Naah..no way Imtiaz!
Why did you have to keep Jab We Met at the back of your fertile mind? Why did you have to squeeze in another Punjabi milieu? So much sameness, so much deja vu!
The opening titles, by the time they came up set up a very interesting premise, even a nice little question mark with a haggard Saif on a flight to somewhere?
Whoa, I thought…good and this kept me going for another 15 – 20 minutes into the film. But then…
Saif, while he delivered the urbane confused soul bit quite nicely, was acutely flawed in his “young Rishi” character. Because of the bicycle scenes, I was immediately reminded of “Malena”, but there was no intensity in Saif here, except a pumped up burly Sardar look, that did not get into the skin of a sardar character. In Malena, one looks at the boy after Monica Bellucci and immediately starts to identify with him, his infatuations and beliefs. The problem here was with Saif’s eyes. He has not been able to make it innocent and full of passion. The sikh guy who was supposed to be Kareena’s husband in Jab we Met did a far better act of a young lovelorn sikh. Also, the young sardar from OLLO! Man, that is how a sikh should be, in love, in life and in pursuit…of all things!
Actually, even in the film, one did not need to look further than Rishi Kapoor for understanding how a sikh character had to be delivered. I remember Maninder Singh here, laidback, unfit, graceless but a bundle of talent, likeable manner and always wanting to try, whether you wanted him to or not. The guy, when he lost his art of bowling, developed his unknown skill of batting to stay in the Delhi team…such are sikhs..dogged, determined. Imtiaz, palpably had written all this into his character sketches (Rishi Kapoor starts off as a machinist and ends up as a restaurant owner in UK), but never got round to making Saif deliver on all this. And all this while Saif is known to be a pretty hard working guy and it was his own production.
Then Deepika, she is good when she has that quizzical look on her face and then smiles. Actually, she is very good when she is silent. But, when she speaks, she is not that ethereal heroine that one wants to see on the big screen. She is just another girl delivering some lines in Hinglish. Mis-match. So, the tempo kept dropping right through the film when she came along. Also, the daaru piya hua scene did not cut…at all. Complete let down.
Here’s where I want to ask my principal question in this post? Was Deepika’s confession scene before she ran out of her two day old marriage supposed to be a humorous scene or was it a serious scene?
In any case, it was interesting because there was Deepika, all confused and blabbering. Rahul Khanna was also suitably irritated. And the audience including me were laughing. Imtiaz, if wanted to do just this, was brilliant. But if it was unintentional, then too, it was….well, brilliant…utna kaun sochta hai, hall mein…
But, the kal scenes and the aaj scenes were nicely spaced. Very episodic and propelled the thoughts of the audience towards the unification of the aaj couple and there Imtiaz scores with his cinematic treatment, gaining the ventricle of the viewer (OMG this sounded like Mango ppl).
Now, can I say a couple of things Saif and the art of the monologue?
In theatre, they say, a moment comes when the actor turns his face towards the audience and faces a moment of truth. In cinema, over the decades, we have had actors who delivered immortal stuff look straight at the camera.
Amitabh in Zanjeer, Deewar, Trishul, Namak Haraam and above all Anand.
Dilip Kumar in practically all his films, last being that precious gem Shakti.
Sanjeev Kumar, even in his comedy films, delivered classics looking straight at the camera, remember the ‘dichkaon’ scene from Angoor.
Kamal Haasan started out fabulously, but has lately gone overboard with his monologues, from Abhay onwards. Probably wants each of his muscle on his face to move individually with his spoken dialogue. Yeah, that could be a plausible reason.
Govinda also had in between done very well with such monologues. (OK guys, he has always been a guilty pleasure)
But personally, the art of pithy monologues, culminating in a whammer one liner, was perfected by Uttam Kumar (in his Bangla films)
Then India changed, around the time of Dil Chahta Hai and guess whose monologues, straight into the camera, did I like. Saif Ali Khan. Saw DCH numerous times just for his mumbling over the phone and that “takiya” screamer. Also, around the same time there was a “Kachche Dhaage” in which there was a scene where Saif shouts at a kid asking for money…again with the kid off screen and Saif had done wonderfully well.
So, we saw Saif do this a few times more. Note that Hindi cinema usually repeats what works. No questions. Gulp.
But here…here…don’t you think, it was done a wee bit more than probably was necessary, somewhere in belief that if there was a guy in Urban Indian cinema who could carry off such indecisive and unplotted monologue, it was he…
I dunno. You know. Hota hai. Great. But why. Kinds!
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
“Actually, she is very good when she is silent. But, when she speaks” – this is why people should not irritate imtiaz with the question why deepika and not kareena. he needed a heroine who would be silent and deepika is very good when she is silent.
so hopefully from now on all directors will keep her silent or dub her voice as was done in OSO.
Even in silence, she cannot get past the likes of Bina Rai, Waheeda, Sridevi or even Sushmita..naah, there is a long way to go there..
You know I was sarcastic :P The girl is wooden when she is silent and horrible when she speaks. She was decent in crying and performed better than her previous 3 movies.
Wonderful analysis boss..really…that’s what i wanted to write!!..I wanted to ask one question to Imtiaz Ali…Why Saif and Deepika?..She can only smile..but,acting forget it!!…And Saif..Take some rest yaar..
Thanks Girish, all the while I should always remember that this still was one of the better films this year, only that we expect a lot from Imtiaz..bus!
one of the better films, indraneel?? in which angle!!?? this is absolute pits
Calling bs on “how a sikh should be portrayed”. If anything, I’m sick of (no pun intended) of stereotypical punjabis.
Agree that Padukone needs work on her Hindi, she sounds like text to speech.
Disclaimer: discussing LAK in PFC is pointless and comparing it with the same parameters as valued by most people would be pointless, doubt the makers of LAK care if anyone here watched it. Saw it in a NYC, east village packed theater, show delayed cos manager had to ask people not to hold seats and accommodated people. So I get that my comment too is pointless.
Similar thing happened in Houston…people reserving seats…hall was jam packed on the first weekend..they will recover the money nevertheless…no matter how bad the movie is….just like Kambakht ishq….but hey comparing KI with LAK is like comparing chalk and whipped cream
@DPac..I agree with u man…it’s an average film!!..
thanks for spoilers. ran out of one day marriage. excellent stuff.
arre bhaiyon jwm jwm thi n lak lak hai… kion film ki ma behan kar rahe ho… its a pretty good movie… in the times of KI, jashn, luck… its a welcome relief…
@sriram – dude if its a movie it gets discussed on PFC… good/bad is another issue.
Yeah, good/bad is definitely another issue
@Rahul I know, I agree. Was making a point through apathy.