Rating *
Crude boy (Abhishek Bachchan) meets Confused girl (Priety Zinta, looking really haggard) at Waterloo Station in London. Both are there to pick up their respective fiancées who are to arrive on the train from Birmingham. The train delayed by an hour forces Crude Boy and Confused Girl to get talking, and how. Audience (Me) hoping some story will emerge soon.
Boy and Girl begin spinning yarns, even as they find themselves being attracted to the other. Their other half’s, French Miss (Lara Dutta) and Goldilocks (Bobby Deol) are introduced by now. Audience is as confused as the Director of the film (Shaad Ali). A couple of garish, over the top, dance sequences with more than 50 extras are thrown in. Audience still waiting for story.
More songs with more extras and more tasteless costumes and dance movements are thrown in. And yes, an idiotically-dressed Mr Amitabh Bachchan also makes random singing-appearances throughout the movie. Audience filing nails while still, optimistically, waiting for story.
The second half of the movie follows the same pattern as the first. An attempt to add a story is made by the scriptwriter but it seems like he abandons it midway. To compensate for the lack of story, you guessed it, more song and dance. By now, Audience thinks of painting toe-nails.
The film thankfully finally crawls towards an end, with the longest, most kitschy song sequence ever. And just when you breathe a sigh of relief that the movie is about to end, Mr Amitabh Bachchan pops up once again to give you, a scare, and a ridiculous explanation of the whole two miserable hours that you spent watching the movie. Audience wows to self-flagellate as penance.
It is difficult to believe that Shaad Ali, who wrote and directed immensely likeable films like ‘Saathiya’ and ‘Bunty Aur Babli’ could have made THIS movie.
Abhishek Bachchan and Preity Zinta give their most insipid performances ever. The costumes by Aki Narula are tasteless (Thank you Mr Narula, for having succeeded in making an iconic superstar like Mr Amitabh Bachchan look like nobody else has: A Fool)
The sets are kitschy and the story zilch. Surprisingly, even the songs, that sound so good on FM and the Tele Promos are hideously loud and badly shot. The cast of ‘The Kumars at No 42’ Meera Syal, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Indira Joshi make fleeting pass-the-popcorn-and-you-miss-them appearances. Tasteless jokes made about Lady Diana and her death and India and Pakistan make you dislike this film even more.
The few good things about this movie are; Lara Dutta who not only looks ravishing, but acts superbly well in all the different parts she has been given *revealing which will reveal the story* A special mention to theatre actor Piyush Mishra as Haneef Bhai who does a great job and leaves his mark in the few scenes that he has. Bobby Deol, though looking completely zapped out of his mind and ridiculous with those golden curls, is surprisingly good too.
Audience is still in shock.
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*Rating Chart
* I want my money back + a fully booked and paid 3 month trip to _________(please fill in a destination of choice)
** I don’t want my money back even though I didn’t like the movie, but director/producer may please pay for my popcorn/cola/samosa/parking.
*** Time and money both well spent!
**** Loved it!
***** Whistle, clap, even smile at irritating neighbor-who-kept-talking-on-cell phone, queue up to buy tickets again and extol virtues of the movie.
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