Month: July 2012

This is my space to rant. So if you liked the Cocktail (Hindi) Movie don’t bother reading this post.

I’m to blame, I never learn. I let my friends do this to me – take me out for a movie I know is not going to be my money’s worth in the pretext that maybe I’ll find it timepass/enjoyable with them around. Twice now it has not worked – first Bodyguard  & now Cocktail.

Why should I even be excited about a Saif-Deepika film with an addition of Diana Penty? I did not like Love Aaj Kal – Deepika cannot act, talks in the same tone – be it a happy scene or an emotional scene and I fail to understand folks who call her an “actress” – she is drop dead gorgeous and it ends at that. Diana Penty – don’t tell me you don’t see the similarities she shares with Deepika, they’ll pass off in a twin sisters role any day. Saif – there are days that I like his movies, there are also days when his same old KHNH act gets repeated oh- so-often that it does not seem “cool” anymore.

You all know the story by now, you all have raved about how fabulous Deepika and Penty looked – yeah yeah I get it. What I don’t get is if I have to go and watch two ladies look good ( I’d rather watch a Fashion Show – which by the way has to be one of the most boring events ever conceptualized on this earth); why on earth would I watch them in a movie where they don’t know the basic thing that makes up a movie – good acting.

The movie did not have a storyline, crappy dialogues and characters that made no sense. The only believable character to me was that of Deepika, whom they completely ruined by transforming her into a sati-savitri, the girl-type that any Indian boy will love to take home to his parents. I would’ve given it to the director, if he had let Saif & Deepika be themselves and continue the “no strings attached” live-in relationship by not succumbing to parental pressure or the “true love” nonsense. That transformation from the hip-cool-modern to the eventual HAHK type was totally out of character. We don’t keep it real because we want to cater it to an audience across age-groups. I therefore give it to Shakun Batra of Ekk Main or Ekk Tu fame – he did not have Kareena fall in love with Imran, there was no conclusion to the story – because that’s how it is in real life. Love is not always reciprocated but yet people mature and remain friends.

I did not get Meera’s character at all – apparently a simple, middle class Punjabi girl, duped by the husband, lives with a stranger in an unknown land, does not like the idea of the best friend and guy having a fling and sleeping with each other, and then falls for the same characterless guy, and if that’s not enough seeks help from the husband who duped her to get away from the guy she is madly in love with! Which sane woman with a reasonable stable mind will do this? There wasn’t a single scene that showed the transformation of Meera’s hate towards Gautam to falling in love with him. A few crappy dialogues such as, ‘Every guy must be wondering what lies beneath all the clothes you wear, your pretty waist and smile were enough to woo her over?’ Or wait, was it the motherly affection showered by Gautam’s mom in giving the traditional bangle to her to-be- daughter-in-law that changed her mind. Marry the mom not the guy then!

As for Gautam let me not even get there – he hits on the client with that stupid line about love at first sight, and she succumbs to his lousy charm? No sensible woman (and she must be one since she was the boss in a firm) will do that – hand over a project cause the guy charmed her. Get real!

I enjoyed the movie only when Boman Irani and Dimple Kapadia were on screen. Those 10 minutes were a huge relief but not enough to save the disaster I was watching. The songs were good especially loved Daru Desi and Tumhi ho Bandhu – on a loop for quite some time on the iPod, but good songs don’t make a good film – take Delhi 6  for instance.

It took me sometime to believe that the guy who gave us “Being Cyrus” dealt such a low blow in the form of Cocktail. The movie was neither here nor there, driving home the same age old Bollywood crap about how sticking to tradition is the good thing, and how the party-crazy, alcohol drinking, one-night stand gal must reform if she needs a guy and marriage and all that is termed as the “good life”.

Blah – heard that before, seen it way too many times – give me a different Cocktail please – this combination has been done to death with!