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The reviews were glowing, exit interviews waxed eloquent and my own friends were fawning — a few even did the ‘Jahapana tussi great ho ; tohfa kubool karo‘ ;  sans downing the trousers fortunately !

“Aamir Khan rings in the box-office moolah with 3-Idiots. Again” proclaimed the headlines. Every critic who could be bought and his aunt made a beeline to hail Aamir the undisputed Jahapanah of Bollywood, and 3-Idiots, the best phillum ever.

Aamir “Ghajini” Khan + Rajkumar “MunnaBhai” Hirani + Vidhu Vinod Chopra  + 2 sidekicks from ‘Rang De Basanti’ + a whole lot of hype = Best Movie Ever

The hype caught up, curiosity got the better of my reasoning (read a rare 2.5/5 review by rediff.com) and, a week ago, I watched ’3 Idiots’.

Our Verdict :It was a masala Bollywood movie that was entertaining in parts. It had dabs of freshness. True. But that was akin to a lipstick on a pig.

Among the good, it is about chasing your dreams and chasing those dreams on your own terms ; it is about accepting the dogmas at times and yielding to the same in others ; it is about the effervescence and the carefree nature of college life ; it is about friendships prevailing in the face of adversity ; it is about all things we all can relate to and have seen umpteen times before. It definitely is about ‘Aal Ij Well ‘ with a few great comic moments (the balaatkar vs. chamatkaar speech for instance).

But is it the best movie of 2009 ? You kidding me ? Not by a mile. Once you get past the patches of good, the Bollywood pitfalls are aplenty.

Consider these :

1. 45 year old budda Aamir Khan & co as 18 year old engineering freshmen ? Ranbir Kapoor, Imran Khan mar gaye hain kya? Or did the first pick, Amitabh Bachchan refuse the lead role ?
2. Never ending list of pranks that the director Sahastra(Nir)buddhe/teachers put up with. Maybe it is the case in Chopra-Hirani University of Nincompoops ?
3. Nir-buddhe is a bloody joker, a moron and the worst bully on campus. Was this actually a nut job from a mental asylum masquerading as a director ? If yes, it would make perfect sense.
   

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4. Director’s daughter falls for the hero, aided by his other daughter. What got edited : ” Virus, Main tere pothe ki baap banne wala hoon“  by Rancho to Sahastrabuddhe. Of course to help Raju stay in college.   Of Of course, still, ‘Aal ij well ‘.
5. Rancho ironically berates the rote learning system prevalent in India while he has no qualms hood winking the system in being used by the real Rancho. Majboori you say ? Sure, we audience check our brains at the door anyway, so whatever ..
6. Ideal toting moron Rancho is the worst offender on campus. Ironic ? Nah, just ‘Aal ij well ‘. If you have a problem, take a cold shower like Rancho, on the college lawn.
7. Raju’s suicidal fall, coma, miraculous recovery and landing the job on a wheel-chair.  ‘Aal ij too well ‘ there bhaiyye..?
8. Delivering director buddhi-heen’s grandchild, rain et al with video conferencing, vacuum and a load of bravado to save expulsion is as believable as Dharmendra scaling sky scrapers on his motorcycle in Dreamgirl. And the baby is an ‘Aal ij well ‘ ka aulaad(fan) after all ? The rain disrupts everything sans the college dorm dial-up internet connection that works magically !
9. Boman Irani in the footsteps of Anupam Kher reducing himself to a stupid caricature ably supported by Kareena ‘what acting’ Kapoorand whatever Madhavan and lacklustre Sharman..
10. A climax that is as hackneyed as it comes – stop the wedding, bhagao the bride to Rancho (or whatever his darn real name is) who is piling patents in Ladakh waiting for his bride-in-a-helmet and they all sing a happy Kumbayah after all ?

I can keep going, but my top-10 above suffices for now. Sorry to rain in on the idiot party, but that was an average movie at best. Senseless entertainment ? Yes. Great movie ? Not by a mile and definitely not worth the hullabaloo that it is the best of 2009 or best of Bollywood. It just isn’t.

Which is the best of 2009 ?

Glad you asked..

I avoid movies by Dharma Productions. Why ? ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’, ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham’,'Kal Ho Na Ho’,'Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna’, what’s to like in that list of K-movies ? Unless you are a big fan of the other “K” obsessed Balaji Telefilms’s Saas-bahu series. Both these production houses excel at over the top, over melodramatic, big family down to the dog in tow under one roof, stinking rich non existent Indian stories that could not be more divorced from reality.

However, in 2009, post ‘Wake Up Sid’ and ‘Kurbaan‘, I am ready to eat crow. Maybe Karan Johar does deserve some of that young entrepreneur praise showered liberally on him after all. Don’t get me wrong, Johar has been a box-office super success. So is Ekta Kapoor. But all that sells is not sensible : Dharma’s outputs sold, but hardly made you sit back, think and admire. At least, not till now.

Post 3-Idiots, I watched Kurbaan. I had heard little about the movie sans the terrorist backdrop and Kareena’s bare back. I was expecting a hackneyed, tear jerkerwith liberal sprinkling of gore. It was from the Dharma stables after all !

But was I surprised..

As the movie unfolded, I was gripped. It had a few weak moments that were few and far in between, but a vast majority of the movie was gripping. It was tight, well thought and executed to such a fineese that I felt it was a Hollywood flick.

Saif’s controlled performance shows his maturity as an actor and he is brilliant in the role. He is charming when romancing Avantika in Delhi and cold to the bone as a terrorist in the later parts of the movie. Vivek Oberoi and Kareena lend very good support. Kareena can act ! Who knew. Om Puri and Kirron Kher are so one with the characters that you are scared of them. The ambiance and the setting add that sense of unease and work well with the tight storyline-screenplay.

Pragmatic plots executed to a perfection end in a great climax to seal the movie. Rensil D’Silva tackles a tough subject on his debut and delivers. It is a shame that it failed at the box-office. Hope the lacklustre performance at the box-office will not push Rensil out of business or toward ‘shake a hip, cry a river’ kind of movies. Same goes for Dharma too. Hope they produce good movies like Kurbaan once in a while that strokes grey matter and seeds a thought as you walk out of a theater.

As far as 3-Idiots, it left me with a confused smile and a ‘whatever’ thought as I walked off..

So if un-adulterated below average flick is ’Aal ij well ’, go check out 45 year bottoms paying ode to the Jahapanah. On the contrary if you need an intelligent, compelling, thought provoking well made movie, Kurbaan it is..

You disagree ? Convince me otherwise, the comment box is right below !

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