This is an above average Hindi flick. Its an honest to word commercial movie and dosent have any pseudo-artsy pretences. (Commercial : High-rises, BMWs, Greek locales, poor boy, rich gal. Pseudo-Artsy: Chawls, Local Trains, Swiss locales, poor boy, rich gal) It’s no better or worse than Saathiya. You dont have to be morally obliged or peer-pressed to call a maniratnam movie good and aziz mirza’s bad.
Story is nothing to write home about. Every sequence, even dialog, in this movie is utterly predictable. Maybe, the characters are more consistently sketched than Saathiya, Rani remains a good girl and SRK remains a bad boy throughout the movie. No sudden change-of-hearts.
Music is great. Greek locales are a good break from usual swiss Alps, Big ben or Hollywood sign backdrops.
Indispensible ingredient of love stories, class difference, is there and is believable. To me, the class difference does not come from birth but by upbringing. The difference is in the ’class’ Rani and SRK show in their actions and reactions. Squabbles Rani and SRK have rise from personal habits/traits, not thrown in awkwardly just to drive home the class difference. (e.g. ’’Mehra.saab, tum bade logon ke dil itne chhote kyun hote hai’’)
On more personal note, we felt many more scenes cames straight out of our bedroom than was the case with Saathiya, tho’ our case is much more similar to the later (Refer to my review). Goes to say, I am not competing with SRK ;)
Another redeeming point of the movie is casting. Rani has done her role of married mature lover too many time now (last being Saathiya) and she’s getting her groove right. Carries herself quite effortlessly. In case SRK, it’s a case of boldly calling apple an apple. He can ONLY portray this badass spoilt brat and has done well. He gets so much onto our nerves, it becomes quite believable what Rani has to suffer. I always got upset by his hyper-nervous overperformaces. Then it used a case of ’karne kucchh jaata hun , or ho kucchh jaataa hai’ (from the movie) and he still got away a ’cute’ epithet. Oh Yes !! SRK IS different this time ! His name is Raj for a change :)
Well, this movie will not set any new standards in Indian cinema, but I wish it breaks a few Box Office records as it gets as good as any formulaic bollywood love-story gets.