Jan 16, 2010 10:25 AM
2546 Views
An underdog’s struggle to make it big . group of young kids. Reality show win for the climax. All of these seem like perfect ingredients for a blockbuster, but inspite of spirited performances from it’s main leads, and it’s many bright moments, Chance pe Dance, somehow just misses the mark.
The sum of the positives, never really adds up, and in fact there are a few negatives too.
The music for one, is surprisingly mediocre for a musical movie - inspite of 4 music directors sharing the credit, all the songs sound the same, and the lyrics are hard to remember. Another big negative is the almost after thought addition of the young children’s track, which ends up sticking out like a sore thumb.
And then there is the complete absence of any fleshed out supporting characters, who contribute to the story line. The indifferent father also, very conveniently starts spouting Punjabi close to the film’s climax.
But to begin at the beginning, Shahid is a struggling actor in Mumbai. In his brilliantly acted and equally brilliantly shot, opening scene, we see Shahid’s morning routine as a struggler. Everyone agrees that he is very talented, but somehow or the other he just misses out on a ‘chance’. Along the way . he meets choreographer Genelia who ends up being his girl friend … he teaches dancing to a group of school kids … he gets kicked out of his rented home and has to live in his car… and finally he participates in a reality show, whose result is fairly obvious.
All the scenes between Shahid and Genelia - comic, romantic and dramatic - work very well because of the easy chemistry between these two very natural actors. Shahid also has a couple of monologues, which are well written, and very well acted - which do leave a solid impact.
The set piece dance numbers are ok, and the music is also ok - but when we have seen much better song picturisations in love stories, a musical likeCpD needs to do a lot better than just ‘ok’. And btw, why does the movie completely dis-jointedly open with a song - and then go to a more conventional opening credits?
All in all, Chance pe Dance fails to do just that. It fritters away a good storyline because of a lazy script, absence of supporting characters, tired direction and under par music. But there are quite a few bright moments, and the lead actors are also in fine form - for which we give Chance pe Dance a 2.5.
