Movie Review: 'Chennai Express'

Rohit Shetty is back with his comic lens. This time around it is SRK’s turn to bring the joker cap on; he does and yes, he does justice too with his buffoonery to the level he best can. The movie starts with Rahul (SRK), a decent, middle-aged, single and craving-to-mingle Mumbaikar planning a trip to Goa when his destiny has already decided a bumpy South India trip for him. He brings Meena (Deepika) on board and then the movie along with the train gets hijacked by the outlaws of Chennai. It makes me feel sorry even to remember the scenes. Request you to see the trailer as it exactly tells you what the movie has to offer and if that is all to be offered then I leave it to your imagination what then over two hours are stuffed with.

Unlike her Cocktail character, Deepika is seen wrapped up throughout the movie, mainly in saris, and looks very elegant. She very successfully puts on a character of a confident, caring, religious, and freedom-loving Tamilian girl who struggles against her father’s wish to marry her off to a local, burly goon. But SRK is a hero who when spreads out his arms, charms girls and when swings his arms, whacks villains even though he is barely half the size of his mammoth opponents. Even a kindergartner of current generation will tell that SRK will be able to apply ‘Ek chutki sindoor’ (this time) and get hitched with the dimpled beauty.  It’s a poor and predictable story with trivial twists and no brain usage. In fact, you will add to the comedy if you dare to turn your brains on. As it is a Rohit Shetty work, there is no news that you will have cars flying, short non-vulgar comic lines, and scenes-capturing through top views. His attempt of infusing humour in communication through bollywood songs is well received. Moreover, Rohit seems to have done a good homework in livening up the rawness of the southern baddies. However, overdose of Tamil can really be off-putting for the outlanders. Couple of references of his past movies help SRK in adding to the fun he is supposed to deliver. Putting aside my personal liking for Deepika, the only pertinent adjective comes to my mind is ‘fantabulous’ for her performance. You will want to hear more bits of South-Indian Hindi from this charming chick. The movie scores well in the music department as almost all songs are hummable and form a grip with the moving story.

On the whole, it’s a good commercial attempt to capitalize on the festival and cash in on it. The movie mostly is a drag. I would solely blame the feeble script. You might feel sympathetic to SRK for going overboard in convincing that he can be funny. Deepika will manage to get you some smiles and the songs will give you some breaks from the nonsense you are trapped in. Don’t overestimate the power of the cast. Ready, Steady, Po far away from the theatres.

Movie Review: 'Cocktail'

It’s a typical Indian love-triangle story wherein whoever goes saintly and does sacrifice, is rewarded at last. It’s the same old wine in a new bottle with an attractive label. New bottle is freshness in approach and attractive label is script-supportive eye-candy.

The movie starts with a seasoned flirt, Gautam (Saif) leering at an air-hostess like a trapped dog at a bone. He is a successful charmer staying in London and has always managed to get beautiful babes to play with at his will. He is a man who doesn’t spare ladies even during his professional times. This real jerk of the first order bumps into a lovely lady, Meera (Diana) who is a fresh-faced Indian beauty with all traditional Indian values and understanding. He tries his luck with her but she ducks him and gets rid of him like one does to cow dung stuck to his shoes. Gautam on one hand is a kind of guy who often exhibits himself as a proud womanizer, who doesn’t believe in melodrama and frequently shows during the movie that he’s quite aware of all forms of it. Meera on the other hand is a ditched wife in a strange city. She stumbles across Veronica (Deepika) in a ladies’ room and gets a bedroom for herself in Veronica’s house. Veronica is supremely out-of-order daughter of a rich father, preferring to wear only tops in the house, is a wild party animal and the sexiest siren around. Meera and Veronica, despite their polar-opposite dispositions become best pals.

When known from Meera about the desperation Gautam has for girls, Veronica gives that salivating dog a chance and finds a good guy in him. Promptly she brings him in her house and gives him the access to her bed. Gautam lives the best boon that can ever be experienced on earth - staying with two sexy ladies in his sinking youth; sleeping with Veronica and trying to get mixed up with Meera who is already married. As a menacing monster, Gautam's mom (Dimple Kapadia) pops up surprisingly along with her brother (Boman Irani) to get her son married. To take her into confidence that her ageing prince has already chosen an Indian girl who is cut out for his family, Saif convinces Meera to be his girl. During the drama, Gautam gets clarity that he is a jerk with a heart. Meera ignores Gautam all the times before finally falling for him by his charms and for a change, genuine compliments. Parallelly, Veronica realizes of her growing love for Gautam and admits to him. But he, shameless as always, flatly denies of it and goes for Meera. Veronica goes typical heart-broken lover way but at the end, she makes herself ready to hoot for his ex-bedmate and ex-roommate.

I am happy to see Deepika emitting a lot of performance as a leggy bombshell with her wanton attitude. Most times, Saif does justice to his joker-stuff, mainly in the first half and is actually funny. Bratty character is well-suited to Saif’s personality and a bit ill-suited to his age but he justifies his character fairly well with some real acting. Dimple's work is okay and not worth mentioning. Boman as usual is a fun as Saif's maternal uncle. Even though Deepika is a show-stopper, Diana looks stunningly beautiful and does a very good job. Her flying hair strands across her smiley, innocent face during ‘Tumhi ho bandhu’ is a still that is capable of competing with any of Deepika’s generous skin-show feast. The movie doesn’t allow you to know more about the characters except their typical characteristics and their random mingling. So you can blame the script which looks half-heartedly written. The movie is a fun to watch in most pieces of it but plot-less story doesn’t hold them tightly enough and gives you whatever is cooked at the end.