Yeh Saali Zindagi

Besides being a well made film Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi suddenly attached a great deal of seriousness to ‘A Sudhir Mishra Film’ but the subsequent follow ups have been a different story. Mishra’s latest Yeh Saali Zindagi is one confused hack job that makes you wonder if half a decade ago Mishra’s seminal offering was one of those once in a lifetime things.

Between a million characters and locations that constitute Yeh Saali Zindagi, the film is about desperate people in desperate times or something like that. Arun (Irrfan) likes Priti (Chitrangda Singh) enough to fall in love with her but she falls for Shyam (Vipul Gupta), a brat whose rich industrialist father (Naseer Abdullah) is broke and wants him to get over the nightclub singer and marry politician Verma’s daughter, who doesn’t give a damn about her fiancé. Verma’s former henchman Bade (Yashpal Sharma) is locked up in Tihar jail and waits for his step-brother Chote (Prashant Narayan), based out of Georgia, to get him out but Chote instructs inspector Satbeer (Sushant Singh) to make life hell for his half-brother. Meanwhile Kuldeep (Arunoday Singh), Bade’s sidekick, gets out of jail and wants to go clean or his firecracker of a wife Shanti (Aditi Rao Hydari) will leave him. Out of money and luck Satbeer gets Kuldeep a job on Chote’s behalf- kidnap Shyam and his fiancé but as Shyam’s getting it on with Priti, the two lovebirds end up in Kuldeep’s custody. Minister Verma will obviously not pay for Shyam who’s cheating on his daughter so enter large hearted lover Arun, a conduit for corrupt politicians and businessmen, who against his better judgment ends up connecting all the players in order to help Priti.

Don’t worry if you find the plot confusing for it really is confusing but what makes it worse is the wannabe hackneyed stylish treatment that Mishra meats out. Mishra’s over-zealous acolytes will be sharpening their pitchforks to go all out but truth be told Yeh Saali Zindagi tries so hard to be something that can be best described as Guy-Snatch-Ritchie-meets-every-Quentin-Tarantino-film-ever-made. Blessed with a raucous background score that only makes way for loud songs with words that celebrate irony of life till kingdom come, Yeh Saali Zindagi ends up being a muddle of just about everything under the sun.

Mishra’s story starts off with some amount of promise but his hyperkinetic screenplay just doesn’t fall into place. Every character irrespective of their part in the film is introduced like the next big thing and multiple narrators try to make everyone and everything look important but to no real effect. They talk the same, they walk the same and even act the same so much so that Arun and Kuldeep, the two ends of this rather long stick, end up looking as pedestrian as everyone else in spite of the fact that Mishra’s screenplay takes great efforts to highlight the two. While Irrfan makes Arun come alive with his sheer magnetism even in the most inconsequential of moments as if his life depends on it, Arunoday Singh falls flat. He is stiff and looks like a part that doesn’t belong to puzzle but it forced to fit the jigsaw. He is supposed to be a typical purani dilli ka banda but plays Kuldeep as chic as possible and his bad dubbing skills don’t really help. With each subsequent film Chitrangda Singh looks ordinary and once you survive her here, you’d wonder why so much was said about her being the next Smita Patil….and what can you say about Aditi Rao Hydari? Thanks to the zillion lip locks she and her co-star indulged in for the sake of authenticity she looks subjugated and shockingly asks the same questions every time she comes face to face with her husband. She plays a tormented wife who’s angry at her man, keeps calling him kutaa and sports the same sullen expression throughout the course of the film irrespective of the situation. Sushant Singh’s Satbeer is fun in parts but that’s just about it.

What’s the deal with the recent crop of Hindi films that die trying to be edgy and Tarantinoesque? These are films that have the actors thinking in English but talking in Hindi, everyone’s a dude here for they don’t walk they strut, everyone looks out for the bigger better deal and in the end once everyone has their money shot it’s the hero who walks into the sunset. Yeh Saali Zindagi comes across as traveling repertoire of bad actors who seem to be stuck at the immigration counter and weren’t given enough time to prep!

