Mere Brother ki Dulhan - review

'Abandon all logic ye who enter here' - this should be put up at the multiplex gates me thinks. It's a sign of the times that I go to watch movies these days with remarkably low expectations. Its the only way that one can still hope to be pleasantly surprised and get some value for money. Mere Brother ki Dulhan (MBKD) is a mindless, somewhat hypocritical romp through Delhi, Agra in the company of some beautiful people.

The story starts with Luv (Ali Zafar) breaking up with his girlfriend in London. Somewhat to my mystification, he then proceeds to tell his brother Kush (Imran Khan) in India to find a girl for him since he plans to get married very soon. Kush soon realises this is not so simple when he meets several psychotic families with eligible daughters. Finally he chances upon Dimple (Katrina Kaif) who he recalls as a wild child he had known briefly in college. He is impressed by her free-spirited ways, she manages to convince him that she is now suitably ready for an arranged marriage with a London based, good-looking, pound rich man like his brother. While both families get ready with marriage preparations and before Luv can set foot in India, Kush and Dimple have hit it off. From thereon its a short step to finally accepting that they love each other and devising plot after plot to cut out Luv and get hitched to Kush.

The USP of the film are of course its fresh-faced actors. Katrina has made a career out of just looking super pretty. Here, to give her due credit she does give her all to a characterization quite removed from the plastic doll act she is so comfortable with. Imran Khan is cute and insipid as always. It is frankly amazing to see how even Ali Zafar or Katrina have more screen impact than him. See the "Madhubala" song and you will know what I mean. Imran is much better than his Jaane tu... days where only his eyebrows did all the acting. But he is still a long way from being a dashing leading man. Ali Zafar is promising but his acting also seemed to be on a different key - sort of felt as though he was about to spout some romantic Urdu poetry any minute.

The part that gets me irritated if I stop to think about it, is the sheer hypocrisy of the characters. Dimple, a bohemian chick who has even been arrested for holding concerts near the Taj Mahal, is deeply Westernised in her behaviour, admits unabashedly that she is okay with an arranged marriage with a 'package' deal. She interacts with her prospective husband only about once over the web before agreeing. And this way she makes her parents happy and secures her future. The respective sets of parents are from the IFS and from the Army. They are shown to be almost moronically outdated in the way they keep worrying about "badnaami" in the community. The movie is pathetic in its attempt to be modern (with a heroine who gets drunk and loves trouble for the sake of it) and at the same time struggling to depict its essential Indianness (arranged marriage, log kya kahenge syndrome). This is a fine balance not easily achieved. It is inspired by the DDLJ's and Jab we Met's of the world to which almost all movies make a passing nod. In fact I am quite tired of seeing faintly outrageous bubbly heroines in the manner of Geet - Tanu Weds Manu or MBKD, its all a takeoff on Kareena.

Which brings me to the thought of how different the movie would have felt if it had a Kareena, a Shah Rukh, even a Ranbir. Still one must accept what one gets and enjoy the pretty faces and fairly good catchy music. Ignore half-baked plots, uneven acting and mediocre direction. Timepass for the weekend.

5/10

Raajneeti - the review

"Raajneeti" has a theme that will always resonate with members of the world's largest democracy. It takes us into the corridors of power and looks at the business of politics and the politics of love. As a movie, it also scores because it has what the other big releases in recent times lack - namely, a story. This story is a mish-mash of The Mahabharata and The Godfather with a dash of the Gandhi family thrown in for added flavour. With all these reference points, the final product is bound to be an interesting one, which it is.
The problem perhaps is that the reliance on the reference points is too much. There is too much of a need to align certain aspects and characters with The Mahabharata or with The Godfather. Thus neglecting the chance for a more original or more detailed exposition of characters.

The story deals with the fortunes of a family of politicians. The power struggles for the 'gaddi' and the fight for 'satta' between cousins takes up the major part of the story. Each side keeps pulling out all stops to go one up on the other. While Prithvi (Arjun Rampal) is the heir apparent, Samar (Ranbir Kapoor) is the phoren-educated younger brother who becomes unwillingly embroiled in political intrigue after the assassination of their father. He soon reveals himself to be a natural in the murky ways of Raajneeti even while helping his hot-headed older brother gain the CM's seat.

The role of Duryodhan is essayed by Prithvi and Samar's cousin, Virendra (Manoj Bajpai) who does a good job of smouldering in jealousy, hatred and covetousness. He takes the help of Suraj (Ajay Devgan) who is the illegitimate son of Prithvi and Samar's mother - thus a modern day Karan.

Indu (Katrina) is the rich businessman's daughter who loves Samar but has to marry Prithvi since he is CM-in-waiting. In what is an outright negative streak, Samar pretends to love her because the party needs her father's money and later convinces her to marry his brother. The one Samar loves is American girl, Sara who comes to India to be with him when he takes too long to return. When she and Prithvi get killed in a bomb blast, it is time for Indu to take up the reins and lead the party to victory even as Samar guns down the evil-doers. Here again the director imposes a completely unnecessary shootout at abandoned factory sequence just to have a Mahabharata analogy.

