January 01, 2010

All ij not well, sir ji

Oh, yes this is an obvious reference to the now revered movie by our own Mr Khan, who has also in past given us unforgettable movies like Mangal Pandey, Ghajini, block buster Raja Hindustani and not to forget Mela.

I just watched the movie and I am surprised why it is Chetan Bhagat who is crying over the not being give credit and not SRK. To begin with the obvious - Narayan Shankar comes back as the head of a top engineering college and this time around with a sort of Einstienish look (No one ofcourse found what they ever taught in Gurukul), ofcourse since this was an adaptation - there were a few changes - unfortunately love was not the main theme, his son commits suicide here and not the daughter, there were fewer songs and sadly the only person who played any musical instrument commits suicide soon afterwards.

You could instantly relate to the movie this time around, especially if you have ever been in an engineering college. I still remember how my friend kept the picture of Salma Hayek in my wallet so keep me from committing suicide because of the results coming that week.

Well, Mohabattein was not the only SRK movie which Hirani happened to "take inspiration" from. The similarity between Madhvan's dialogue with his father and DDLJ was only a co-incidence - and so was "Ja Beta, Jee le apni zindagi", well give me a break. 

Coming back to Chetan Bhagat - I happened to write a long comment his blog where he had told his side of the story about how "they" cheated him etc. I guess I should have seen the movie before telling him how he should fight for his rights etc. This is what I would've written after seeing the movie:
"Dear CB, I am so relieved that saw 3-idiots and made yourself aware about how suicide attempts can really kill you if you are not the hero's best friend. And, I think you should be very glad that they put your name so far below that nobody could even find it."

Ok, there were good moments. Kareena proved that she could be act drunk far better than any of the guys, Sharman was good and was funny in whatever little bit of the movie he wasn't supposed to be crying, Madhavan did a great job of being invisible (only if he was not narrating the whole thing). Not to mention Rancho's amazing skills of creating a vaccum pump with an electronic digital display showing the pressure was outstanding and then delivering the baby! The baby coming to life on "All izz well" truly blew my heart away

Well, it is not because of any of the things I said above that I did not like the movie. I do not think they had enough grasp on the subject, neither they did have enough points to make - which is probably why they went up and down from Shimla to Laddakh to Manali to Laddakh through half the movie. Either I am from a different planet or there are really people taking promises from their friends that they wudnt commit suicide when results were out.

I am not sure why Rancho always topped the class - why he wrote so many great papers and was going to make such an important deal with whatever person. I am disappointed not because this was that bad a movie - but because it had the potential to be so much more! You can overlook a lot of stuff done to make it a commercial success, but a movie preaching revolution in education system cannot end with making the school teachers look like losers - all is definitely not well.

Among other things, I am also confused about all the changes in engineering college hostels. Do they take really a bath in engineering colleges now? In our days, we'd only hv time for a run (to the lecture hall) after we woke up, those of us who actually did.

(Edited)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ha ha! Good point...I had several O-God-here-we-go-again moments in the cinema hall myself...