Sudhir Mishra loves the idea of irony and doesn’t let go of any opportunity to display his love for it. His screenplay gives importance to every nuance and each character as they talk about that thing called irony but instead of keeping this idea in control he goes overboard in the bid to impress upon us how irony plays a greater role than imagined in the matters of love and life. Yeh Saali Zindagi had a spark of energy that could have been better handled but with an inconsistent screenplay and erratic editing that jumps from suddenly jumps from present to past to educate us about some past action that helped shape the character, the ride’s really bumpy. Beside Irrfan the other thing that makes somewhat of an impression is Sachin Krishnan’s cinematography that infuses some vigor in the film but on the whole Yeh Saali Zindagi isn’t as exciting as it wants you to believe it is.

Rating: 1 ½ out of 5

Cast: Irrfan, Arunoday Singh, Chitrangda Singh, Aditi Rao Hydari, Sushant Singh, Yashpal Sharma, Prashant Narayanan and Vipul Gupta

Written by: Sudhir Mishra, (Dialogues- Sudhir Mishra and Manu Rishi)

Directed by: Sudhir Mishra

Image: www.showbizarre.com

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127 Hours

127 Hours isn’t an easy film to explain and it’s surely not an easy watch as well but the true story of Aaron Ralston who cut his own arm that was stuck under a boulder with all its unsettling imagery is hard film to take your eyes off. Danny Boyle’s follow-up to Slumdog Millionaire is unequivocally one of the most disconcerting films you’d ever watch but don’t let that stop you from experiencing a great cinematic achievement.

Aaron Ralston (James Franco), a mountain climber, takes off to the heart of the Grand Canyon all alone and gets stuck under a boulder. Ralston spends a grueling 127 hours with the huge boulder resting on his right arm before resorting to an unimaginable measure of cutting his arm in order to survive.

The great thing about a filmmaker like Danny Boyle is the ease with which he moves from film to film. Keeping his repertoire in mind it’s not hard to understand why Boyle would choose a subject like 127 Hours. Most of Boyle’s characters are people who’d be happy to stay away from the spotlight but when forced into a corner they find great resilience in themselves. In that sense Aaron Ralston and Danny Boyle are a match made in heaven and Boyle seizes the opportunity to film one of the greatest modern day stories of human willpower with both hands.

Based on Ralston’s book Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Boyle collaborates with Oscar winning screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) on the screenplay, which superbly manages to convey the million emotions that Ralston goes through in those 127 hours. The loneliness, the attempts to free himself, the physical and the emotion weariness, the hallucinations and the desolation are all there and the script never lets go of the tempo. Even though there’s absolutely no sense of suspense attached to the proceedings as we all know that Aaron will get stuck and will ultimately survive, 127 Hours keeps you riveted to the screen. This is largely due to the unflinching career defining performance by James Franco. Occupying most of the screen time a la Tom Hanks in Castaway but only better, Franco becomes Ralston and you just can’t look away. It’s never an easy task for an actor to be by one’s self but Franco ensures that you don’t really miss anyone else.

127 Hours isn’t your regular survival of the will kind of tale. Rather it’s a gut wrenching and extremely tough act to take in. Boyle never shies away from the visceral and puts you right in the heart of the Grand Canyon where Ralston was stuck. Anthony Dod Mantle’s visually stunning and hyper-kinetic camerawork coupled with an evocative sound design transmit Ralston’s state of mind and AR Rahman’s Oscar nominated score takes it to the next level. Much like Ralston’s summation of his relationship with the boulder that traps him, 127 Hours marvelously culminates in the final moments where Rolston severs his stuck arm. The highly graphic and disturbing images are elevated thanks to Franco’s acting, Dod Mantle’s brilliant camerawork and Rahman’s string arrangement in the climatic version of ‘Liberation’.

