99 is targeted at youth and multiplex audience inspired by real life events of match fixing that happened in year 1999 that took cricket world by storm. The movie has the right script, good actors and the humor at right place, which is able to take the movie ahead especially with unconventional music and Cricket being involved. The story is about two small time goons – Sachin (Kunal Khemu) & Zaramud (Cyrus Broacha) who work for AGM (Mahesh Manjrekar), a known name in bookie world as they have to clear their long owed debt to him. The story gets candid as both Sachin and Zaramud are send to Delhi from Mumbai to bring Agm's money from Rahul (Boman Irani) who is obsessed with betting and is big time looser like Sachin & Zaramud. The trio is known to struck at 99, a step before they could make it big–time. The story moves forward as they get to know about JC (Vinod khanna), a match-fixer and the trio gets befriended seeing each others financial and sympathetic condition and agree to take a life changing bet that would clear off all their debts and make their dreams true.MY RATING: 7/10

Magical and EuphoricThe latest comedy by Krishna D.K and Raj Nidimoru undoubtedly is a hit. The last time I’d watched a bollywood flick was either Fanna or Doom 2; I don’t quite recall. The following is a summary of my observation on 99The cast: More than anything else I loved the cast because of the authenticity and naturalism they brought into the movie i.e. the protagonist Kunal Khemu having the magical chemistry with Soha. On the other hand, supporting actor Syrus Broacha whom I had the chance to seeing him again after six or seven years when he hosted Love Line and Bakra on MTV. Moreover, bearing in mind that Kunal being this athletic heartthrob, Cyrus on the other hand is playing the role of a pudgy and pantomime who has been lubricated on the body making him seem something about 100 kg.The Dialogue: Next I thought the dialogue was superb: Boman Irani habitually a betting freak who gets home late at nigh and begs his wife to let him in. there’s a scene when he buys his wife a birthday present that I found both hilarious and vulpine. In parts, the inner psychological annoyance the characters have specially that of Boman’s reminds me of the similarity of disturbance the characters of Forest Whitaker’s The Air I Breathe and Tom Cruise’s Magnolia get to fight with. In my opinion, all of them deliver one single theme in a way or another.The humor: When you read about this picture on IMDb, the genre obviously is comedy. Although I think it’s tough to put a label on it because there’s crime, romance, thriller etc involved in it. There’s a task assigned for Kunal and Syrus to travel to Delhi. When they get the capital city on the way airport to hotel, all of a sudden Cyrus clamors over the cab driver “You son of a b**ch! You crossed this very circle 5 minutes ago why do you keep shuffling around the town? Why don’t we arrive in the god dame hotel? Do you think you can fleece us? "Sir mind your language. There are many similar circles in Delhi." replies taxi driverIn a word or two, 99 is very thick with ideas. Furthermore, it has a lot more to deliver e.g. topnotch music and direction and the rest of the cast: Mahesh Manjreker and Vinod Khanna who have performed their role astonishingly well. The ending is triumphant, magical and euphoric.I would rate this one 8.5/10

I was looking forward to watching this movie despite the fact that it wasn't even promoted due to the on going dispute and not knowing what this really was about. However, it is one of the better ones to be released this year but I wouldn't say that it was one of the best. A compulsive gambler borrows money from a gang but then four men are sent after him.Starring Kunal Khemu, Soha Ali Khan, Boman Irani, Simone Singh, Vinod Khanna, Mahesh ManjrekarAmit Mistry, this is directed by Krishna D.K and Raj Nidomoru.I was not disappointed with Boman Irani at all as he is his usual – good and is convincing as a gambler as are Amit Mistry, Mahesh Manjrekar and Kunal Khemu. But I was rather disappointed with Vinod Khanna and with Soha Ali Khan and felt that they weren't really in to it and that their characters could have been more meaningful and therefore have a lot more exposure of them in them film but it was not done and felt that their talent was wasted. Also, I felt that having such talented actors such as Boman Irani and Vinod Khanna in few scenes together, the directors could have made use of their talents and make their scenes a lot more explosive and then adding Soha Ali Khan, who has shown her talent in "Rang De Basanti" and "Khoya Khoya Chand,"it would have been more exciting to watch them along with Mahesh Manjrekar, who is also talented, Set against the background of real incident, the directors could have made use of that in a stronger manner as well and I felt that this would have made the film a bit more powerful and enjoyable instead of it being dragged in certain areas of the story, which though funny at times. But really the jokes could have been made more effective then they were.However, it is not a complete dull movie as it does have some good points as well and it does make it, just about watchable.

Right from the word go, 99 seems to be a bit 'different' !! Even the normally humdrum disclaimers that you see in the beginning of a movie ("Any resemblance to real people or events is a coincidence .. blah blah") sings a different tune for this movie – you will understand when you see it. And on hindsight, it was a fair warning. Coz nothing else about the movie – the unknown director pair of Krishna D.K. and Raj Nidimoru, the boring lead pair of Kunal Khemu (who ?) and Cryus Broacha, the cute but hardly a top-slot-actress Soha Ali Khan – nothing prepares you for the absolute blast this movie is !! Simply put – it ROCKED ! (BTW, doesn't Nidimoru sound a little Japanese ?)The movie starts in 1999, with two small-time crooks Sachin (Kunal Khemu) and Zaramud (Cyrus Broacha), on the run from the police. They hotwire a car and try to escape, only to lose control of the vehicle and smash it into a truck, then a lamppost and all sorts of other things – completely wrecking it. And to their luck, the car belongs to local bhai AGM (Sanjay Manjrekar) – to pay off for the car, they start working for him. AGM is bigtime into satta and has many outstanding debts to him. He dispatches our lead duo to Delhi to extort money from a non-paying gambling junkie Rahul (Boman Irani). All this is only the first 10 minutes of the movie.The movie is named so because it signifies just one short of a century – and all the characters in our keep missing their mark in life, just by a little bit. 99 is full of comic twists and turns – AND cricket jokes !! You could probably classify this as a comic heist/gangster story I suppose, but it wouldn't be doing this movie complete justice. The closest to this movie is probably last year's Abhay-Deol-starrer Oye Lucky Lucky Oye. Intelligent humour and lot of fun being poked at the city of Delhi itself – there are lot of similarities in the two movies. But story lines are very different.Performance was standout across the board – Kunal Khemu, Boman Irani, Cyrus Broacha, Mahesh Manjrekar, Amit Mistry (Kuber), Vinod Khanna – and everybody else. Soha Ali Khan & Simone Singh didn't have much to do, but Soha looked rather cute – and both do their parts very satisfactorily. Mahesh Manjrekar continues to shine in comic roles – though I think his character would have better been named ATM instead of AGM. Boman was good as usual and Amit Mistry as Kuber was a hoot, to say nothing of Dimpy !! But the star was Kunal Khemu – the guy CAN act !! Not that I am complaining about this movie, but he should be getting better roles ! And Cyrus Broacha was a surprise too – he wasn't as over the top as I imagined he would be.Being released in the middle of the multiplex-producers dispute will probably help this movie, as compared to being released in a normal schedule, competing with 5 other movies in a week. So yes, definitely go for 99 - it's a little gem of movie that you shouldn't miss.I regularly write about movies at http://bombaycinephile.blogspot.com