Anurag Basu began his career with vishesh films. Movies like saaya and murder did not help him receive recognition. However 'Life in a metro' made audiences recognise his talent. Initially one does not find a retold theme to be very exciting. But what worked for this movie was the star cast. It could not have been better. With a production house company like UTV motion pictures, one cannot go wrong in the casting department. All the actors managed to liven up a not so great plot. It has all been witnessed in the past with movies like 'The apartment' and shahruck khan's movie 'Yes Boss'. In comparison to 'yes boss' this movie fells more genuine and realistic. 'For love or money' is another movie that came to mind while watching this. One symphatises with the characters and can manage to relate to them. This movie gave Anurag Basu to provide to us a authentic and fresh representation of adults in the city of Mumbai. These people range from a housewife to a husband and to a secretary. These characters seem believable and have a indirect connection to one another. The core of the movie is based on the lives of a couple played by Shilpa Shetty and K K Menon. Every other character stems though them. They are going through troubled times in their marriage. Misunderstandings and a certain lack of attention is prevalent between them. Shilpa finds a love friendship with theatre actor Shiny Ahuja. KK is embarking in a extra marital relationship with his secretary (Kangana Ranauat), who is in her usual form. She however is unaware that a fellow employee (Sharman Joshi) secretly admires her. As well as this Sharman also offers the use of his rented apartment to his boss KK in favour for possible future promotions. As well this the movie also has a funny subplot involving Irfan Khan and Konkana Sen Sharma who are looking for the perfect life partner. Coincidently the two of them meet through a matrimonial website. Initially they don't approve of each other however eventually attraction occurs. The side plot regarding Dharmendra served not purpose to the movie. It only added a couple of extra minutes to the running time of the movie. Basu's direction makes many scenes interesting to watch. Many routines moments are enhanced by good camera angles. The performances are indeed the highlight. The relationships are portrayed in a mature manner and does not seem artificial. The scenery of Mumbai is well captured amongst the lives of the characters. Each subplot is given equal attention and the balance is preserved. From the first minute the movie maintains a moderate pace and the length of the movie is perfect. Irfan Khan is a scene stealer and supports the movie with good light hearted moments. This was his first role that was comedy orientated and it turned his career in a different direction. It was pleasant to see Shilpa Shetty after a long time too.

Anurag Basu has mastered the art of copying Hollywood movies. He flicks popular Hollywood or world movies/themes and presents them in an Indian context. So in my opinion he is just a smart businessman and not an auteur as he is made out to be. The mainstream media in India is for sale and it's possible to re-paint a cat and call it a Lion. And hence he has a good reputation going for him. Unfortunately due to this hype, people are comparing Anurag Basu to his namesake - Anurag Kashyap - who plays many leagues above him. Other users who like his movies seem to comment based on the entertainment value (some of which should be credited to Mr.Basu as it takes some smarts to be keep his output entertaining) or are totally unaware of the original.I would to distinguish *copying* from *inspiration*. For example, "Dev D" by Anurag Kashyap is inspired by the Novel/movie "Devdas", but it's a thoroughly original take on it. However "Murder" by Basu is almost a scene by scene copy of "Unfailthful" - till the twist-in-the-end gimmick : pretty much like how so many b-movie makers take a hit movie, add a twist but they are pretty much unoriginal. At least most B-movies don't pretend to be original.Similarly, "Life in a metro" is inspired by the Hollywood trend of parallel, nearly disjoint story lines (Magnolia, Playing by Heart (1998) among many others). Here most characters are one dimensional (but that's just my opinion) and unconvincing in their actions. There is no catharsis that a movie of this nature would aim to inflict on the user. In fact at times it seems to go the Madhur Bhandarkar populist way - where by showing something big (a metropolitan city) in a negative light, he tries to win the masses. Yup, so while writing this comment, I found a peer for Anurag Basu - Madhu Bhandarkar. They represent the so called new breed of Bollywood cinema who claim that they'll re-invent the industry. All the will succeed is in re-inventing some beaten story lines. (Okay, Madhur might be slightly more original than Basu but he is uninspiring and populist).

Metro As the name suggets the movie is about the life of peoples in a Metro.There is one guy (Sharman Joshi) who has got his father's dream to fulfil. He hands over his room keys to anyone in his office who is in a important post and can decide on his career. There is a girl (Kangana Ranaut) who sleeps with her married boss with the hope that her boss will marry her. There is a plain jane (Konkana) who is scared of marriage because she feels that something might go wrong in marriage. There is this person (Kay Kay) who is married to Shilpa is not very happy with his marriage and sleeps with Kangana. Shilpa who is married and has kids is attracted to Shiny Ahuja. Shiny Ahuja is an unemployed youth into plays waiting for his Dubai job to materialize. Irfan Khan who met Konkana for marriage is rejected by Konkana because he was looking at the wrong places. There is Nafisa who is a dancer once upon a time in love with Dharmendra who is back in her life. Dharmendra as the lover of Nafisa is back to India and Nafisa after realizing the mistake done by him.The story belongs to all these peoples each of whom has got a story to tell and each story is linked with someone else's. Some nice songs, nice picturization. Nice direction, acting by all lead stars.

Firstly heartiest congratulations to Anurag & his team for providing us a different recipe. A tight screenplay revolving around 8-9 characters.It is well mixed,minced & garnished with some sufi band. Life of metro citizens revolves around wealth,women & wretched ambitions . They tend to get wild running after these things This has been rightly depicted by the movie. Traditional values like fidelity & virginity donot come in the way of these guys when they wish to fulfill these 3Ws. One novel highlight of this movie was sizzling Nafisa ali .Though i am in my early 30s i found her the best out of all the ladies in the film. Did anyone feel the same?