Bachna ae Haseeno Review— Bachna ae Audience!

August 18, 2008 at 11:24 am · Filed under movienomics ·Tagged bachna ae haseeno movie review, bachna ae haseeno review, ranbir kapoor

While at my dentist’s clinic recently, I was browsing through STARDUST when I read an interesting article about Yash Raj Films. Apparently, daddy Chopra has taken over the affairs at Yash Raj sending a clear signal to beta Chopra that something somewhere went wrong and he is here to fix it. At the speed of a movie, Yash Raj has lost its clout in the industry; obviously, Aditya Chopra is not reading the scripts before approval. After Tashan, Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic, it is now Bachna ae Haseeno (BaH)  that gets added to the list of avoidable films made by Yash Raj.

BaH begins in 1996 (what is with the dumb reference to PV Narasimha Rao and the availability of Pepsi?) and goes on till the present showing us the story of Raj Sharma (Ranbir Kapoor) and his three female interests over time–first it is Mahi (Minissha Lamba)  in 1996, next it is Radhika (Bipasha Basu), and then Gayatri (Deepika Padukone). Mahi is a mighty fan of DDLJ and is dreaming to meet her ‘Raj’ in Switzerland and finds that ‘Raj’ in  Raj Sharma; only to know that she was being played with. Next, in 2002, Raj Sharma is working for Microsoft and moves into an apartment next to a wannabe actress-model from Ranchi–Radhika. Slowly, the hot Radhika and Raj move in to the same apartment for a live-in relationship. Raj has to move to Australia and unable to get rid of Radhika who wants marriage he simply takes off in the flight on the day of their wedding leaving Radhika in her wedding attire weeping in the rain. Next, in Australia, Raj Sharma is using up a condom-a-day and sleeping with every possible Australian girl he can find. During this time, he meets Gayatri who works as a cab driver by night, B-school in the day, and also finds the time to work at a super market. Gayatri is all about no-marriage types, but as the story would have it Raj Sharma falls in love with her and proposes marriage only to be rejected. At this point, he realizes his mistakes and how much he has hurt Mahi and Radhika and decides to go back, trace them, and seek forgiveness.

No, the movie is not over…this is just the intermission. The entire second half is about how he goes and seeks their forgiveness and finally gets Gayatri. By the time he goes to Mahi, he finds that she is mother of two kids, but has not even been romantic with the husband for the last 12 years because she has lost hope and faith in romance! So Raj Sharma tells her that her husband is her true ‘Raj’ and she begins to dance with him and it ends well. Next, Radhika has become Shreya Rathore–an international pop diva who is ruthless with her employees and fires them on the fly. She is unwilling to forgive Raj so easily so she decrees him to become her butler/servant/PA/waiter etc. But Raj goes through all that and eventually Shreya’s cruel heart melts and forgives him. By the time Raj comes back to Australia he finds that Gayatri has been writing letters and sliding them under his door for the last 6 months and is madly in love with him. So he gets her at the end.

The entire film is a big drag with interesting sitcom type funny scenes here and there. The first episode with Mahi has a major DDLJ hangover with only DDLJ background. The reason to do this is clear—at this point, audience have such a negative image of Yash Raj and it was perhaps important to make teh audience realize that such a beautiful film like DDLJ was also from Yash Raj. Minissha Lamba looks like an old lady–nothing glam about her. Bipasha Basu’s freshness is over…she too looks grown-up with too much oil on her body to highlight her landscape. The only thing interesting is her cleavage show. Deepika is just a guest appearance and does an average job—she was only good because of the  OSO magic. Ranbir Kapoor is a completely waste actor and a totally useless hero. The only reason he is there is because of his family and the audience have to suffer him till he becomes a good actor/hero or may be the suffering will be never ending (like Abhishek Bachchan). He just cannot carry or elevate any scene be it comedy, romance, or emotion. When he is trying to act like ‘Raj’ you literally feel like puking. The only scene that got the audience, and me, up at Ramakrishna Gliterrati is the one where Bipasha is in a complete backless gown and asks Ranbir to come and tie it.

It is high time Yash Raj got its act together. Good films are not made by signing up models and star kids with high production values and exotic locales. The sentiments and values are contrived—what is this drama about women wearing shorts, living-in, but still wanting marriage and talking about sacrifice and compromise? (radhika’s episode) and what  is with  the drama about women wanting to be on their own and not wanting to marry because it will obstruct their individuality? (gayatri’s episode)  It looks like such sentiments and thoughts have put there only because they fit well with most of the NRIs or yuppy multiplex crowd of cities—both being the only source of revenue for Yash Raj films these days.

The story, execution, narration are all below par. To top it off…Ranbir Kapoor’s incompetent acting and handling further derail the film. Jeevi of idlebrain.com, a prominent reviewer for a leading Telugu film wesbite  wrote that the film  could rather have been  named  Maaf karna ae Haseeno! Surprisingly, the hindi film websites have given rather favorable, if not glowing, reviews for this film, but the public is bound to trash this one as they already have. Please don’t waste your hard earned money on such faltu films; just wait for it to come on the TV.

Mr. Inkenti’s Movienomics Verdict: Thumbs Down!

ps–As an aside, there is a foreigner in this film  who is the same guy in Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic—the guy to whose house Saif and family go to play golf. Cummon Yash Raj…can’t you get new side artists?

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