I, Me & Myself

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Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
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Sunday, November 28, 2010

Break Ke Baad: Movie Review

How About Giving The Audience a Break.


BREAK KE BAAD
*ing Imran Khan, Deepika Padukone, Sharmila Tagore
Music: Vishal Shekar
Directed by: Danish Aslam


Lilette Dubey is walking around among racks of clothes with an assistant.

A young girl comes up to her holding a blouse and complains,
"This is too loose.”

With a perfect mix of exasperation and derision in her voice, Lilette deadpans
“Someone get her some bigger boobs.”

Such a terrific line deserves a much better movie.


Break ke Baad is essentially about 2 losers.


Gulati (Imran) who is a sad little clingy puppy and Aaliya (Deepika) who is a lying scheming bitch.

It’s hard therefore to warm to such characters.

Obviously inspired by the Adi Chopra- Karan Johar school of filmmaking, this is a poor imitation with even poorer characters.

During an extended title sequence we see the 2 grow up as children when they shared Mr. India dialogues to their teenage years where they both jump on trampolines (here a young Imran is played by the cute kid from Kuch Kuch and Fanaa who has now grown into an awkward, lanky teen with a surprisingly hairy back).


Then come the lead pair.
Imran as a sentimental romantic who drives a yellow beetle and who ought to grow some balls and Deepika as a deflowered bitch who smokes cigars and calls her mother by her first name.

Changing gender characteristics must have seemed great on paper but is a total misfit when executed on screen.

Deepika has long legs. Seriously long legs. And that’s always an asset to have when our acting isn’t very good. Flaunt your legs to distract from your acting.
Ask Bipasha, she’s been doing it for almost a decade now.

So when Deepika tries to be sassy and comes across as sour-pussy just ignore her and focus on her legs.
If you really like your girls sassy, get a DVD instead and watch Jab We Met.

And which young Indian calls her mother (Sharmila Tagore as Ayesha) by her first name?

That’s not sassy, that’s just bad upbringing.


 The only good part about this mother-daughter story is that their being muslim is never made obvious. Infact till Sharmila talked about her ‘Abbu & Amma’ I hadn’t even thought of them as Mozzys. For a Hindi film this is certainly a big deal. After all isn’t that how we live our lives? Thank god for small mercies.


Imran helps his father run a cinema and seems bored doing so while Deepika wants to be an actress which her mom disapproves of. The mom seems pretty open minded and modern so I was not really sure why she disapproved? Maybe having been a superstar herself, she could see that her daughter’s acting abilities were limited.
Maybe…
Who knows?
Frankly, who cares?

Anyway she goes off to study Mass Comm at the Gold Coast University and puppy dog follows her there when he suspects she maybe be being screwed ‘in queue’.

Initially he drives taxis and even works at some forklift operation inside the airport. Driving License, Security Clearance… what’s that? Bollywood has never heard of these things.

Anyway there he finds his true calling and becomes a chef and opens many restaurants.

She meanwhile walks across a stage at a college play as an Egyptian (but dressed as a Greek) and gets offered an international film because, as the casting director helpfully informs us, they need an Asian character. Never mind the fact that while shooting the film she seems to be dressed more like an African safari than ‘Asian character’.
Once again people this is Bolywood so screw you for looking for reason and plausibility.
Characters here don’t have enough money for rent but get a beachside villa for 100$ a month. They fly business class to and from Australia like they were going from Chandni Chowk to Connaught Place.

 But by this time you are past caring…... About 2 ½ hours into a movie if your nachos have more crunch than the storyline….its usually not a good sign.

At one point when Imran is gloomily sitting after a break up, Lilette sighs at the drama queen and mutters.


“I blame these directors who keep re-making Devdas and turning our youth into such miserable characters”

Maybe she should look at blaming some other movies.

Afterall Devdas has only been remade thrice.

This DDLJ inspired trend however, seems to be never ending.

Kuch Kuch Hota Tha…… Aaj kal…. kuch bhi nahi.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous4:32 pm

    Must be one of the best reviews i've read... funny, inciteful and very very smooth.... keep it up.... i dont know you but i know i like what you write - G

    ReplyDelete