Outdated and boring., 13 November 2012
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Let's get one thing out of the way - it's sad that Yash Chopra died. I've never really been a fan of any of the movies he's directed, but his company Yash Raj Films has produced some good movies.
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With that out, is this movie worth the hollow hype ? The trailers and music both seemed really lackluster and uninspired. Is the movie any better ? The answer is, sadly, No. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a good, fresh romantic movie. But this just isn't it. Let's analyze some shortcomings, because, as far as freshness and excitement goes, this movie just doesn't have anything.
1. It's super clichéd. This brand of cinema might have worked in the 90s or early 2000s, but the question is whether today's viewer, the post Gangs of Wasseypur, Paan singh tomar, or even student of the year viewer wants to see his actors mouthing clichéd "Don't! Don't!"s or Fancy mouthed prayers to Jesus, or lame "Un Dos Tres, Teri ma Ki maria" attempts at humour, or broken English like "constipation" instead of "conversation". The humour is not even pedestrian, it's something lifted off a 90s movie, not funny at all.
2. Bad acting. Very few actors can boast of a rare feat SRK has achieved : his acting skills pretty much remain the same after close to 30 years in the industry - unidentifiable and strange. (Preity Zinta is a close second - hers have gone from bad to pathetic). Katrina kaif seems shell shocked when sadness is required, and the scene when she meets neetu singh is a scene where both pay homage to the damages of excessive botox usage. Neetu kapoor seems to try her best to shed a single tear, but botox wins. And Katrina Kaif seems scared and shell shocked, thinking - "Is this what's going to happen to me ?".
I finally confirmed a hunch about Anushka sharma - she is, in fact anorexic, or at least bulimic. Watch her in her first few frames in the movie and there will not be a shred of doubt in your mind. Forget sexy, her thin, skin-and-bones frame looks ill. She's in desperate need of some help before she does damage to herself. Her acting is exactly the same as her other films, strange. She hams her way through eerie expressions and pretentious dialogue, aided throughout by an unrealistic character (aren't all of them ?) found only in the heads of old men, probably compensating for their own dull, boring lives with zingy, zany firebrand muses.
3. The music is surprisingly dull and boring : Really now, what's up with Rahman ? It seems his only good songs of late are sufi ones or devotional ones to allah/some other prophet. The 'Challa' song is sung badly by Rabbi Shergill, and he even hits a couple notes 'besura' (out of tune in Hindi ), which is surprising ! The rest of the songs are really, really snooze-worthy. 'Chali Re' has some 'ok' tunes, but is overly pretentious and the inane hamming by Anushka sharma jumping about like a kid who's eaten a whole bag of candy isn't really a turn on, hasn't been since 1995 !? With the influx of good musicians like Amit Trivedi and Sneha Khanwalkar, Rahman better produce something good, or stop producing. It's been long enough and he's got lots of chances since he produced a memorable record. He even messed up a huge huge opportunity to produce a musical gem, in rock-star ! Even a musically oriented movie like that had only a couple of memorable songs. I'm being overly critical of him only because we haven't really gotten anything memorable from him, like Muqabla, Urvashi,DilSe, etc. since a long long time.
Please ignore the reviews calling this movie a movie in the same league as Paan Singh Tomar, and other good ones. I don't want to call them paid , but yes, they're either huge fans of one of the actors or paid.
Bottom line : The best thing about this movie is Katrina Kaif's body. Her thighs looks deliciously supple and in the intro to the dull song 'Ishq Shava', when she's dancing with a few guys, she's looking smoking hot, doing the last-ditch "breast-bob/bump" move more than a couple of times.
So, in deciding to watch the movie, the ONLY question you have to ask yourself is :
"Would you pay 200 bucks popcorn/coke to watch Katrina Kaif's smoldering hot body ?"
It's a subjective question. Personally, for me, a porno (for 50 bucks max) would have gotten me more bang for the buck.