Release date:
|
October 24, 2014
|
Director:
|
Farah Khan
|
Cast:
Language:
|
Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika
Padukone, Abhishek Bachchan, Sonu Sood, Boman Irani, Vivaan Shah, Jackie
Shroff, Cameos: I counted 10
Hindi
|
‘Narendra Modi’ makes a
guest appearance in Happy New Year. Those
few seconds, to my mind, exemplify director Farah Khan’s signature: cheeky,
many things to many people, designed to attract attention, and definitely not – that word most people, including many
of her fans, mindlessly use to describe her cinema – mindless.
The cleverness of that passing
scene lies in the fact that a Modi bhakt
may well interpret it as mainstream Bollywood’s flattering acknowledgement of
their idol’s unmissable presence in the country’s news landscape, whereas a diehard
Modi critic could see it as an oblique message about his penchant for appropriating
anything and everything that can be seen as a national occasion. Methinks
there’s nothing mindless about a film that can achieve that fine balance.
TEASER KHATAM, FULL-LENGTH TRAILER
ABHI BAAKI HAI MERE DOST...
In short, Happy New Year (HNY) serves up some good ol’ Farah Khan-style entertainment. As
with their earlier films together, this one too is designed as a platform for
every aspect of Shah Rukh Khan’s larger-than-life screen persona: he headlines
the story, sings, dances, beats up bad guys, gets beaten up with a purpose,
romances a beautiful woman, makes us laugh and cry.
The effectiveness of
this Khan & Khan combination is the best evidence of that thing called director-actor
chemistry. The same Farah who hit the bull’s eye with the laughathons Main Hoon Naa (2004) and Om Shanti Om (2007) – both Shah Rukh-starrers
– also helmed that damp squib Tees Maar
Khan starring Akshay Kumar in 2010. HNY
is fun if you do not mind the loudness (in tone, colour and decibels), the high-strung
nature of its emotions and the manner in which it unabashedly manipulates our
tear ducts. For a while post-interval the film slows down, but it picks up again and then there's no looking back. One caveat though…
Here’s how Team
Farah-SRK’s films stand in descending order of quality for me: Om Shanti Om, Main Hoon Naa, HNY. And
here’s how I’d rank SRK’s last three out-and-out comedies in descending order
of quality: Om Shanti Om, Chennai Express, HNY. This is why…
TRAILER KHATAM, REVIEW
SHURU...
HNY is the story
of Charlie (SRK) who puts together a motley bunch of seeming regular Joes to
steal a cache of diamonds. Because we Indiawaale
are like this wonly, a lust for moolah can’t be their sole motivation. And so
each one has a maa/baap/parivaar/dosti/izzat-related back-story spurring them on. Charlie’s Angels are, in
order of appearance: Captain Jagmohan Prakash (Sonu Sood), Tammy Irani (Boman
Irani), Rohan Singh (Vivaan Shah), Nandu Bhide (Abhishek Bachchan) and Mohini
Joshi (Deepika Padukone). The gang need to get to the finals of the World Dance
Championship in Dubai to get a shot at stealing the precious stones.
Political correctness
for appearances’ sake has never been Farah’s goal. That’s not a bad thing if
you know how not to cross the line from irreverence to downright crudeness. Those
who love the American TV shows Two Broke
Girls and The Big Bang Theory as
much as I do will know what I mean. HNY
inoffensively stereotypes and/or pokes fun at Parsis, Malayalis, Koreans, older
people, non-English-speakers, gays and other groups with disarming equitability
of impudence.
Hats off to Farah, her co-writers
Althea Kaushal and Mayur Puri for zeroing in on a man’s illiteracy as a source
of wit without being hurtful (watch Nandu giving autographs to his fans). As
soon as we are told that Tammy gets fits, I began worrying that this would lead
to a mockery of his ailment because, well sadly, that’s what Bollywood tends to
do. Instead, HNY draws on his illness
to deliver a moving example of teamwork when I was least expecting it.
In every other instance,
when a character has a weakness, we are invited to laugh with the person not at them.
In contrast, the treatment of Mohini is jarring. Her style of speaking is hilarious,
her soft corner for English is a hoot, but the writers are highly insensitive
in the position they take on a woman driven by poverty to dance at bars before
lascivious men. Charlie’s contempt for her is cringe-worthy (at one point he even
calls her “breast-taking” instead of “breathtaking”! eww!); he does not regret
his misogyny (towards Mohini) and his classism (towards Nandu and Mohini) or apologise
for being a pig (I guess a Hindi film hero can’t be shown deigning to say sorry
to a mere woman); and it’s inexplicable that we’re supposed to see his redemption
– as she does – in his kindness to someone else. Are we to forget his obnoxiousness
– as she does – because he does her the favour of falling in love with her?
Worse than his attitude is the fact that this behaviour towards Mohini is out
of character for the otherwise likeable Charlie. A pity that the only downright
offensive ‘humour’ in HNY comes from lazy
writing.
The discomfiting
Charlie-Mohini equation is not the only disappointment regarding the heroine. Deepika
looks stunning, dances like a dream and is captivating in every frame she gets, but the problem is, she doesn’t get that many frames. She makes her first appearance about
55 minutes into the film, and then too she is given far less to do than you
might expect for a woman emerging from a year in which she played characters
standing shoulder to shoulder with her heroes in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, Chennai Express and Ram-leela. It is a measure of Deepika’s charisma
and talent that she displays her versatility even in this limited role.
The Shah Rukh we see in HNY is not the Shah Rukh of his stage
years, the natural actor who peeped out in Chak
De! India, Swades or even My Name Is Khan. Here we get SRK with
all the quirky mannerisms that seem to floor his fans, and in that avatar he
comes out all guns blazing. That’s disappointing, but inescapable I guess in a
film like this. Wish SRK would realise though that he is nice and dignified with
a beard in the first part of the film; a look far better suited to his age than
the pancake-coated, smooth-faced boy-man appearance of the second half.
The supporting actors
are all effective in their roles, though the most interesting performance comes
from Abhishek Bachchan whose comic timing is fast becoming his USP. Sonu Sood
looks hot, and it is interesting to see the female gaze on him and Shah Rukh. Sonu’s
bare body in particular is displayed to us with a sense of humour that matches
Abhinav Kashyap’s touch in Dabangg. Those
who take a simplistic view of human objectification should see the manner in
which Farah’s eye and cinematographer Manush Nandan’s camera embrace the bodies
of the two men and Deepika in this film; then contrast it with the leering scrutiny
of, for instance, every nook and cranny on Mallika Sherawat’s body in the ‘item
song’ Jalebi bai in Double Dhamaal.
Vishal-Shekhar’s music
for HNY is unremarkable when heard
outside the film, but the songs fit well into the narrative and manage to press
all the buttons they’re clearly meant to press in the departments of humour,
romance and flag-waving, chest-thumping, emotion-inducing patriotism.
Team Farah-Shah Rukh are
capable of much better in the over-the-top genre that they favour together. Happy New Year is a step down from Om Shanti Om, but if you enjoy boisterous
entertainment that is still not entirely mindless, it’s worth a visit.
What works for HNY is that it is unrelentingly
unapologetic about everything it does, including a product placement that is
rubbed in our faces (same brand that Chennai Express endorsed), almost as if it is spoofing the very concept of product
placements while also making money from it. This impertinence is what makes HNY entertaining. In spite of all my misgivings,
I enjoyed it.
Rating
(out of five stars): **1/2
CBFC Rating (India):
|
U
|
Running time:
|
180 minutes
|
PS: Don’t skip the closing credits. Four
pleasant surprises await you.
No comments:
Post a Comment