Danny Boyle applies numerous techniques like split-screens, flashbacks, zooms and crazy camera angles to convey Ralston’s story but at the heart of it the protagonist’s sheer will to survive overshadows everything else. Franco’s tour de force portrayal is the focal point of the film and the actor never lets down. Watch it for sure.

Rating: 4 out 5

Cast: James Franco

Screenplay by: Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy based on Aaron Ralston’s Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

Directed by: Danny Boyle

Image: www.iwatchstuff.com

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Dil To Baccha Hai Ji

Dil To Baccha Hai Ji (DTBHJ) isn’t a typical ‘Madhur Bhandarkar’ film. No, it’s not bereft of cardboard cutouts masquerading as characters, insensitive portrayals, cheap jokes or jarring background score threatening to tear your eardrums every time something dramatic needs to conveyed; DTBHJ is a full loaded Bhandarkar film and yet it’s different for finally we have a Madhur Bhandarkar film that will not win any National Award!

Following its tagline ‘Love Grows, Men Don’t’ DTBHJ is about three men who believe they have found the love of their boring lives but as life isn’t a bed of roses our boys will learn that true love will come their way but only at the end of the film. In his late 30’s and recently divorced, Naren (Ajay Devgn) shifts back into his parents’ house and takes up paying guests in the form of Abhay or Aby (Emraan Hashmi), a local Lothario of a gym instructor who beds everything that moves and Milind (Omi Vaidya), a proud virgin who believes in saving himself for that one perfect woman and that one perfect night. The tiresome threesome end up meeting the objects of their affection- a young secretary, June Pinto (Shazahn Padamsee), a trophy wife Anushka Narang (Tisca Chopra, ravishing!) and an RJ who desperately wants to become actor Gungun (Shraddha Das) and go through the motions of love. Naren tries hard to fit into the 22 year old June’s friend circle, Aby gets goodies from sugar mama Anushka but ends up falling for her step-daughter Nikki (Shruti Hassan) and Milind is only too happy to run to the cleaners as Gungun uses him for everything from getting drinks in a pub to getting a new portfolio clicked. After much deliberation the three inch closer to winning over their women but things don’t go as planned and in the end the three are left high and dry only to bump into the real ‘true’ loves of their lives.

DTBHJ ushers in a Bandarkar v 2.0 simply because this isn’t a dreary tale that the multi National Award winning director has been long associated with. This is a bright and happy film and thanks to Priya Suhas’s decent production design and Ravi Walia’s neat camerawork DTBHJ even manages to look up-market. And yet DTBHJ is as tacky as most Bhandarkar films end up being.

Replete with crude jokes about homosexuality, aging, caricatured portrayals of just about everyone and insensitive things like a stray dog named Kasab as the mutt was found at VT Station and is a terror, DTBHJ might be funny at places but on the whole is rather tasteless. Like most Bhandarkar films DTBHJ features a characters as flat as a three day old cola, shoddy writing with loads of expository dialogues that contain the entire story of some other film and rather strange characterizations- a Radio Jockey whose broke as hell, a business tycoon who looks like a lost child, a Goan granny who talks like some cheap gangster, etc.

Many actors believe that a role in a Madhur Bhandarkar film suddenly puts you in a different league and while this isn’t a ‘typical’ Bhandarkar film no one takes their job seriously. Don’t blame them for how different can you play a Hindi film playboy or how challenging can it be to play a business tycoon who mouths inanities like ‘ There’s an economic forum in Geneva….we must go there together….we all will go, great we will go next week’ without even bothering to make the obligatory ‘dramatic’ pauses? Devgn puts in a decent effort and at places he’s even fun to watch but Hashmi, a victim of his own ‘serial kisser’ image looks like a buffoon rolling his eyes and smiling his impish smile. Omi Vaidya’s strange accent was perhaps fun in 3 Idiots but here it’s annoying and so is the poor poetry he bores us with. Even if Bhandarkar reserves his most insensitive jokes for women in his films, they always have a bigger presence in them but here barring Tisca Chopra, who looks better than everyone else put together, no one else makes a mark. Das is shabby but Padamsee and Hassan are passable. As far as acting goes my pick of the ladies was Naren’s lady lawyer- a character called Sunanda Pradhan; hilarious to say the least.

