RAB NE BANA DI JODI

It's been more than 60 years now that we got out of the clutches of the British Raj but I'm wondering what plans Yashraj has.

I've lost count of the number of Yashraj movies that have taken the public for granted. This movie just lengthened that list. I'd read this somewhere - Finally the much awaited and the biggest movie of the year has hit the theatres. And I say it has hit them bad. The tremors, however, will be felt 'haule haule'.

Based in Amritsar, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi is a love story of Surinder Sahni aka Suri (Shahrukh Khan) and Taani (Anushka Sharma). Government servant Suri, though an introvert, is the image of the ideal Indian man- well mannered, sincere, honest, level-headed, and everything good that you can imagine. Taani (Anushka Sharma), on the other hand, is a flamboyant, fun-loving, outspoken, affable girl who is all set to get married to her fiancé.

Taani's father suffers an attack due to the unexpected death of Taani's fiancé, and in his final moments, requests his favourite student Suri to marry his daughter. Caught in such an awkward and unavoidable situation, they get married and start leading an unhappy and loveless life. They don't talk much, use different rooms, rarely see each other in the day. Taani is holed up in her room for most of the time when Suri is home. Taani, however, realising that Suri cannot be blamed for whatever happened promises him that she'll be a good wife but won't be able to love him ever.

One day Taani reads about a 'Dancing Jodi' competition being organised in the city and, having a passion for dancing, wants to participate in it. Suri, who by now has fallen in love with her, allows her to get enrolled for the competition.

Having had no luck with love till date, Suri tries to impress Taani in the 'Bollywood' way as he finds out that she is a fan of Hindi movies. Thinking that this could be the way to express his love for her, Suri decides to change his appearance with the help of his best friend Balwinder Khosla aka Bobby (Vinay Pathak).

In his new avtaar, Suri becomes Raj, who is a witty, cheerful, very flashy and a little crazy Jat. Raj joins the dancing classes too and way too luckily becomes Taani's partner. During the course of their preparation for the final night of the mega dance event Raj tells Taani that he loves her. As days pass by, Taani starts realising that Raj is the man that she'd rather have as her life-partner than the uber-boring Suri.

Does Suri tell Taani the truth?, What step does Taani take?, Does Suri change himself for Taani? - are the questions that you might have to pay for.

This movie might look different, in the way that it is a story about a married couple whereas the usual Yashraj flicks deal with youngsters falling in love and the story moves forward. But it is not. It is the love story that you and I have come across countless times. Its portrayal, however, is a little different but not tough to predict. It does not have those exotic foreign locales but then all Yashraj movies have everything 'grand' to them. This one was no different - a lot of people on the screen, Suri's huge ancestral home with bare-brick walls, use of a lot of bright colours (yellow especially), etc. One thing that will prove to be different in this movie is the music. The usual Yashraj films have 'hummable-for-a-few-months' tunes but Rab Ne has forgettable music, let alone the lyrics. 'Haule Haule'  is the only track which makes you tap your feet.

Let's not draw any more comparisons and presume that this movie was different. Then, it had a lot of unwanted scenes. Poor editing let the movie go beyond 150 minutes (which itself is a lot). And with such poor direction, the movie certainly called for two intermissions. Scenes like 'Taani riding the bike to take revenge from a dance competitor', 'Taani and Raj in adjacent changing rooms discussing what a girl really wants', etc. made no sense in the movie. The multi-starrer song "Phir milenge chalte chalte" looked like a piece of one jigsaw puzzle fitted into some other. Probably, the idea of coming up with this novel song (the lyrics comprises names of various Hindi movies) struck the makers after they'd finished shooting the entire movie and then they shoved it in somewhere, cluelessly.

It takes a lot to get good actors to overact. To even try and say that SRK is a good actor would seem like an insult to him. Aditya Chopra manages, every single time, to make him overact. Anushka Sharma is good looking, pretty camera-friendly and also delivered, more or less, what the character demanded of her, but as a friend aptly put it - She'd be better off with TV serials. She is certainly not heroine material. The only actor worth his salt was Vinay Pathak with his comic timing. SRK joined Pathak in giving some humourous moments which were scarce and scattered throughout the movie. 

Aditya Chopra was trying to create magic using the old, forgotten, worn-out formula of making love stories. The dialogues were predictable, even the scenes were to a certain extent. It was as if the movie is waiting for your command. If this is the kind of love stories he has to offer then I'd request him to rather release 15 sequels of Dhoom but not try his hands at something like this.

When the public in movie halls starts throwing funny remarks on scenes which demand some serious attention, it is an indication of how uninteresting the drama on screen is. Today, most of the movies crash at the box office because they fail to establish a link between the reel and the real world. 10-15 years ago Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi would've done very well; wonders, maybe. But the audience to cater to is different today and all this movie does after a certain time period is cause suffocation ad nauseam.

(4.5/10)