Jul 07, 2005 02:28 AM
2853 Views
(Updated Sep 10, 2005 10:08 PM)
A lot of times in the recent past, music is slated to sell a movie in many areas. RUN, for instance, starring the rising Abhishek and the cute Bhoomika, had a fantastic musical score but an age old formula of story ruined the movie at the BO. No one but the makers were to be blamed. Himesh Reshammiya went clear with his popular music. Himesh repeated history by providing Aashiq Banaya Aapne, the recent Emraan-Tanushree-Sonu Sood starrer with a fantastic musical score. However, the age-old deja vu concept of story telling led to the failure of this one too. BARSAAT---a sublime love story never seemed to be like any of these cases. The reason being that Bobby Deol was making a return after about half a year, and so was Bipasha. Priyanka is always a bankable young star to complete the triangle. Besides, BARSAAT's promotion promised it to be not only different from Bobby's old BARSAAT, but to also be more unique than all other movies based on the monsoon season.
However, as cliched as it sounds, BARSAAT turned out to be in the same category as RUN and ABA---it rested heavily on its popular musical score, and the rest Mr. Darshan opten for a done-to-death, impractical, out-of-date storyline. Perhaps it seemed that he was way too laidback to bank on the return of some of his stars as well as that ultra-popular composition of Nadeem Shravan. Well, that's a poor formula, for such cases have been failures in the past.
Take Mr. Darshan's Bewafaa itself---it did average business at the BO and avoided the flop status, yet, it was as childish, predictable, and impractical a movie that the critics might just want to throw up! Hey that reminds me that now that's I'm composing this review about 3 weeks after this movie released, I know that like Bewafaa, this one too has managed to do some business for Mr. Darshan, which again puts it into the category of undeserving successes like Bewafaa rather than disasters like RUN.
Let's get started. Arav (Bobby) is an ambitious car designer who falls in love with Anna (Bipasha) while working in South Africa---oops---USA man, they showed it to be USA while the credentials themselves insist that the location is South Africa. Now will someone tell me what is wrong with calling South Africa what it is---it is not a third world country, rather it's quite a progressive one, so why hide its identity. That can be plain offensive to the residents of that country. Besides, the drama mostly takes place in India, where Arav's past unfolds---his wife Kajal (Priyanka) is introduced who he now wants to divorce in order to marry Anna. Anna comes to India and their marriage is all set until the divorce is considered illegal for some childish reasons.
It (the divorce) never takes place either, haha---again for some ultra-childish reasons. The climax seems to be executed by a baby, an infant or a toddler who probably moved the reels around.
Technically, the movie is weak too. The frames are not attractive at all. South Africa is captured much more beautifully in some other flicks we know off. So therefore here it is just a weak bit of camerawork. Even India is captured as if one is viewing a period film---Karwa Chauth's extensivity, the kissed stone getting the mangoes, as well as some other childish superstitions prompt the contemporary viewer to hold his head and kick around for wasting time and money on something like this. Editing is ultra lose. It takes one all the evening to go through this movie that ultimately gives nothing as an experience. In addition, cinematography and placement of songs is also weak---in fact very weak.
The popular music suffers in that case. Even otherwise, the songs are popular I believe due to slick promotion. Barring the title song to some extent, and the best song of the movie---undoubtedly the melodious and grace-saving ''Mushkil Hai'' is the pick of the lot. Both Bobby and Bipasha also appear quite pretty in the song.
Direction, needless to say, is that of extremely poor quality. Thus, how can the performances be good.
Priyanka Chopra, undoubtedly a very promising young actress, is rather wasted in a very impractical and irritating role. Today, girls just don't force their love to marry them for the sake of their dying grandmother---I mean why destroy some lives in that case? Thus Priyanka's character is weak. The only positive thing is showing a middle class woman working on her own---the scene where she rejects Bobby's 10 thousand dollar check is worth applauding for the sake of the rising status of middle-class Indian women. Yet, Priyanka's performance, said to be the best part about the movie, is over-rated. She hardly has anything to do. Besides, her urdu-speaking fans---both Indian muslims as well as those back in Pakistan are bound to be offended when she refers to ''talaak'', the desi word for divorce, as that of Urdu, not of Hindi, because Hindi culture, as her character suggests, doesn't tolerate divorce. Well does Islamic culture allow that? Miss Priyanka's character needed some research for sure.
Bobby Deol is dashing and smashing. Yet, Arav as a character, just like Kaajal, has limited and undeveloped emotions that lead the character to have absolutely no sympathy. He seems to be a retard when he breaks his 7-Phere from Bipasha, only to run back to Priyanka, a girl he just ''divorced'' recently. What an amateurish characterization. His performance greatly suffers in this product, and he certainly shouldn't have picked this movie for his critics will surely label him as a misfit for genres besides action. I believe he could've picked a better movie to switch genres from action, because it is even better to pick another flop yet meaningful thriller like Jurm, rather than signing this pathetic movie.
Bipasha Basu is another highpoint besides the song ''Mushkil''. Along with NO ENTRY, BARSAAT makes way for her to display her potential completely and demonstrate how great her personality and screen-presence can be. The viewer craves to catch more of her than Priyanka! Definitely the show stealer among the cast as the supporting cast like Shakti Kapoor, and others are just wasted as retarded puppets.
Overall, Barsaat is a movie that doesn't break any norms and records besides those of insanity. How it did some business and got away with even above a 1 star from some good critics is surprising to me. It is certainly a candidate for the year's worst movie category, and if I could, I would've given it a zero star rating here, which I believe MS should consider having now for demented products like this. And hey, take it a definite no-no, Bobby is one of my fav. actors and I hammered this one so much, imagine how much you would if you're not a Bobby fan.
Do comment folks!
