It is hard not to feel upset
while watching Jab Tak Hai Jaan, not
just because it is the last film directed by the legendary Yash Chopra, but
also because the movie borders on cruelty towards us, the paying audience. Packed
with characters who all behave well below acceptable human IQ levels, Jab Tak Hai Jaan is a canceled TV soap
opera crammed into 3+ hours of banal and lethargic plotting.
But how can an unbeatable formula
that had been set in DDLJ possibly go
wrong? It probably won’t, because it will undoubtedly rake in hundreds of
crores of rupees. Because in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is the
king. And King Khan in Jab Tak Hai Jaan plays
Guy Pearce from The Hurt Locker,
shifts into Guy Pearce from Memento, hurls
one-liners like Guy Pearce in Lockout, and
looks like Guy Pearce in Prometheus. Mostly
he plays a guy who gives piercing looks to the ladies on a motorbike to the
backdrop of the music from Motorcycle
Diaries. That’s not to say Shahrukh provides the only unintentional laughs
in the film – Anushka Sharma’s entry itself is funny enough to dislocate your
lower muscles – the opening shot is the camera lingering on her bum, after
which it roves around to her crotch and then firmly affixes itself to her
boobs. She then takes a semi naked dive into a lake in Leh, and then screams
that the water is too cold. Perhaps she expected centralized heating in Ladakh
lakes.
To complete the Bermuda triangle
of accidental funniness, there is Katrina Kaif’s character, who makes her entry
in the ‘white white snow, ek laal pari ki tarah’, the sight of which makes
Shahrukh stretch out his arms towards the sky and slow dance like Winona Ryder
in Edward Scissorhands. Katrina’s
character is goody goody Diana Penty from Cocktail
but is secretly Deepika Padukone from Cocktail.
Shahrukh falls in love with the latter, and decides to ‘free’ her Deepika-ness –
a task that he achieves by bringing her to a nightclub where she suddenly drops
all her inhibitions and starts doing a ghanerda favela dance. And just when you
think things couldn’t get any funnier or more ludicrous, the writers throw in
ham fisted characters (Rishi and Neetu Kapoor) who justify women cheating on
their loving husbands. And before you know it, Shahrukh fails to diffuse one of
the bombs from the script and a macguffin explodes in our face –a religious macguffin
that involves a girl breaking up with a guy because she’d made a promise to Jesus
Christ. Luckily the film wasn’t set in Brazil or the Christ the Redeemer statue
in Rio would’ve facepalmed.
The biggest asset of Jab Tak Hai Jaan, apart from Anushka
Sharma’s legs is Anil Mehta’s photography. Rahman’s music is a disappointment
although ‘Challa’ is hurled in again and again to keep the audience from
flatlining. There is enough material in the film to make doctors, Indian army
personnel and London police look stupid, but the most amusing gaffe is Anushka’s
character referring to herself as the ‘makeout breakout generation’, the new
youth of India. The only agenda of this ‘new youth of India’ is apparently to sleep
around and dump people. Well at least the film makes up for its condescending short
sightedness by including a Pakistani character as SRK’s London roommate.
But all the flaws could be
overlooked had Jab Tak Hai Jaan offered
the slightest hint of a decent romance. Sadly it neither caters to the
hopelessly romantic nor the aforementioned new youth of India. Shahrukh breaks
his rule like Jason Statham in Transporter
and kisses a girl for the first time on screen. It doesn’t help that he is
the most unconvincing kisser in the long, sad history of unconvincing onscreen
kissers, but what really sticks out as unromantic is the sex scene where we see
a hairy toe rubbing against an immaculately manicured toe.
About as exciting as British food
and as romantic as standing without an umbrella at a rainy bus stop in Croydon,
Jab Tak Hai Jaan is stuffed with star
power without an ounce of logic or heart. The only big takeaway from the movie
is Anushka Sharma’s character mirroring her own real self, who despite being
more talented and charming, is sidelined in an industry that for no reason prefers
Katrina Kaif over her.
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