Bhandarkar wastes much of the screen time with absolutely mindless actions and half-way into the film just as you think what the hell is DTBHJ all about he introduces Nikki and makes Aby fall for her in a desperate bid to infuse some semblance of a story. Towards the end Bhandarkar rather conveniently just sums up everything as if he’s on speed mode or maybe the release date of the film was staring him in the face. There are some amusing moments and DTBHJ might be Bhandarkar’s idea of a fun film but you know sometimes the twain just don’t meet.

Rating: 2/5

Cast: Ajay Devgn, Emraan Hashmi, Omi Vaidya, Shruti Hassan, Sharaddha Das, Shazahn Padamsee and Tisca Chopra

Written by: Madhur Bhandarkar, Neeraj Udhwani and Anil Pandey

Directed by: Madhur Bhandarkar

Image: www.isongz.com

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Fair Game

What happens when one day fine day everyone gets to know that you are a spy? Based on the true story of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative whose cover was blown by the White House, Fair Game doesn’t really go in for the shock and awe but never falls short of engaging.

Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) is a CIA operative who balances covert operations across the world along with a very healthy suburban family life that is picture perfect with two kids and a husband. With the White House hell bent on attacking Iraq on the basis of the intel about its weapons of mass destruction, Plame gets her husband, Joe Wilson (Sean Penn), a former ambassador to an African nation, to go to Niger to investigate if the reports of a sale of yellow cake uranium to Iraq are true. Wilson concludes that such a sale never took place and even writes an article for the New York Times stating how the White House manipulated information to justify the attack on Iraq. The White House makes its move by not only revealing Plame’s identity but discredits Wilson’s claim by suggesting that he was compelled by his wife to tarnish the President. Plame and Wilson don’t see eye to eye on how to deal with the situation and while Plame wants to remain quite Wilson decides to fight for what is right. Finally Plame chooses to come clean with her story.

For a film whose premise is pretty basic the first half hour or so of Fair Game doesn’t really make any sense. Characters talk the talk and walk the walk in a very staccato manner without really adding anything substantial to the plot but some where along the way Fair Game suddenly makes sense. Once you catch on the film grips you and Doug Liman never really loses the tension or even the pace. What starts off a political thriller soon changes gears and becomes a taut drama when Wilson’s actions isolate Plame and even threaten their marriage.

Fair Game is blessed with a very convincing Naomi Watts at the center of it all. Her Plame never goes overboard and is so believable that at times she doesn’t really do anything that an actor would be inspired to; rather she plays Plame almost like routine. You realize how wonderfully restrained Watts is when in the final minutes of the film Doug Liman cuts to the real Plame’s C-Span testimony as the end-credits play. This reviewer has, much to his own chagrin, in the past has found Penn to be a very boring actor to say the least. Barring Carlito’s Way and Mystic River and maybe U-Turn to some extent no matter what character Penn embodies he comes across as someone who seems to tease the audience for no real reason. But this time around Penn keeps his emotions under check and even though he relies on the very conspicuous lines on his forehead to convey myriad emotions, Penn packs in a very credible performance.

Doug Liman’s trademark of realistic and almost documentary like execution that added great resonance to the Bourne series is at play here as well. Liberal use of handheld camera and the heady mix of politics with family drama keep you riveted to Fair Game even though it never really transcends to evoke a similar agitated reaction from the viewer that the actors portray. Fair Game seizes you but that’s largely thanks to Naomi Watts and Sean Penn.

