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What's Your Raashee? |
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Cast
Priyanka, Priyanka, Priyanka, Priyanka, Priyanka, Priyanka, Priyanka, Priyanka,Priyanka, Priyanka, Priyanka, Priyanka Chopra, Harman Baweja
Director
Ashutosh Gowariker (tough to believe) |
Get this. You admire Ashutosh Gowariker for Lagaan and Swades.
You salute Priyanka Chopra for pushing the envelope further, way beyond the pooh-poppet, shamglam stuff.
And you have fond memories of Ketan Mehta's serial Mr Yogi which was also adapted from Gujarati writer Madhu Rye's Kimball Ravenswood.
So, then, why the hell do you teeter out of What's Your Raashee? with the most violent headache of your lifetime?
Immediate answer: it's too darn lengthy at three hours-24-minutes which actually seem like 300 hours-240 minutes. Or an eternity which called for two intermissions. Mera Naam Boredom anyone?
To be fair, Gowariker's intentions aren't suspect at all. In all likelihood, he set out to critique the persistent tradition of bride-hunting, decimating young women to objects on display. The emotional scars left behindby the male rejection has been barely discussed, be it in serious or lightehearted formats. Sure there has been Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy but in the realm of mass entertainment in India, how many know of it?
In effect, then, the director's heart is in the right place but alas not the head. Brevity is certainly not Gowariker's forte as evidenced earlier in Jodhaa Sees Akbar's Muscles. Result now: a horrifyingly tacky megathon revolving around an NRI wannabe bridegroom from Chicago who resolves to meet 12 eligible bachelorettes. The twist: each one of them must belong to a different zodiac sign. Cool? Hardly.
This means Priyanka Chopra goes two up on Kamalhaasan's Dasavataram with a Baaravataram. Literally. All the girls under consideration are Ms Chopra x 12. A facile line of dialogue merely announces that the Yen R I sees the same face (and figre, voice, nails, toes etc) in every bacherlorette he surveys. Sure, if that's right then I'm Tom Cruise. By the way, quite kinkily one of the girls prefers Tom and Jerry to Tom Cruise. Ha ha? Eeesh.
Next: Chicago doughnut boy (Harman Baweja) meets up with the sexy, mousy, docile, honest, fruitcake, richie, witchy and some more versions of Ms Chopra in locations ranging from Mumbai chawls to vanilla white palaces. One of the girls -- bully for
her -- rejects him because he's fussy about slurping a streetside ice gola. He's afraid of food poisoning. Just not macho really.
Incidentally, the zodiac women have little to do with their birth signs, except for featuring them like a slinky James Bond girl before each one of their stories begins. Most of the women, meaning Ms Chopra, also dance and sing, sing and dance, till you want to cabaret out of the auditorium yourself. Stop please.
Meanwhile as Doughnut and the dozen Chopras do their number, you meet senior citizens galore, led by Dad Doughnut (Anjan Srivastava, super-hamming). who wants his Chicagoputra to secure a dowry, grandpa's gazillions and what-not-illions.And an uncle (Darshan Jariwala, bewigged)--sparks off more confusion than you could synopsise in ten reviews.
Suffice it to say, practically every scene is as predictable as the reference to dhoklas and undhiyo since a Gujarati household happens to be the milieu. Gowariker saab how cliched can you get.
The finale is a thorough cop-out. And throughout the set decor is the pits while the cinematography is strictly serviceable.
As for the music, Sohail Sen's score won't exactly prompt you to run to the CD stores. Javed Akhtar's lyrics are unusually uninspired.
Of the performances, Harman Baweja reaffirms his status of an expressionless wonder. Priyanka Chopra works hard; her breathless recitation on the attractions of Chicago is pretty amazing. There's an overdose of her in the film. Stil, she does okay in a film which, however, is far from
dokay. A...void.
Tue February 09, 2010, 02:27:13