Guzaarish & Tees Maar Khan disappoint; Band Baaja Baaraat continues to do well

It has been a disappointing fortnight for me. All the films I saw have dampened my new year spirits. First off was from Hollywood: Tron Legacy. Though the film was a fantastical sci-fi adventure, there was nothing else to keep me glued to the big screen.

Next came Guzaarish. You can feel the richness of the production, particularly the dinner table magician’s acts. But the film lost my attention five minutes down the line and ennui set in pronto. I was drawn to watching it because a friend recommended it highly for the Hrithik-Aishwarya pairing. But the pairing fails to sizzle. While Hrithik is happy cracking cynical jokes, Aishwarya is content playing a serious nurse with a silent crush on her immobile patient, a quadriplegic.

Bhansali erred on many fronts. The first was in his mind. He wasn’t sure if he has to make a happy or sad movie or just wax eloquent about following a vegetable’s life. Or simply make “the greatest love story” (Hrithik’s words in the film) ever told. The result was a mish-mash that has all of it and yet failed to endear you. You don’t empathise with Hrithik’s condition, because while Bhansali shows Hrithik tied to his bed for all practical purposes, there is nothing to indicate the suffering his mind is going through. To further alienate the viewer from his real distress, Hrithik is only sporting a happy face and cracking jokes at his nurse’s expense.

Added to it is the fact that Aishwarya looks old in the film. Don’t know if this was intentional, but it definitely was a big letdown. To top it, Hrithik only gets to shake his legs in magical acts that demand slow motions and not his signature leaps and bounds.

Next is Bhansali’s attempt at making ‘euthanasia’ palpable. To begin with, there isn’t much torture being shown on screen to make us empathise with the victim asking the state to permit him to die honourably, rather than commit the more depressing suicide.

Tees Maar Khan, my next film after Guzaarish, was worse. Atleast, Bhansali’s take was semi-poetic, but Farah Khan’s TMK was a disaster. I wonder if the film was also ghost-directed by her husband Shirish Kunder. After all, his name was all over the place in the film – story, screenplay, dialogue, lyrics, music and editing. The only thing left was direction that he handed to his wife Farah who did no job at all. She ensured that the film had little of hers and everything of her husband’s. The result is anarchy from the very first sequence.

Farah and Shirish should realise that just having a cool name like TMK or Akshay and Katrina aka ‘Sheila ki jawani’ will not do. There has to be something more enduring, if not palatable. And this lacks both and more.

In this dull Bollywood scenario, only one film stood out: Band Baaja Baaraat. So though TMK did well on its first weekend, attendance dropped phenomenally on weekdays. So this week, it’s advantage B3. Multiplexes are giving away more shows to B3 and cutting their losses, courtesy TMK.

Good going, Yash Raj Films. With B3, you have another winner on your hands after Badmaash Company and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. Anushka Sharma seems to have become the lucky mascot of YRF. Good for her. Good for Bollywood.