Farah Khan enjoys making movies Bollywood movies. In every movie of her, she proclaims that no one loves Bollywood as much as she does. She takes a page out of Bollywood of the yesteryear and fits it into her movie script, though not so seamlessly. Her debut feature was about reunion of separated brothers. Her second film is one of the best tribute to the Hindi film industry as a meta and a spoof at the same time. Her latest is basically a baap ka badla plot that is developed into a heist film with musical and dance finding its way in between. That's because she knows what the audience still enjoys being fed on and what will work (Tees Maar Khan was surely a misfire because she started looking beyond Bollywood for inspiration). And for such a plot she milks it with all required emotions proportionately- a nation heartthrob superstar's shadow in his iconic pose being cast on a curtain that is illuminated with the tricolor is sure to get all your love, emotions and energy gushing in your body up to your throat and eyes, compelling you to even clap or whistle. It will be more resonating if you are watching this film away at some foreign land- like where this film has been entirely shot (or recreated using terrible VFX?).
SRK's stardom is what will draw the audience to this film. Farah even celebrates that on screen as if the star is being re-launched with her film. The camera spends enough time on his well built and chiseled abs, pans over it and even zooms on it (Ugh, that was cringeworthy!). She lets him mouth his own famous dialogues as references. The filmy reference gags is a habit she carried on from Om Shanti Om for this one but they appear very trite and not as cleverly used. Only one that works is when Deepika's Mohini makes an entry like Shanti from the past film and the tune of Ankhon Mein Teri from the same film plays as the dumbfounded spectators look on. Farah also gets a meta moment of hitting parallel cinema with her commercial one by placing Anurag Kashyap's face on the dartboard.
As for the plot that looks as thin as a threadline, it is stretched with extended gags and a tiring first half that makes the film look like a TV show (Yes, blame those brand placements too!) and a bad one, like that of which a cross-dressed caricature and a famous phrase from that comedy show makes repeated entry. The heist plan too is very simplistically developed and even the last moment twist involving a secret password is so inane that the audience yells it out minutes before it is cracked by the character.
However, after the first half of this 3 hours long film, the rest moves quite tightly. But I wish it would have been more comical, with dialogues more emotional, characters more colorful and the actors not hamming all together.
SRK's stardom is what will draw the audience to this film. Farah even celebrates that on screen as if the star is being re-launched with her film. The camera spends enough time on his well built and chiseled abs, pans over it and even zooms on it (Ugh, that was cringeworthy!). She lets him mouth his own famous dialogues as references. The filmy reference gags is a habit she carried on from Om Shanti Om for this one but they appear very trite and not as cleverly used. Only one that works is when Deepika's Mohini makes an entry like Shanti from the past film and the tune of Ankhon Mein Teri from the same film plays as the dumbfounded spectators look on. Farah also gets a meta moment of hitting parallel cinema with her commercial one by placing Anurag Kashyap's face on the dartboard.
As for the plot that looks as thin as a threadline, it is stretched with extended gags and a tiring first half that makes the film look like a TV show (Yes, blame those brand placements too!) and a bad one, like that of which a cross-dressed caricature and a famous phrase from that comedy show makes repeated entry. The heist plan too is very simplistically developed and even the last moment twist involving a secret password is so inane that the audience yells it out minutes before it is cracked by the character.
However, after the first half of this 3 hours long film, the rest moves quite tightly. But I wish it would have been more comical, with dialogues more emotional, characters more colorful and the actors not hamming all together.
1 comment:
yep...well said. .happy new year is nothing more than a simple time pass film.
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