On Saturday, I went and watched the most hyped film of our times – Om Shanti Om. I can now stand up and shout out to the world with my 1.5 pack paunch that it is the biggest and brightest film ever made in our country.
All the actors have put in their best performances to date for this movie. Special mention must go to Arjun Rampal, who has done one of his best roles of his career as a villain. Credit must go to the director Farah Khan for the way she has mastered her resources – including the tons of superstars, each of whom have made their presence felt. Comedy is awesome and this movie will make you keep laughing all the way. Of course, the movie has good doses of action, romance and sentiment as well to make it one solid pot-boiler for all ages to enjoy. Last but not the least, Shah Rukh is the king of the Indian cinema and his six pack abs and his humdinger of a performance proves that he is our No. 1 superstar.
Oops. Just because of the hype surrounding the movie and its reviews elsewhere, I got a bit carried away. Let me cut the crap and talk about ground reality…
The film is a completely ordinary effort. As regards the story, I am not even getting into any discussion on logic – you really cannot hope to have one where the movie starts with reincarnation and goes on to end as a ghost story. Just a couple of twists does not make an engaging storyline. Arjun Rampal has maintained his same expressionless dead face throughout the movie – the biggest advantage that he has here is that he is playing the villain and is thus able to pass off as a great performance. As regards Farah, there is absolutely no single point in the movie that has the stand-out touch of the director – it is just too normal and usual in everything. As for the tons of stars, they all could get their dancing parts long enough thanks to the super-long song in the second half that just went on and on. Except for the Sonu Nigam song, all other songs have been picturized and choreographed in an extremely ordinary manner – something that you might have thought could be one stand-out feature of such a big movie, being directed by a renowned dancer. The main climax song is not even worth humming and hence loses its complete tempo. There are three isolated pieces of good comedy – the 70s spoof and the fight sequence in the first half and the awards in the second half but that’s about it. Rest of it hardly has anything close to comedy. Action, sentiment and romance are non-existent in the movie. As for Shah Rukh, for the star he is supposed to be, there is hardly a single scene that is enterprising or brings out the star in him. Acting-wise, I am sure he did not move a muscle. It is good that his hamming has reduced – that may be because there were probably not too many scenes where he needed to; wherever he did need to, he made people believe that over-acting was part and parcel of this role.
All things said – it is still a reasonable time-pass of a movie. It can be watched once. And I certainly did like the red carpet welcome once again for all of the technicians behind the screen. Deepika, Shreyas and Kiron Kher have provided good performances – Deepika and Shreyas’s being measured ones as lover and friend respectively, while Kiron’s being the over-the-top cinematic mother. However, this movie is nowhere near the ratings and the hype created by the producers and the media’s so called critical reviewers. Even in terms of repeat value, probably a Main Hoon Na would fare better than this one on each and every single count – good songs, fast action, persistent comedy, true sentiment, rich locales, attractive choreo, eye-soothing cinematography or a fitting storyline that merges all pieces together…
One fact is proved - Marketing and hype do certainly work to make something ordinary look really amazing. Six-pack abs and the likes of seeing Zayed Khan, Aftab and Sunil Shetty in a song captures the attention of all viewers! One fails to however understand as to how it has b(r)ought into the minds of the so called great reviewers…
2 comments:
No doubt the movie is not good. But my feel is that you would have enjoyed it much more had you been a fan of bollywood movies. Its a take on Bollywood movies and in the first half it keeps you in splits. 2nd half is all down hill apart from the Filmfare award function.
i did understand most of the hindi movie spoofs in the first half (you see i do follow hindi movies at least !!) but still it was not as much comedy as it is made out to be.
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