Rating: 3/5

Cast: Naomi Watts, Sean Penn

Screenplay by: Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth based on the books by Joseph Wilson (The Politics of Truth) and Valerie Plame (Fair Game)

Directed by: Doug Liman

This review originally appeared in Buzz in Town

Image: www.wikipedia.com

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Tees Maark Khan

Forget plagiarizing the entire plot or an iconic scene every now and then, Farah Khan’s Tees Maar Khan has five minutes of screen time dedicated to a character first seen in the Happydent ‘Tere dil roshan, tere mann roshan’ chewing gum commercial. Really? The Czarina of non-sense cinema has left no stone unturned to show that she ‘Khan’ do it even with a fictitious Khan when it comes to full-full entertaining films.

Whacking the wristwatch of the doctor who delivers him Tabres Mirza Khan or TMK- Tees Maar Khan (Akshay Kumar) has been conning people right from his birth. After fooling the police for years he is finally nabbed in Paris but escapes midair thanks to the bumbling duo of M/s Mukherjee & Chatterjee (Aman Verma and Murli, don’t recall who’s who). Just like the police’s intel, the conjoined evil Johari Brothers seek TMK’s help to retrieve their booty from the police train that would be transporting it to Delhi. In between romancing Anya (Katrina Kaif), an item girl who is also the love of his life and stays in his house and strangely enough calls his mother ‘mummy’, prancing with Salman ‘Bhai’ Khan (Salman Khan) celebrating Eid at the drop of a rumaal just because he feels like it Tees Maar Khan puts his daring plan in place- he will engage an entire village along the railway track from where the train will pass to act in a film and ‘direct’ them to rob the train. Along with the help of his three sidekicks called Burger, Soda and something like that TMK becomes an NRI filmmaker called Manoj ‘Day’ Ramalan and gets Atish Kapoor (a hilarious Akshaye Khanna) to play the lead in his film. Kapoor, ruing the day his secretary Baweja (Sudhir Pandey) refused Danny Doyle’s offer to play the lead in Glumdog Millionaire, grabs the NRI filmmaker’s offer with both hands. With the con set in place TMK and his team live up to their infamous name!

Much like Om Shanti Om, Tees Maar Khan too welcomes you to the same over-the-top-logic-can-go-to-hell style of Farah Khan School of Filmmaking with open arms and even though a large part of the film is nothing more than cacophony, you don’t really mind it. Khan and her partner in crime Shirish Kunder, who could have might as well directed this film for there is nothing that he hasn’t contributed to ranging from story, screenplay, dialogues, lyrics, background score, editing and producing, officially pick up the plot from Vittorio De Sica After the Fox that featured Peter Sellers but pepper it mostly unsophisticated and rather crude jokes that will compel you to crack up unexpectedly every now and then. Filled with asinine one-liners which seem to be the real reason why most of the sequences were constructed, the writing in Tees Maar Khan tries too hard but would have failed completely had it not been for the effort on the part of actors especially Khanna, Kumar and supporting members like Pandey.

There’s a lot riding on Tees Maar Khan for Farah Khan for she needs to prove her world can exist beyond Shah Rukh Khan and even though Akshay Kumar is as big a name these are tough times for Khiladi Kumar. The titular role can be described as Kumar’s version of SRK’s madcap Badshah and for what it’s worth he lives up to his brand of comedy that had taken a beating. But surprisingly it’s Akshaye Khanna as the Oscar obsessed actor who proves to be the mainstay of the film. Long considered to be a fine actor who always had it in him and yet chose not to really dazzle, Khanna’s very interestingly cast and is fun to watch particularly when he peps himself up by chanting his version of ‘Jai Ho’- aptly called ‘Day Ho’! Katrina Kaif overdoes her doe eyed damsel in imaginary distress thing and truth be told she seems like the only one besides Farah Khan, of course, who’s enjoying shaking a leg to Sheila ki Jawaani.

