OSO- So So


Flatters to deceive. It’s a bit like Sachin getting out to a full toss after a lovely start.
The bad part:
The second half could have been another movie. In fact, I wish it were. Hangs like an orphan, poor cousin to a hilarious first half. It’s like sending Chanderpaul out to bat after Lara’s scored a quick fire 60, what a let down. The facts will read a bit like a lousy blood report, but some things have to be said. The ending is a rip off from Karz and Madhumati, wife tells me so. The rip off isn’t all that spectacular and seems a bit like a designer cut gone horribly wrong. Deepika is mostly silent and that’s the highlight, cos she can’t do too much with her face than flaunt her lovely eyes and omnipresent dimple. This part sees the re-birth sequence, a deja ‘woo’ of Arjun Ram-pall into confessing his crime and a chandelier climax. There also is the endless party number where the entire film fraternity is on screen, most being ones who aren’t doing too much work nowadays. Shahrukh hams to the T, he just can’t cry. Period. Shreyas Talpade should ideally have stuck to bowling really well in Iqbal.
The good part:
The first half is the best spoof on 70s Bollywood, ever made, I hazard. MTV could have done this in episodes, but Farah Khan pulls it off in one cut. Her passion for 70s cinema is clear, and she’s spoofed it with panache, making a really entertaining sequence of parody. Shahrukh plays the struggling junior artiste with a huge shock of hair and a hugely hopeful ma (Kirron Kher). He does some endearing solos, none better than one where he’s drunk and spewing an award speech. You can’t help but laugh at the obvious digs at cinema of the Emergency era. His love for Shantipriya, the diva of Bollywood then, results in a fire rescue sequence and an equally flamed end which consumes both of them. He’s reborn thirty years later, with the past coming back to haunt him.

The songs are an obvious highlight but nothing beats that 70s show. I wish there were second chances in cinema. One where film makers could quickly re-do parts. I wish Farah had given us that entertainer which so seems to lurk somewhere behind this script, but never shows up. Pity that something so well begun, remains half done.

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