Romance, Action, Comedy - Bodyguard is a perfect film for the festival season. The strength of it is not the novelty but the nostalgia it creates for it reminds us of the good old days and the memory of films like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Main Hoon Na at places.
Lovely Singh (Salman Khan) is a super bodyguard of high profile celebrities like Katrina Kaif. Focused and uncompromised Lovely Singh only indebted to Sartaj Rana (Raj Babbar) for he saved his life when he was a child. When the Sartaj Rana family gets a life threat, Lovely Singh been appointed as Body Guard of Sartaj Rana’s only daughter Divya (Kareena Kapoor). Divya studies in a distant college, that too staying in a separate house with her close friend Maya. The girls don’t like the professionalism maintained by Lovely Singh (which makes their life miserable in college), nor the fitness training ordered by Divya’s father which Lovely Singh monitor without fail. To distract Lovely Singh from the strict schedules Divya plays the unknown lover girl, Chaya. Watch the rest onscreen.
The strength of Bodyguard is its narration. At heart it is a romance film. Then, there is nicely worded comedy in the first half, well executed action scenes in frequent intervals and some good suspense in the climax. In all these the film remains simplistic in nature throughout, except probably for the last 15 minutes. This is one film which you can watch effortlessly. You will enjoy it better if you keep your brain at home. The characters are all patchy and situations are all artificial. Still if it manages to create a rapport with the audience the success contributes to the presentation.
Dialogues written by Rajat Rawali are excellent being funny. Direction by Siddique is very good. Screen play underwent a lot of alteration surgery after its replantation from Malayalam to Tamil to Hindi and thereby gain some strength where lost some. At the end it is a nearly different product though the basic structure is the same.
Salman Khan is Excellent in the film. He looks much younger and all the more spirited. Undoubtedly Salman Khan has taken the Number One spot of Bollywood box office at this point of time with his fourth consecutive mega hits (Yes, the movie is going to be his fourth). The success shows onscreen. The number of Salman Khan fans are to be increased tremendously after Bodyguard. Kareena Kapoor made her presence felt in an excellent way with Bodyguard. Her costumes may not be that great and make up may not be well, but her performance is much better. It is a happy feel to see Kareena again onscreen. Rajat Rawali is too funny. Rest of the cast did their roles well.
Cinematography is very good.
Music of the movie is good to very good. The song, Teri Meri is my pick from the lot and it may be remembered for a long time to come. Rest of the songs just fit the celebration mood. Choreography of songs is special and excellent.
Editing is good at places but not so at many other places. I have a feeling that a lot been sacrificed to maintain lengthy action scenes. Ideally, a good editor would have found the time needed for those chopped off scenes which contain part of soul of the movie.
The best plus of the movie is its well mixed masala presentation of Action, Comedy and Romance. Salman Khan’s screen presence, Action by Vijayan Master, Choreography by Ganesh Acharya & Vishnudeva etc. are bonus.
Overall, Bodyguard is a Paisa Vasool family entertainer perfectly suites the festival mood. Go for it.