Abbas ki Jai!
It’s just not fair that one of the better movies of this year has not got the due credit it deserves on this website. I read both of KK’s and Phoenix’s post and can’t help feeling that they would have liked the movie better if they had seen the movie not in each other’s company. Sometimes, when two movie aficionados go for a movie together, you end up overanalyzing and trying to second guess the movie instead of just giving in.
Because that’s what you need to do as a viewer. Especially if you are not a happy go lucky college going teenager in love. If one remains cynical, the movie may appear stupid and artificial but make some allowances and you will enjoy the movie for it’s vibrancy, freshness and devil may care atitude. I mean I loved the first half of Main Hoon Na as well, didn’t you?
How different can a young romantic movie get? Very, if you add an activist mom, a talking Naseer in a photo frame, dreams of a strange horseman, couple of men who come to every disco in town on horseback and western attire, and three challenges that the boy needs to fulfil before he can become a ‘Ranjhore ka Rathore’.
What this all adds up to is a whole lot of characters trying to muscle their way in onto the final shooting script. Abbas gets this difficult job right almost to a T as he juggles them all at the same time moving the story forward, never letting the movie to slack off to a point where you are looking around at people around you in the theatre. The movie could have been a biiiiiit shorter though, say by about 15-20 minutes. I felt that the characters of Meghna and Susant (both the temporary love interests of the lead pair) had more screen time then they deserved. Paresh Rawal’s arrival on screen gets a huge cheer from the audience. The man is a star. Even before he spoke, people were ready to laugh. He is a dialogue writer’s dream.
The music complements the mood of the movie.The whole theatre cheered as the familiar guitar intro of ‘Kabhi Kabhi Aditi’ came up on screen. I had it on loop mode for a few days myself. Other songs are pleasant enough. But, what’s the big deal about the ‘Pappu can’t dance’ song. I didn’t like anything about the song. Anyway.
Imran Khan slips in and out of every scene effortlessly almost very similar to how we felt about Darsheel in TZP. He does’n need to rant or rave in the movie and it works well for him. Genelia gives a very able performance herself, though I thought she had a funny accent in some of the lines. The supporting cast take the cake though and you are more likely to remember the movie long afterwards for their contributions to the story than the lead pair themselves. Special mention for Ratna Pathak and Naseer. They lift the film beyond the average. Paresh Rawal’s cameo is thoroughly enjoyable. The Khan brothers rock in roles nobody else could have done better.
A mammoth effort such as this would have been wasted without an appropriate climax- at the airport. Probably Abbas was a little defensive about some clichéd points in the story and hence the story is told about the lead pair by their friends. By doing this he can strike an irreverent tone and has a direct conversation with the audience. I would tell Abbas, don’t bother next time, we like your stories the way they are, clichés and all. Just keep putting those ingenious repartees and plot devices and we’ll keep cheering you in the aisles.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
How can u forget the character played by genelias brother called amit.. i mean what a character created by abbas.. he had few dialogues but what expressions he gave… even when he got emotional he was the best in the movie… i just cant forget his performance.. this happens very few times
DnC..am born cynic. some astrology locha i guess. and yes i loved main hoon na till they decided to get serious by putting that indo-pak angle in it.
“How different can a young romantic movie get? Very, if you add an activist mom, a talking Naseer in a photo frame, dreams of a strange horseman, couple of men who come to every disco in town on horseback and western attire, and three challenges that the boy needs to fulfil before he can become a ‘Ranjhore ka Rathore’.”
Reminds me of 1980’s K.Balachander plotline….
In his comedy translation of Crazy Mohan’s ‘Marriage Made in Saloon’ as ‘Poikkaal Kudhirai’ *ing kannada hero Ramakrishna, there is a Saloon owner played by Ravindran who consults with Kamal Hassan in photo calendar for advice on, relevantly, cupid issues. Kamal hassan did that role free of cost and it was quite hilarious.
So we already have two plot devices in the movie which are not original. Cut .. Copy .. Paste … Picture thayyaar!! 3 step process in film making – someone must write a book on this.
yeah…it potrays clichéd stuff in a non-clichéd way…especially the airport scene, where u can say “Oh!how clichéd!!but that part was really sweet…the movie as a whole was a refreshing experience…there are very few good romcom in hindi cinema n this is definitely one of them..atleast for me…
@dazed & confused
just for curiosity’s sake in which theatre were you…coz i’ve seen people cheering in a theatre only in Single screen theatres…in multiplexes everybody is quite contained as far as their expression is concerned…
yeah n loved main hoo naa’s 1st part as well…
i haven’t seen the film yet so dont know the context of the song “pappu cant dance”.. is it anyway pointed towards Harman Baweja?
@ Bhavesh
He was good but i didn’t get why he was needed in the first place. Yes, he and genelia have an important conversation but that could have been achieved by any of the other characters surrounding Genelia in the movie.
@Phoenix-
Yes, I know you liked ‘Main Hoona Na’ in parts…
@VPJ-
I am not surprised. Many movies have used the same plot device. But more for comic relief. Here, Naseer in the photo frame becomes an important instrument in character development. I don’t know how often that has happened.
@Rasik-
Yes, I saw the movie in a single screen theatre in Hyderabad. paid 50 bucks for it. Good fun. Suffered mosquitos though.
@golghosh
No idea man. Some said Salman Khan…etc…I have no clue….
@No .3
there are only a finite number plot devices in world of cinema that can be employed by directors. iam sure the interactive photo thing was not Balachander’s invention .i remember seeing in some old mehmood movie though i cant recall which.
anyway point is Abbas takes all oft-used cliches , plot devices , narrative styles etc and mixes up them and miracalously comes up with a breezy and a very entertaining rom com.
hence we are exclaiming ..Abbas ki Jai !
The movie tightened the collar of Rajput community.Thanks to abbas khan.