Even with all the madness that she could think of Khan limits Tess Maar Khan with a sloppy screenplay that seems to be as badly put together as the Johari Brothers. At places she doesn’t even bother to work out the detailing of characters- the mother seems to be a victim of a mega Om Shanti Om Kirron Kher hangover. Many scenes seem forced and even the songs, chartbusters if you please, seem out of place. Much like Ek Do Teen from Tezaab, the mother of all item numbers Sheila ki Jawaani comes very early in the film but unlike the iconic Saroj Khan-Madhuri Dixit number Sheila is almost forced upon the viewer.

There is a sense of disdain from most quarters that greets Farah Khan’s unapologetic fashion of not only getting inspired by the classics but not giving a damn when it comes to ‘recreating’ the magic of the cinema of yesteryears and yet her previous films like Main Hoon Na and Om Shanti Om have been wildly successful. As a follow-up Tees Maar Khan might not be as liked all around, it has its moments and let’s be honest Farah Khan films are a celebration of the senseless so why even bother with the absence of logic or lack of anything remotely reasonable!

Rating: 2/5

Cast: Akshay Kumar, Akshaye Khanna, Katrina Kaif, Sudhir Pandey

Screenplay by: Ashmith Kunder and Shirish Kunder

Directed by: Farah Khan

Image: www.bollycurry.com

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No Problem

In the past one could have been forgiven for sheepishly enjoying an Anees Bazmi film like No Entry and even Welcome to some extent on the pretext of being a guilty pleasure but there is nothing, absolutely nothing that can redeem the torture called No Problem.

Centered around a diamond heist where international crook Marcos (Suneil Shetty) and his ragtag bunch of thugs that includes Sophie (Neetu Chandra) has been given the short end of the stick by a minister, No Problem has three or four parallel tracks that can’t be called a story by any stretch of imagination. Yash (Sanjay Dutt) and Raj (Akshaye Khanna) are petty thieves who rob a village bank after taking refuge in Zandulal’s (Paresh Rawal) house. Suspected of being a coconspirator in the robbery Zandulal follows them to Durban in order to clear his name. Meanwhile super idiot cop Arjun Singh (Anil Kapoor) who somehow manages to survive a wife, Kajal (Sushmita Sen), who tries to kill him every time her split personality takes over, ends up capturing Marcos who escapes only to kill the minister when he can’t recover his diamonds. Yash and Raj in order to return Zandulal’s money end up robbing the dead minister’s safe along with the diamonds so that Zandulal keeps his mouth shut about Raj’s real identity lest his marriage to Sanjana (Kangana Ranaut), who happens to be Kajal’s younger sister is stopped by her Police Commissioner father, Shakti Kapoor. This confusing nonsense is just half the story! To makes worse everyone ends up following everyone else, everyone tries to double-cross everyone else and everyone heaves a sigh of relief when a bunch of gorillas set things right.

Designed to antagonize the daylights out of the viewer, No Problem is loud, crass and lacks everything that constitutes a film right from the word go. There are a few lines that might look funny, a few sequences that might force you to throw in a chuckle or two but everything else is a big problem. The acting is miserable with producer Anil Kapoor leading the charge; Paresh Rawal, Askhaye Khanna, Sanjay Dutt, Sushmita Sen and Suniel Shetty all try to outdo each other but special mention needs to be made of Kangana Ranaut, who singularly packs in the one of the worst acting jobs you’d ever see.

There is nothing wrong with humor that, at times, is forced down one’s throat but to orchestrate an whole film around mindless premise where an entire South African village happens to speak Hindi, where just about everyone from Durban’s police commissioner to South Africa’s Mining Minister is an Indian and gorillas act like humans and humans prance around like a bunch of drunk monkeys is just not funny.

