Aug 17, 2006 04:24 PM
1636 Views
When my wife suggested we should see KANK in the very first week, I was a bit apprehensive mainly because of the seven year i... and the price of t he ticket. We have been married only for 7 years and already she has started collecting advice on potential marital problems. Also I had read sufficiently on KANK and was afraid it may give her ideas. Ours was an arranged marriage and we found love in marriage and not before. Now you know how I was feeling when I surfed the net for the suspense ending so that I could prevail upon her not to see it. Unfortunately not a single review talked of the ending. My wife refused to even discuss the topic before seeing the movie. When I tried to book the tickets in the INOX multiplex, the guy at the other end of phone said all shows for the next one week were already fully booked except for the 9-30pm one. I was really happy till the one who must be listened to, said she will take pot luck and anyway go to the multiplex. Again I tried the phone contact and this time I was directed to a mobile booking executive who promised tickets for any show for the same first week.
The D-day dawned and already she had collected one more couple with some M-problems. We reached well in time for the 340pm show and were surprised to see the hall half empty. The multiplex crowd is obviously not having M-problems and is not interested in the oldies having fun in New York. Earlier Karan Johar had handled problems of lovers before marriage and in-law problems afterwards. But he too has his itch to prove that he can handle serious M-issues. In the process he roots for love even outside marriage even if it may destroy two well-balanced loving partners. It is the same KHNH setting but with two couples trying to prove that they are not in love with their M-partners. Maya (Rani Mukerji) is cofused about her loyaly but not love while Dev Saran(Shah Rukh Khan) is clear that he wants only financial support for survival and not love from his careerist wife Rhea (Preity Zinta). It is the lovers Maya and Dev who cross the Lakshman Rekha of fidelity and have one-night stands while the respective hubby Rishi (Abhishek Bachchan) and wife Rhea (Preity Zinta) maintain the vows. Intially it is the sexy Sam(Amitabh Bachchan), Rishi’s widowed father, who provides comic relief with his waywardness with anything that moves and one liners but gradually it becomes stale towards the intermission. A lot of slapstick comedy is there also from both Maya and Dev but it looks contrived and Karan Johar seems to be confused about the direction the story should move. In the second half, Karan Johar takes the decision that the movie has to be a serious one and kills sexy Sam and separates the lovers and also breaks up the families. But he cannot leave it like that – so he brings back the lovers together again during the second marriage of Rishi and gives them blessings from their ex’es. With a typical south indian train chase ending, the lovers are reunited in marital bliss. The director’s last pontification is ‘Love should be the basis of marriage but it need not break the hearts of others in the process.’
After 22 reels and three and half hours one feels cheated out of 250 bucks and the time wasted just for this little trashy moral. Karan Johar is a Konfused Joker who cannot decide on the story line or the ketchup to be served to the show-starved Indian public. My full sympathies were with Rishi and Rhea who loved their M-partners and got rid of them once the infidelity was admitted. Maya is totally confused while Dev is having complexes and totally immoral. While Abhishek Bachchan does full justice to his role of loving husband, Shah Rukh does not know when to be frivolous and when to be serious. While Preity Zinta has not much to do Rani has too many tearful scenes and confused looks. Though the dance numbers are good, they are not relevant to the plot. On the whole, for the movie buff it is a waste of time and money.
After the movie, wifey was a bit tamed and snuggled closer to me in the car. So it was worth it for me.
