Hypocrites Amongst Us

Finally I watched Veer. For the first time in life, I was swayed by public opinion and had lost the interest to watch the movie. And once again I realized how the people around me thought so very differently from the India around me. It was a Sunday evening 3 weeks after the release and yet Galaxy was full of people supposedly rooting for Salman Khan in a movie that has been dubbed as everyone as a flop.

This is where our hypocrisy comes forth. If you could have loved Troy, there is no way you could not have liked Veer. Yes, it has its flaws. The same song gets repeated whether he is wooing the Princess or when he’s marrying her or when he’s done killing her brother, well almost. In addition, I am sure any self-respecting Indian in the late 1800s did not dress in cowboy look-alike leather pants.

The storyline is by now known to everyone and this is the problem. People judge a movie by its reviews. Probably as we had gone with very low expectations, it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. The action sequences of Veer are great as the front benchers in Galaxy vouched. As Mithun and Salman started fighting their duel, there was silence all around me. Whenever Salman entered they clapped and cheered for him and to be fair this is the best opening for a period ‘filam’ I have seen. So where does this fail?

The movie misses two counts. First, the editing which could have been crisper. Secondly, the dialogues should have been delivered in a simpler manner but with a lot of depth in meaning. Unfortunately, the dialogues became hysterical with little meaning within them.

The other part was perhaps the ending. It left much to be desired. The build up to the climax fizzled out in the end. But like Wanted, this movie was a complete “Paisa Vasool”

Unfortunately the other movie that disappointed me was Rann. I had gone to see the movie with huge expectations. However, all I saw were stereotypes and expected storylines. While there were fantastic performances from Sudeep and Ritesh Deshmukh. Amitabh unfortunately has started to slowly take on the role of Morgan Freeman of Bollywood.

Rann was not a bad movie. But when one goes to see a RGV film, one still expects a Satya, a Kaun. Someone correctly said, if this were a Madhur Bhandarlar movie, it would have been so much better. He tells us reality stories better than anyone does these days.

I am worried about King Khan. For the first time he is acting someone who is not completely perfect. I just hope he keeps his performance restrained. I am tired of stereotypes.