A miserable excuse of a film No Problem is best avoided. Anees Bazmi, who in the past has been credited with writing films such as Aankhen, Shola Aur Shabnam and Deewana Mastana, unapologetically makes a complete hash of No Problem. Avoid.

Image- www.getlyricz.com

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Band Baaja Baaraat

*This review contains spoilers.

Continuing to explore the loves and the lives of the common folk of west Delhi, Band Baaja Baaraat succeeds to a great extent at repackaging a done to death tale. Even with a story that has really has nothing new to offer Band Baaja Baaraat is enjoyable largely thanks to some good writing and pleasant acting.

There has been a lot of talk about Yash Raj Films’ decision to launch Ranveer Singh, someone who has no filmy connection and isn’t the kind of face that would set the box office ringing but Singh, to say the least, is well cast and suits the role like hand in glove. Bittoo (Ranveer Singh) is an aimless chap idling his time away in Delhi University making the most of life before familial tradition sucks him back to Saharanpur. He bumps into Shruti Kakkar (Anushka Sharma) at a wedding he crashes along with his hostel mates and even tries to impress her by presenting the DVD of the shaadi video he shoots but is told bluntly that he isn’t the kind of boy she will ever fall for. To his credit Bittoo effortlessly shifts gears and becomes the friend. A largely aimless Bittoo ends up following Shruti like a pup when he realizes partnering her in her wedding planning company is the only way he can stay away from farming away his life back home. Their venture ‘Shaadi Mubarak’ starts from the congested lanes of Janakpuri and finally makes it the posh Sainik Farms without a hitch but while celebrating their biggest success they end up sleeping together. While Shruti thinks of this as a natural progression of a friendship, Bittoo just wants to forget the whole episode, kaand as he labels it and move on.

Although Band Baaja Baaraat’s setting is authentic it still is very limited and while this isn’t the kind of film where one would have expected director Maneesh Sharma to scratch beneath the surface. But had the screenplay done that it would have benefited the film and made it something more than just the plain sweet film it ends up being. The first half of the film is extremely breezy and even though it’s nothing out of the box Habib Faisal’s dialogues add great resonance to the manner in which the drama unfolds. The trouble starts when Bittoo and Shruti’s When Harry Met Sallyesque moment announces its arrival. Once that happens the elementary gender disparity of thoughts knowingly pushes them into different directions, situations challenge them to delve deep into their selves to realize the true worth of the other person, yada, yada, yada…you get the picture.

The combination of Bittoo, a charmer to the hilt in his own limited world and Shruti, a hard working miss goody two shoes that made them popular suffers once they spilt. But strangely for a team that has already made it ‘big’ the moment they part ways they are back to planning small by-lane type weddings. Unable to function without each other they decide to bury the hatchet when an ultra rich businessman makes them an offer they can’t refuse. With packets to return to their lenders both see this as an opportunity to bounce back and are helped by their regular team of a DJ, a florist and a caterer. Predictably Bittoo realizes that he loves Shruti but in the interim she’s agreed to a Dubai based well settled arranged match who according to her is the ‘right’ choice but in true filmy fashion Bittoo elbows his way back into Shruti’s heart.

Ranveer Singh is confident and has a screen presence that many of the star sons believe is their birthright. He isn’t conventionally good looking and before you hold that against him just jog back to the early 1990’s when Ajay Devgn was dismissed off for the same reasons. Singh’s Bittoo is infectiously authentic to the extent that a few minutes into the film every Dilliwallah would end up recalling the irritating yet affable college mate they knew of but never bothered befriending. Sharma on the other hands ends up playing the same simple North Indian kudi whose life is more often than not smaller than her dreams. Now that her three film contract with Yash Raj Films has been entertained perhaps Sharma can look forward to doing something else for a change but with playing the same character three times over she will find it difficult to break the mold.

Band Baaja Baaraat gets it right for a major part and irrespective of the weak and unsurprising second that makes it limited, its worth watching.

Image: www.mixxpoint.com

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