Well, it was a testing week with the work, team outing and a few other things. A sleepless Thursday night helped by some singing that made no sense to me, put me of into sleep mode in the morning itself (though I usually sleep post lunch, there was always an option of sleeping in the tunnel or bunker). As far as the rest of the day, I don’t know about team building, but it certainly brought out the killer instinct within the guys (the women were laid back at the game as expected). At least I could relate myself to the good old college days, where I used to play Age of Mythology and Age of Empires. Probably call it the tiredness; I had the best sleep in days on Friday night. The following day was even more terrible with me having to search for BSNL commercial officer's office to get my over charged phone bill sorted out (I am totally pissed of with BSNL by the way, cause their site still shows my bill has unpaid, though the money from my account has disappeared in an online transaction).The need to relax and enjoy was strong during the next day, so all was set for a Sunday night movie. I cannot reveal the circumstances under which I watched the movie (the plans that I had in mind for this film was a bit different, than what actually happened), but nevertheless no harms in writing a review.
For starter’s, I was expecting a lot out of this movie. Since the last SRK film i.e., OSO was such a fulfilling experience. Here you have SRK playing dual roles of Surrinder and his alter ego Raj. Surri goes to his headmaster’s daughter’s marriage and ends up being the bride groom himself, thanks to the accident of the guy who is supposed to get married. What are the odds of that happening? To continue, the newly wed couple of Surri and Taani make their way to home in Amritsar. Surri is madly in love with his new found wife, but only to find out his wife doesn’t love him back. She just about fits the bill for doing his wife duties. Surri decides that he needs impress his wife and make her love him. Thus he goes about creating his alter ego i.e Raj. If Surri is a common man tentative, reserved in his approach to life, you have Raj, the direct opposite outgoing, flirtatious Punjabi dude wearing tight jeans. Raj meets Taani at the dance class she joins, in fact as it always happens in bollywood films they both end up being partners in dance competition. One problem with Aditya chopra’s direction is the difference between Raj and Surri is just a slender moustache. You have dumb wife who doesn’t recognize her hubby with moustache removed (Kind of on the lines of Rajni’s classic comedy Thillu Mullu ). As always dispel your logical part of the brain on watching bollywood films. Moving on, Raj relentlessly flirts with Taani during their dance classes (familiar terrain, I guess). You have heroine rebuffing him initially, but as they work together they get along with each other, Taani admiring his flirts (That sounds too familiar for comfort). Finally Raj wins a day out with Taani over a bet on Panni Poori eating competition. Blah Blah another wooing song, at its end, Raj proposes to Taani confessing his love for her. He shuts down the power of half the city and then lights up the city so as to make I LOVE U appear from a hill. May be Tamil Nadu Electricity Board should consider this as a marketing product for wannabe youngsters who want to propose. See they are shutting down power 6 hours a day; they might as well use power cuts for helping people propose their love.
Coming back to the story, Taani explains she is already committed in marriage, so she could not do anything for Raj’s confession of love. Surri decides to kill Raj’s persona since he had won his wife heart, but is worried she loves Raj, something who he is not in his life, compared to Surri who he is. Now he decides to woo his wife as himself instead of somebody else, but Taani is having serious troubles forgetting Raj. She secretly visits him, confesses she too loves him. They decide to elope away after the dance competition finals. (I make it sound real dirty, Don’t I?? Well, that’s the way it’s in the film). Surri decides if Raj is what her wife wants instead of him, he will give her that. Now throw in some sentiment in the temple, where god puts sense into Taani’s head, who is on the verge of infidelity. She backs out with Raj in the last minute before dance competition for eloping with him. It’s the dance finals, she has made her entry, but Raj doesn’t show up. Not surprised Taani decides to withdraw from finals, but to her surprise Surri shows up and dances amazingly. Now she realizes Raj and Surri are one and the same. God, heroine doesn’t realize the hero with moustache and without one, reminiscent of old MGR films where the difference between characters was a mole on the cheek. I guess a moustache is a better candidate than a mole for disguise. Of course, as expected they hero wins they dance finals too and both live happily ever after.
SRK as Surrinder is impressive. Its one of the roles he hasn’t played yet and he does it pretty well and Raj, of course is the standard SRK role in films. The funny thing as SRK keeps getting older; his heroines seem to be getting younger. Deepika in OSO was 21 with SRK being 40 year old. Now you have Anushka Sharma, 19 year old teenager playing his object of interest. Anushka just about makes the cut for a wife; she is decent in her acting. And the most important thing of all for heroines, they must look good, irrespective of the fact whether she knows to act or dance. Here other than that she also gets to do wheeling with the bike, so its better I guess.Then there is one nostalgic bollywood song with five heroines from bollywood, again repetitive as OSO had one song of the same type already. With Yash Raj films, you at last have a film that is firmly rooted in India, instead of some NRI location such as New York or London and people living in houses where lavish bathrooms are size of a hall. Songs are good for the most part. There couple of sequences in the post interval where the films lags behind, you can’t wait for the film to reach its climax. As a whole its worth while watching it once.
Rating: 2.5 / 5
