After seeing this movie I wanted to slap Karan Johar desperately. But then I realized that he is doling out this pathetic nonsense because of equally pathetic tastes of the desi cinegoers. This is an out and out tried and tested bullshit running on surefire formula which you know the stupid audiences are going to lap it up. I just do not believe some of these crappy box office successes .
You would expect a 40 crore movie to tell a story that has not already been told 40 crore times before. But hey, its too much money to waste on creating something new, so safe bet it has to be. So, here is the story, which I am going to narrate in 81 words that Karan has taken 4 hours to bring alive. Yash Raichand is the paramparawadi man who adopts an orphan Rahul and after nine years, gets his own son - Rohan. Rahul grows up and against his father’s wishes marries Anjali, a chhote muhalle ki ladki. Of course Yash throws his wrath at Rahul and calls him paraya khoon, which hurts Rahul no end ad he leaves for London. Now Rohan grows up and with the help of Pooja (Anjali’s sister) successfully gets the family together once again after 10 years.
One must congratulate Karan on the selection of such a simple story, which is filled with tremendous potential for touching the sentimental Indian heart. On top of that, the huge production, stars, glitz, glamour, costumes, music, dances, locations and tonnes of tears make a very expensive pot pourrie. I am disappointed to say though, that it doesn’t taste all that great. First of all I wonder why in almost four hours of exposure time, Karan hasn’t been able to develop a single character strongly, a character that’s true to life, who we can believe. Whether it’s the multi-millionaire Indian business tycoon depending on his wife for tying a tie or throwing his son out over a poor woman, a hen-pecked wife who just watches everything silently with a swollen face, an adopted son (with a hint of a stutter - a la SRK) educated overseas falling in love with a poor mithaiwalli who he is shown nothing to have in common with, a son who cuts all contact with the entire family because of his father’s one ’dialogue’, a son who doesn’t bother to find out why his brother is getting excited all of a sudden…the prize though goes to the Indian child singing the Indian national anthem in a British school in London and the Brits going ga ga over it!
I don’t feel the need to talk about the performances, as Karan has chosen all good stars/actors, who are professional and do their work well, so one cannot expect bad or even mediocre performances, although the younger breed clearly is younger in their performances as well. I hope someone bothers to explore Hrithik’s talent more than his muscles - else he runs the risk of becoming the first living mannequin of the Indian silver screen.
Casting has always been one of the very poor aspects of Indian cinema and one cannot blame K3G alone for bad casting - for choosing actors to play characters who from any angle do not look like blood relations, or children who grow up to look something different altogether. I think the script has failed Karan in a big way. But then, with a story like this one, scenes and sequences are predictable and inconsistent, which as a director, I guess must have been difficult for Karan to notice. The production is big, no doubt, as all the stars in all the promos have been telling us, as if we wouldn’t have been able to work it out ourselves. The best part about the entire production is its marketing.
But the movie is a hit as the trade pundits tell us. Its great for the film industry as it was looking up to K3G as its revival gateway. Whether good or bad, appealing or not, work of art or labour of love, K3G is a commercial winner and of course, the winner is Alexander! Confused? Jo jeeta wohi sikandar!