No Shanti, No!

Those of us, who love extravagant star casts, lavish sets and of course, Shahrukh Khan, will have a lot to look for in this latest Farah Khan flick, ‘Om Shanti Om’; though if at all you are one of those rare Indian movie goers, who try to grab some sense from the movies they watch, OSO will turn you down as much as any other usual bollywood movie ever has, with its supremely boring screenplay, juvenile ideas and to say the least, a ‘not good enough’ director.

After ‘Main Hoon Na’, it would have been stupid of me to expect anything that can even be called, ‘not bad’ from Mrs. Farah Khan (or Mrs. Shirish Kunder or whoever) and OSO maintains the class (third class) of Main Hoon Na quite efficiently. Nonetheless, ‘Main Hoon Na’ was a big hit at the box office and I, believe, so will be Om Shanti Om.

Coming to the movie, there is not much worth revealing about the plot; since it’s just another Farah Khan – Karan Johar – Aditya Chopra kind of a movie. It all starts with a very childish and insipid spoof of the 70’s Bollywood. Om Prakash (Shahrukh Khan), an aspiring star, is a junior artist who has dreams of making it big one day. He roams around with his friend, (I don’t remember the name of his character) Shreyas Talpade on the sets of various films and on various different roads, checking out posters of his dream girl Shantipriya (Deepika Padukone). Shantipriya is an established actress and the lover boy in Om Prakash finally gets a chance to have a glimpse of the stunning lady at the time of the premier of one of her films. The plot goes on like a typical bollywood story and many usual things as Om Prakash’s and Shantipriya’s death occur because of the antagonist of the film, Mukesh Hrishi (Arjun Rampal). The age - old idea of reincarnation is once again repeated in this movie and it’s as boring as it has become, lately. It seems that the director has desperately tried to implant humour in this ‘boring as Himesh’ (it’s a new phrase in Indian English) screenplay; and except for a few scenes that manage to get a grin on our face, she has failed miserably as the script turns out to be placid rather than amusing.

You, actually, have to sit and think to figure out what is appreciable in this movie. ‘Shahrukh Khan’ is the only answer that you may possibly get. He is charming as ever and his flamboyant screen presence is unavoidable once again. Deepika Padukone looked good as an actress but she still has a lot of scope to improve, nonetheless ‘gorgeous’ would be the right word to describe her. She comes across as a stunning, perfectly in-shape young lady who can make any young boy go crazy for her. Arjun Rampal has acted well; though without much of a scope. Shreyas Talpade, a fine actor who has proved himself in movies like ‘Iqbaal’ and ‘Dorr’, too, doesn’t really have a scope to act in this movie and same is the case with Kiron Kher. The script and screenplay are such that they just don’t allow any sort of creativity or talent to flow through.

The music is not great but most of the songs are hummable. ‘Ajab Si’ is the best song in the movie to me. Even after considering all the good things about the movie that I managed to figure out; I conclude that unfortunately those things are not good enough for the film to impress me. The film is neither entertaining nor intellectually appealing.

Despite of saying all this, I’m sure that OSO will be a big hit at the box office, largely because of the existence of a huge crowd puller called Shahrukh Khan and also because of our age old love for childish humour, repetitive ideas and the mere presence of numerous film stars, dancing their way to stupidity. It’s probably not always correct to blame the makers for making such a film. They will, obviously, make what sells. I, on the other hand, feel that it’ high time we changed our expectations from a film. We should rather look for something that appeals to our brains or something that’s truly creative or artistic than expecting larger than life characters, completely unrealistic screenplays, banal ideas or a hero that jumps from the 10^th floor of a building on a horse and rides away in style, without damaging either of the two - the horse and his own urinary system.

- Mihir Chitre
mihirmumbaikar@gmail.com