopra