Rowdy Rathore Review

A small time thief (Akshay Kumar) wants to mend his ways for the love of his life (Sonakshi Sinha). But he ends up taking care of a young girl who thinks he is her father. Where does this lead them? Read the review of Rowdy Rathore for more.

Rowdy Rathore Movie Review

Rating: 3/5 stars (Three stars)

Star cast: Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha, Nassar and others.

What’s Good: The comic scenes; the action sequences; Akshay Kumar’s performance; the music.

What’s Bad: The contrived screenplay; a few boring portions of the drama.

Verdict: Rowdy Rathore entertains in parts.

Watch or Not?: Watch it for Akshay Kumar’s performance and the comedy.

User rating:

417 Votes

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rowdy Rathore is the remake of the Telugu film Vikramarkudu.

Shiva (Akshay Kumar), a small-time thief in Mumbai, falls in love with Priya (Sonakshi Sinha), a girl from Patna, who is in Mumbai to attend a marriage. Shiva makes his way into Priya’s heart and she also starts loving him. Shiva tells her the truth about him being a thief and resolves to give up crime forever.

But before that, he decides to swindle one last person for a large sum of money. This leads Shiva to Chinki, a young girl, who thinks that Shiva is her father. Flummoxed by what is happening, but forced to keep Chinki with her [as a police officer (Yashpal Sharma) keeps his eye on him], Shiva slowly starts loving the innocent child. Although he tries keeping Chinki away from Priya’s eyes, the latter finds out about Chinki. Angry and hurt, Priya leaves for Patna.

Shiva is heartbroken. Soon, unknown goons attack him, taking him to be Vikram Rathore, Chinki’s real father. While many unknown persons help Shiva run to safety with Chinki in his arms, he is soon surrounded by the goons. It is then that Vikram Rathore (Akshay Kumar) makes an appearance and saves the day. But he is grievously injured in the fight.

What happens next? Who is Vikram Rathore? Does he survive? Why are the goons attacking Vikram and Chinki? What does Shiva do next? Is he able to win back Priya’s love? The rest of the drama and the climax answer these questions.

Akshay Kumar and Sonakshi Sinha (Rowdy Rathore Movie Stills)

Rowdy Rathore Review: Script Analysis

The screenplay, based on the Telugu hit, is commonplace but entertaining in parts. Especially, the comedy scenes work well with the audiences. The initial portion of the drama, when Shiva’s character is being introduced, is lovely. Ditto for the pre-climax and the climax. The screenplay of the latter half is such that there is ample scope for action, which has been choreographed very well.

However, the portion, where the fact that Shiva and Vikram Rathore are look-alikes is revealed to the viewer, is not convincing at all. The writer provides no explanation behind Shiva and Vikram Rathore looking exactly the same. Moreover, the revelation is not even shocking to the audience as there already is a clue that Shiva has a look-alike in Chinki’s father. If this aspect had been dealt with more deftly, the scene where Vikram Rathore rescues Shiva and Chinki from the goons might have been much more explosive. Logic and common sense has been given a short shrift at many places in the drama but this won’t necessarily prove to be an obstacle for the layperson to enjoy it. The more discerning audiences might ask several questions, which, mostly, will remain unanswered.

The latter half, when all the action moves to a fictitious village in Bihar, is fast-paced. Emotions abound the script, but at most times, they fail to touch the heart. Dialogues, penned by Shiraz Ahmed, are outstanding at places and alright at others. All in all, the script works because of the action and the comedy.

Rowdy Rathore Review: Star Performances

Akshay Kumar is in his element as the conman Shiva. He makes you laugh with his comic timing and eccentric mannerisms. As Vikram Rathore, he is endearing beyond doubt, but he seems to be trying too hard to play the honest cop at times. Overall, he does very well in the double role. Sonakshi Sinha, as Priya, is alright and does what is required of her. Nassar is villainous to a fault. His dubbing could have been better and clearer. Paresh Ganatra is a delight in the role of Shiva’s friend. Yashpal Sharma, as a police inspector, is fine. The girl playing Chinki is cute. The actor playing Titla is far from scary. Mushtaq Khan, Anant Jog and others offer good support. Kareena Kapoor adds glam value in a cameo. Prabhu Devaa and Darshan Jariwala are alright in their guest appearances.

Rowdy Rathore Review: Direction & Technical Aspects

Prabhu Devaa’s direction is good as he manages to make narrative fast-paced and interesting for the most part. Sajid-Wajid’s music is super-hit, although, the film could have done without a couple of songs. Lyrics, penned by Sameer, Faiz Anwar, Shiraz Ahmed and Sajid, are nice. Background music, by Sandeep Chowta, adds to the drama. Saroj Khan, Prabhu Devaa and Bosco Martis’ song picturisations are wonderful. Wasiq Khan’s sets are realistic. Cinematography, by Santosh Thundiyil, is very good. The action is well-done. Visual effects are near-perfect. Sanjay Sankla’s editing is sharp.

Rowdy Rathore Review: The Last Word

On the whole, Rowdy Rathore is entertaining in parts. You’ll enjoy it if you do not have too many expectations. Watch out for the return of Akshay Kumar to some serious comedy and action!

Rowdy Rathore Trailer

Rowdy Rathore releases on 1 June 2012.

Things to Know Before you Download Windows 8

Microsoft today unveiled the “release preview” version of Windows 8 which mostly indicates that the new Windows operating system is feature-complete. Windows 8 Release Preview is available as a free download and it is very likely that your existing system specs are good enough to run Windows 8.

The System Requirements for Windows 8

According to this Windows 8 FAQ, any machine equipped with 1 GB of RAM, 16 GB of hard disk space and 1 GHz processor should be able to handle Windows 8. The minimum RAM requirements are 2 GB in case you would like to install the 64-bit version of Windows 8.

Should you download Windows 8 Setup or the ISO Image?

As you may have noticed on the Windows 8 download page, the installation of Windows 8 can be done in two ways.

1. You can either take the easiest route and download the Windows 8 Setup program – that’s also the default option.
2. Alternatively, you can download ISO Images of Windows 8.

If you are planning to install Windows 8 on your existing computer, either on a different partition (dual-boot) or just want to upgrade from an older version of Windows to Windows 8, the default Setup program is a good choice.

Please note that that your installed software programs will only be preserved if you are upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8. If your planning to install Windows 8 on top of Windows XP or Vista, only the files will be preserved but not the various software programs that you may have on the disk.

The Windows 8 ISO image may be more handy in other situations like:

1. Your computer has an x64 processor but is currently running the 32-bit version of Windows. If you want to install the 64-bit version of Windows 8, download the 64-bit ISO.
2. You want to install Windows 8 on your Mac (iMac or Macbook) using Boot Camp software.
3. You want to install Windows 8 on multiple computers. In that case, you can download the ISO once, create a bootable DVD and boot the other systems using this newly created Windows 8 disk.
4. You plan to run Windows 8 as a Virtual Machine inside your existing copy of Windows.
5. You are running Windows XP.

The universal product key for Windows 8 is TK8TP-9JN6P-7X7WW-RFFTV-B7QPF.

Will my software programs run inside Windows 8?

Before grabbing the ISO image of Windows 8, quickly run this setup utility and it will show a list of all software programs and hardware drivers on your system that are compatible with Windows 8. Alternatively, you can visit this page to see a list of all known software and hardware devices that are found to be working with Windows 8.

How should I go about installing Windows 8?

You can have Windows 8 on your computer in three ways – you can install Windows 8 side-by-side (also known as dual-boot), as a virtual machine (so that it runs inside your existing Windows just like any other software) or you can have Windows 8 as your primary OS (there’s no going back from here).

If you just want to try out Windows 8  but without modifying any of your existing set-up, the safest bet is to use a Virtual Machine. If you have a vacant disk partition or don’t mind creating one (it’s easy), go for the dual-boot option. Else, if you have a spare computer, you can consider upgrading to Windows 8 overwriting the previous installation of Windows.

Also note that if you are upgrading from Windows 8 Consumer Preview to the new Windows 8 Release Preview, none of your installed programs, files and account settings will be preserved though everything would be moved to the windows.old folder.

Remote Control your Android Phone using SMS

How do you locate your mobile phone if the ringer is off? Maybe you switched the phone to vibrate mode while you were in a meeting and the device is nowhere to be found.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could borrow your colleague’s phone and use it to turn on the ringer of your missing phone?

Meet Agastya, a new Android app that lets you “remotely” perform various tasks on your phone from any other phone via simple SMS commands. The other phone, that is sending the commands, need not be running Android – even the basic Nokia 1100 would do just fine – and either phones don’t require GPS or data plans (Internet).

The workflow is easy. You send an SMS command from a friend’s phone to your own phone in a given format and the app reacts accordingly. For instance, a command like “ringer” would turn on the ringer while “silent” would put the phone to silent mode.

The app can also help you retrieve your missed calls list or your incoming text messages via, you got it right, SMS. This feature should be handy for people who own multiple phones – you can easily check the call and SMS logs of your secondary phone from the one that’s in your pocket.

Here’s a complete list of SMS commands that you can try on your Android phone:

• SILENT – Turn off the phone’s ringer
• RINGER – Turn on the ringer
• IMEI – Get the IMEI number* of your phone
• LAST MESSAGES – Retrieve the last 5 text messages received on your phone
• LAST CALLS – Know the last 5 missed/received/dialed numbers
• <CONTACT> – Fetch the contact number of a person from the address book.

[*] The IMEI number can help you block a misplaced (or stolen) phone from accessing mobile networks (type *#06# to know the IMEI of your existing phone).

Agastay isn’t the first app that offers such features. The more popular Where’s My Droid app can not only turn on the ringer of your phone remotely but will also send you the phone’s current GPS location by SMS. There’s overlap but these apps are more inclined towards locating your lost phone while Agastay is like a command console – you can toggle between phone states or even fetch details of a contact remotely from the phone’s address book. The IMEI feature is also handy for blacklisting your misplaced phone.

In my tests, Agastya did work as advertised and the SMS based commands executed almost instantly though the app did crash in one instance. The company says that Agastay works on Android 2.2 and above.

On a related note, if you aren’t allowed to carry cell phones in your office, you should grab the SMS to Gmail app as it will auto-forward all your incoming text messages and missed calls list to your work email address.

Access Files on your Computer from Anywhere

The problem: You have documents, photos, music and other important files on the home computer. How can you “remotely access” these files from your office computer or, when you are travelling, from your mobile phone?

The solution: The simplest solution would be that you copy all your data from the home computer on to a portable hard drive and carry it around but this is obviously a bit cumbersome approach as it requires you to manually sync the home computer and your portable disk.

Access Files on your Computer over the Internet

There are couple of ways by which you can retrieve files stored on your home computer from anywhere else using a regular Internet connection.

Option 1: Using Online Backup

You can use an online backup service like SugarSync, Carbonite, SkyDrive or even Dropbox– they provide desktop utilities that will automatically upload files on your home computer to the Internet and you can then access these files through the web browser of any other Internet connected computer.

The upside is that your files will always be available to you even if the home computer is not running. SugarSync and Carbonite have a mobile optimized website so you can access files from any mobile phone as well.

The downside is that if you are using any of these services for the first time, you’ll to wait until they upload all your data to the cloud and this process may take long if you have too many files on the home computer.

Option 2: Using Desktop Sharing Software

There are free desktop sharing software like TeamViewer and UltraVNC that also let you remotely access your computer files from anywhere else. LogMeIn Pro and CrossLoop Home are some other good options for transferring files from a remote computer but these are paid services.

If all your computers are running Windows, you can use the built-in remote desktop connection feature of Windows (available in XP and later) to access your home computer from another Window computer over the Internet.

With Desktop Sharing software, you’ll always have access to all your files but one big limitation is that it requires that the remote computer stays on. Also, none of these options will help you access files on a mobile phone except LogMeIn which has an iPhone app.

Option 3: Access Files Directly through the Browser

Online backup services, discussed above, will copy files to their own servers before you can access them for anywhere else. Screen sharing services are often slow and they won’t work on most mobile devices. Let’s now explore another set of services that allow you download files directly from the home computer.

Copernic, like Google Desktop, is a popular desktop search software that you may use to find emails, documents and other files on your Windows computer. They have a paid component called myCopernic on the Go that lets you remotely search for content stored on the home or office computer. You can preview the search results and then download them to your mobile phone or remote PC.

With Opera Unite, you can easily turn your computer into a web server and instantly access files and folders on that computer from any other web browser (including that of mobile phones). Opera Unite is a standard web server and therefore you’ll be downloading files directly from the computer – they’re not uploaded anywhere else.

Another option is GBridge that lets you setup a virtual private network using your existing Google Account. Companies use VPNs to let employees access corporate data over a public network (Internet) and with GBridge, even home users can build their own VPNs to access remote files more securely.

Windows Live Sync at sync.live.com is another great choice for remotely accessing files over the Internet. Just install the Live Sync client on your computer and you can then access the entire hard drive of that computer simply through the Windows Live Sync website.

Live Sync is available for both Mac and Windows. The new version of Live Sync is even better and it has integrated online storage (Live Mesh) so you’ll be able to access your important file even if the remote computer is off.

Finally, you may also want to check out HomePipe – this is an extremely easy and free service that lets you access your home files and media from any other computer or mobile phone. Install the HomePipe Agent and all files on that computer will instantly become available through the web. They also have apps for iPhone and Android phones.

A Simple Way to Block Adult Sites from Kids

If your tech-savvy kids are spending a fair amount of their computer time surfing the Internet, there’s a chance that they may sometimes accidentally stumble upon adult sites that you would definitely not like them to see.

Keep your Kids from Seeing Adult Content on the Web

It is nearly impossible for any parent to manually monitor their child’s entire computer session and what you therefore need is a solution that works in the background even while you aren’t around to watch over them.

There are couple of options. For instance, YouTube has a safety mode to block videos that aren’t appropriate for children. Then you have OpenDNS that you can configure with your router or computer to block an entire category of websites that contain violent or adult content.

There are some site blocking programs (NetNanny for example) that monitor your kid’s activity on the computer and will automatically restrict them from visiting sites that aren’t meant for them. Then you have the slightly-geeky 127.0.0.1 trick to that helps you block any of the known websites on your computer.

A More Straightforward Solution to Block Sites

If you are looking for a more simple solution to keep all adult sites off your computers, switch to FamilyShield as described in the following video:

FamilyShield is part of the previously described OpenDNS service but the advantage here is that you don’t have to do any tweaking to block adult content – just change your DNS server entries (these are different from the original OpenDNS values) and the web filters are immediately activated.

If you chose to setup FamilyShield on your router, sites that contain adult content will automatically get blocked on all your computers, gaming consoles and even mobile phones that are part of your home network. It even blocks proxy sites that are commonly used bypass the web filters.

It can’t get easier than this and there’s no software to install though your kids are likely to encounter ads when a site they’re trying to visit gets blocked – that’s the business model of OpenDNS.

A Simple Way to Block Adult Sites from Kids

If your tech-savvy kids are spending a fair amount of their computer time surfing the Internet, there’s a chance that they may sometimes accidentally stumble upon adult sites that you would definitely not like them to see.

Keep your Kids from Seeing Adult Content on the Web

It is nearly impossible for any parent to manually monitor their child’s entire computer session and what you therefore need is a solution that works in the background even while you aren’t around to watch over them.

There are couple of options. For instance, YouTube has a safety mode to block videos that aren’t appropriate for children. Then you have OpenDNS that you can configure with your router or computer to block an entire category of websites that contain violent or adult content.

There are some site blocking programs (NetNanny for example) that monitor your kid’s activity on the computer and will automatically restrict them from visiting sites that aren’t meant for them. Then you have the slightly-geeky 127.0.0.1 trick to that helps you block any of the known websites on your computer.

A More Straightforward Solution to Block Sites

If you are looking for a more simple solution to keep all adult sites off your computers, switch to FamilyShield as described in the following video:

FamilyShield is part of the previously described OpenDNS service but the advantage here is that you don’t have to do any tweaking to block adult content – just change your DNS server entries (these are different from the original OpenDNS values) and the web filters are immediately activated.

If you chose to setup FamilyShield on your router, sites that contain adult content will automatically get blocked on all your computers, gaming consoles and even mobile phones that are part of your home network. It even blocks proxy sites that are commonly used bypass the web filters.

It can’t get easier than this and there’s no software to install though your kids are likely to encounter ads when a site they’re trying to visit gets blocked – that’s the business model of OpenDNS.

Improve your YouTube Experience on Google Chrome

Do you spend more than a few minutes watching videos on YouTube? Here are some essential extensions for Google Chrome that will add new and missing features to the YouTube website thus improving your overall YouTube experience.

The Best YouTube Extensions for Google Chrome

1. Looper – This add a new “Loop” button near the YouTube video player and once clicked, the current video will play in an infinite loop until you hit stop. This comes handy if you are enjoying a music video on YouTube that you want to watch (or listen) over and over again.

2. Toggle Comments – Viewer comments on YouTube videos are annoying, they rarely add any value and are often filled with profanity. The Toggle Comments add-on will automatically hides the comments from all YouTube video pages (default behavior) but you can always press the “Comments” switch to bring them back.

3. Turn off the lights – This lets you watch YouTube videos in a distraction free environment. While you are on a YouTube video page, click the bulb icon in the Chrome address bar and everything but the video player will fade to dark – much like the cinema screen. You can also use the shortcut key Ctrl + Shift + L to toggle between regular view and dimmed background view.

4. YouTube Feed – If you have subscribed to multiple channels on YouTube and would like to be notified as soon as new videos become available in your subscriptions list, the YouTube Feed extension is for you.

YouTube Feeds adds a little button to your Chrome extensions bar and offers almost instant notifications whenever new videos are uploaded or liked by the channel owners that you are subscribed to.

5. YouTube Thumbs – YouTube generates three thumbnail images for all videos and sometimes these still frames can give you a good idea of what the video is all about.

With the YouTube Thumbs extension installed, you can hover your mouse over any video thumbnail on the YouTube website and it will auto-play the three thumbnails in a loop much like an animated GIF.

6. YouTube PIP – You are watching a video on YouTube but would simultaneously like to work on other tabs as well. Earlier I would “detach” the browser tab that contained the YouTube video and then used Always on Top to ensure that the video was always in the foreground but there’s a better way – YouTube Picture-in-Picture.

With YouTube PIP, the video detaches itself from the Chrome browser, docks to the corner of your desktop and always stays on top without requiring any additional programs. Thus you can work on other things while the video plays in the foreground.

6. YouTube Downloader – I am not sure how this extension made it to the official Google Chrome store but if you ever wish to download any YouTube video as an MP4 video or as an MP3 audio file, this will help you do that in one click.

7. YouTube Ratings – If I were to install just one YouTube extension in Chrome, it would most definitely be YouTube Ratings.

This useful extension adds a color-code ratings bar next to every video thumbnail that displays the percentage of likes (green) and dislikes (red) of the corresponding video. Thus you can easily figure out whether a video is worth watching or not without having to open the video page.

Also see: The Most Disliked YouTube Videos

All-in-One Chrome Extensions for YouTube

The YouTube extensions listed above are meant to perform exactly one task but there are several add-ons that can do even more.

I have tried three extensions in this category – Magic Actions, YouTube Options and Fancy Tube – they are extremely powerful and let you customize most parts of YouTube including the default playback quality, the size of the video player, they can block ads (including pre-rolls), they offer cinematic mode and more.

The extensions are versatile though the choices they offer can easily intimidate new users.