Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!

The second film of any successful director is always eagerly awaited and very few of them succeed to recapture the magic as their first one did. Director Dibakar Banerjee brings an outstanding light hearted comedy of a super-chor and manages to reassure his success of Khosla ka Ghosla.

Welcome to Delhi and meet Lucky. A Sikh kid who manages to steal for his need and comfort, masters the act as he grow up to be a professional chor. What makes Luck different is his ambition to live a high-class life as fast as he can, may be in the very next minute of his desire.

The story is a simple narrative of Lucky’s personal and professional life. He remains in focus and virtually is in all the frames making each one worth enjoying. The screenplay is very interestingly woven with sharp cuts between the scenes without losing focus from the plot. The dialogues are fresh, believable and extremely funny. Background score connects to the visual very well. Both the music and the dialogues hold the film in and around Delhi. It is very interesting to see the director from East-India manages to capture, inscribe and present the gestures of the Northern Indian with ease.

As of acting is concern, credit goes to Manjot Singh who plays young Lucky. He brilliantly shapes the character making it perfectly believable. Neetu Chandra looks pretty as college girl. Also worth watching are her onscreen family members – mother and sister (sorry I don’t know their names) who are excellent to their lines. Archana Puran Singh is perfect in her short role as a North-Indian housewife. Paresh Rawal handles all the three roles with confidence – one Lucky’s father, two Lucky’s mentor boss and three Lucky’s business partner cum Veterinary doctor. And finally welcome Abhay Deol, the new age Amol Palekar cum Farooq Shaikh who dares to do different and successfully shows his talent right from Socha Na Tha to Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! He executes the role with such a charm that you start liking a thief.

What I found interesting is the brilliance of the director to use Paresh Rawal in three roles which literally and metaphorically symbolizes Lucky’s father. First Paresh Rawal is Lucky’s biological father who always speak rudely. Second he is mentor father figure, who uses Lucky’s potential to make him professional thief and third he is a satire to the popular hind proverb – Maine tera bhi Baap hoo, where Paresh Rawal is a business partner who smartly cheats out Lucky of a business deal.

Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, is pitch perfect when it comes to situational comedy. It is worth watching for its witty Delhi dialogues, very authentic characters and wonderful narrative. Make sure you grab Lucky before he steals your music system, photoframe, car, television set, jewelry, spoons, toaster, vacuum cleaner, or your Pomeranian. Go catch him.

Yuvvraaj

Yuvvraaj has more to ‘show’ than to ‘communicate’. So much is lost in ‘showing’ that the motto of the film was spoken out in front of the camera - “Independent you live, united you stand”.

Yuvvraaj is a decent film but not in time. The continuity jump, the shift of locations and the cliché Hindi subtitles makes the films loose to wander around. It is an opportunity lost to capture the essence of A R. Rahman’s brilliantly crafted music. The heavy on-screen a presentation of the songs fails to bring out the required emotions and feelings. All kind of musical instruments with various properties likes masks, feathers, animals, and dozens of extras makes it fully crammed.

Deven (Salman Khan) is in love with Anushka (Katrina Kaif) but cannot marry her cause her father (Boman Irani) finds him good for nothing. Cut. Deven’s father dies leaving huge property to the elder sons Gyanesh (Anil Kapoor) - a mentally retarded (debatable) but musically brilliant child. So the rest two brothers (Deven + Danny – Zayed Khan) teams up as partners to fight for their rights. As for Deven the soul motive is to gain Anushka by improving his status. Thus Yuvvraaj essentially becomes a tale of three brothers, who discover their love after hating each other for years. And yes every thing happens around music. Ya it seems so.

Salman Khan has a dual responsibility to play an unpredictable lover and an unaided
Brother and performs well enough to the part written. Anil Kapoor is not given much space to grow and Zayed Khan plays spoiled brat with ease though he has nothing much to do in the film. Katrina-Salman chemistry does have some fine moments and even Boman Irani handles his side fairly well.

Yuvvraaj is loosely written screenplay with no powerful scene to bring out the relationship bonding. The first half of the film is much waste. It did stiff up in the second half but end ups with an old-fashioned finish. The script fails to maintain the passion and ambition developed at some point in the movie. The Moulin Rouge set and European landscapes are good one time watch. The highlight is the music which sadly can be enjoyed on an mp3 player.

It seems through Yuvvraaj, Subhash Ghai made a literal translation of his image as a ‘Showman’. Watch it if you have to.

Dostana

So, what to write… Dost-aa-na or Dost-ja-na. Let’s put it this way, Dostana is a visual treat (as all the Chopra’s and Johar’s films are in the recent past). A larger than life Felix. Can call this as India’s first gay commercial movie? No idea, but we can surely say that it has a gay subject as the main plot.

Problem- Larger than life feel of the film is so prominent that the content is sincerely missed out. This has effected on every portions of the film, be it the story, screenplay or cinematography. The canvas with beautiful fresh breezy look of the Miami Beach, the wonderful apartment (which is hard to believe that anyone can rent), the fresh color pallet (both in terms of location and attire) are the prominent to look at. Everything from costume to furniture is so ‘Designer’ that it sucks after some point. The film has some clean and fresh satires on the gay matter. A super gripping pace in the first half, brilliant performance and screen presence by all the three leads (be it their dream sequence or the song) grip you up, but none can hold you till the end. The second half kinds of become cheap comedy ripping-of some Bollywood movies like K2H2, TZP or the debate on Was Gabber gay? Come on guys, it is television that makes parody on Sholay. Films are no Comedy Circus or Laughter Challenge competition. Need to find something original here.

Anyways, John (Kunal a photographer) and Abhi-shake (Sam-eeerrrr a male nurse) wins an apartment with a lie of being gay couple but looses Priyanka (Neha a magazine sub-editor) to Bobby (Abhimanyu a chief editor). Both Abhi-John feels affection for Priyanka and so play dirty games on each other and further on Bobby to get her. Then at the end – a realization that they are the really best buddies having a special Dostana between them. Oh yes didn’t I tell you they become best friends in JUST one song! ‘Holy crap’ as American might say, but Indian cinema’s has done more than that, they have the capabilities to grow a small kid to macho man in just one song, or to start the song with a marriage and end it with a new born baby or even a generation leap in just 4 minutes. Yes only we (read Bollywood) can do it. And that is what I would call as ‘Pace’ of Indian Cinema.

Debutant director Tarun Mansukhani has tried to hold the film very glowingly till the interval but then the script somehow becomes lousy. You can feel that it is losing grip, and finally the end becomes so miserable that it is clearly seen that the director stretched it just to incorporate the kiss between the boys.

Much said and done, I think the film is just a one-time view for its look-good factor (a visual treat). No matter if you are gay or straight you have beautiful and sexy looking Priyanka on one side and super cool looking dude John showing his bum on the other side - the choice is yours!

A Start...

Friends,

As you know, that I like to talk about films (or say I am good for nothing and so I comment on films)

Whatever the case, here is the START of my Film Review Blog (though I am not a writer)

I hope you must have seen the film Dostana this weekend! Yes or No, my first film review will help you being critical on the film or you might hate my writing.

In any case, please comment on it.

Happy Reading

Anand Ujawane