The acting in the movie is almost uniformly good. Ranbir gets maximum scope to perform and he doesn't disappoint with understated emoting. He also conveys the negative overtones in a chilling fashion showing how he can be innocent or ruthless. I only have an issue with the characterisation where his leap from a PhD student to a conniving political kingpin happens almost overnight. There is no good exposition of the inner turmoil between his better self and his diabolical one. Arjun Rampal is a revelation. He is an actor who has taken his time but is going from strength to strength. A very commendable performance as a slightly hysterical, powerful man who wears his heart on his sleeve. Ajay Devgan is reminiscent of Yuva and Omkara and somewhat sidelined. Nana Patekar is in the complex role of Krishna, Sakuni Mama and the consigliere of The Godfather, combined. He is effective but has a limited role.

Katrina failed to impress, having being able to provide no added emotional layers to her character. When she begins to canvass for the CM's seat after her husband's death, she looked for all the world like had strolled out of the sets of Ajab Prem..and draped a sari around herself. Her role in the movie also does not warrant the place of pride she receives in the film's posters. The producers made it seem like this was a movie based on Sonia Gandhi with Katrina playing the pivotal role but this was just a clever marketing ruse. Ranbir has the bigger and more important role as do Ajay Devgan, Arjun Rampal and Manoj Bajpai.

Overall the movie is definitely worth a watch and serves as another milestone in tracking Ranbir Kapoor's career graph.

7.5/10

Truly an "Ajab" kahani!

I was raring to break my box-office dry spell and had really hoped that 'Ajab Prem ki Ghazab Kahani" would do the trick. So I went for the evening show of the flick today.

Well, I soon realised that the movie is a slightly updated but much less funny version of Andaz Apna Apna. Not exactly in terms of storyline but in terms of style. There is much slapstick humour, comic book sequences and colourful settings.

The story, whatever little there is of it, deals with the escapades of do-gooder Prem (Ranbir), President of the Happy Club, in an unnamed idyllic hill station. While Prem rapidly falls in love with and proceeds to woo pretty-as-a-picture, Jenny (Katrina), she is in love with Rahul (Upen Patel looking completely repulsive). Even when faced with this heartbreak, Prem agrees to help Jenny marry Rahul. Needless to add, by the end of all the craziness that occurs, Jenny realises that it is Prem who is her true love.

My misgivings about the movie began almost as soon as it started since there was some weak and totally unfunny slapstick happening. Later as one adjusted to the weird world of Prem, there were some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Prem's desperate attempts to impress Jenny, the reliable comic timing of his parents (Darshan Jariwala & Smita Jayakar) and the fast paced action helped. But the second half brought the tenuous humour setup crashing down. Unnecessarily encumbered with some sentimental scenes alternately with slapstick ones, it soon got to a point where one was almost waiting for the movie to reach its predictable conclusion.

APKGK used a lot of Andaz Apna Apna's comic devices like the father-son squabbling, the hopelessly inefficient suited goons and the 'we all fall down' kind of humour. It also has a hotchpotch of scenes which leave you reminiscent about other movies - some of which were possibly intentional. You have Ranbir in a towel - an image strongly linked to "Saawariyaa", the Sufi singers of "Jodha Akbar" appear in a song in this one too, both the lead actors suffer from a stammer when they get emotional a la "Kaminey", Prem dissuades Rahul from marrying Jenny much like SRK had in "Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa"...

In other words, there's very little that you've not seen before in this movie except maybe the jodi of Ranbir and Katrina. While the two have good onscreen chemistry, Ranbir clearly steals the show with his earnest performance. He is fast approaching the stage where he will have enough screen presence to match the big stars. He has pretty good comic timing as well and his sheer goofiness adds more value than the situations or dialogues. He is the only good reason to watch this movie methinks.

In the movie, Prem, on spotting Jenny talks about her "silky-silky hair and her milky-milky skin...just like vanilla ice cream." And just like vanilla ice-cream Katrina is plain throughout - no added flavours, no zing, nothing except that thrill one gets on seeing a walking-talking Barbie doll. Truth be told, she has suggested in other movies that she might have unexplored depths in histrionic ability and this movie was probably too mindless for her to try anything.

Though the songs appeared to jump up at odd times, the soundtrack of this movie is decent. The one I liked best was 'Tera Hone laga hoon' by Atif. 'Main tera dhadkan' and 'Prem ki naiyya' were also catchy.

Overall, the movie did draw out some genuine laughs but these were too erratic and sometimes too forced, to make a successful rom-com.

Would give this one a 5.5/10.

Final words of advice: Watch it for Ranbir. He's the real paisa-vasool. :)