The Only Man in Bollywood today…

…is perhaps Bipasha Basu, or Radhika or Shreya Rathod, call her what you want. If you do not want to watch Bachna Aye Hasseno, don’t. But if you are bored on a lazy afternoon do go and watch Bipasha’s performance. The movie is contemporary, at least an urban audience can identify with it though I am not very sure how many people actually are in a live-in relationship in Mumbai. Maybe there are people, maybe not but then that’s not exactly the point. In fact, right now I can not think of any point. Maybe that’s the point. ;)

The movie is a tribute to DDLJ. From the very beginning till the end, DDLJ keeps coming back. In fact, if they could have their way, they would have made the movie a tribute to quite a few of the Yash Raj films. The movie is great till the last 15 minutes when in order to have the typical happy ending of Indian movies you have the hero and the heroine getting back with each other, for no apparent reason whatsoever. The story is simple. Our dude, like most dudes, is unsure about commitment and marriage (and as my babe in my next seat, who came to the movie with a pretty irritating guy, commented – all men are Sus scrofa domesticas) and therefore breaks the heart of two women (Minisha and Bipasha) before finding his one true love in Australia. But she (Deepika) rejects him as she thinks about marriage on the same lines as he does. Now begins a journey of self discovery by Raj (Ranvir) who goes back to find the two women he hurt. The reason behind them getting back together though was completely over the head for me. At those logic defying moments I found myself often watching the movie for its exotic locales.

I liked Ranvir when he did Saawariya. I like him even better now. Apart from a few mannerisms he has decided to keep in every movie, he’s fresh and confident about his act. Guess that’s what stars think they must have – mannerisms. Deepika and Minisha if replaced by anyone else wouldn’t have made much difference to the movie’s appeal. But Bipisha’s was an act which stole the thunder and the show in the movie. Apart from the fact that she looked the most stunning amongst the three women, she also gave a performance of a lifetime - first as a love struck woman and then as one of the most successful but ruthless supermodels of the country and then as a woman torn between her past, present and future.

The other man in Bollywood today perhaps is King. Not King Khan but King Khiladi. Akshay Kumar has travelled a lot from his Khiladi days. Combining comedy with action, family drama with slapstick humour, he easily cruises into your heart as Happy Singh. The first half of the movie Singh in Kinng is a drag but things pick up in the second. It’s also heartening to see that Bollywood is learning to give more space to the co-actors who are not mere props. Both Sonu Sood and Ranbir Shorey are excellent. So are Javed Jaffrey and Neha Dhupia. I am upset with Om Puri with all the silly films he gets into so I will not even comment about him. Did you have the guts to watch him in Mere Baap Pehle Aap? I did. And the only performance which was worse than MBPA was perhaps in Buddha Mar Gaya. Anyway, we’re talking about Singh in Kinng.

There’s no story to tell about the movie. Kat is Queen, Akki is King and he is the helpful nice Punjabi munda. So you get a gist of the story. How does it matter what good he does? Will you believe if I tell you that the Australian Underworld is run by a group of Punjabis from the same Pind? And would you believe one man can convince them all to turn good? And who on earth will believe that Neha Dhupia will fall for Javed Jaffrey? Akki will do similar unbelievable things in the next movie. After all, “Dil agar saccha ho toh Rab sab kar de setting.” He must be a good man or maybe it’s a trick of that extra K. :)