I have been a huge fan of the Yash Raj banner but I shouldn’t be biased when I write a review. It cannot be denied that this banner has a very good reputation in the hindi film industry. It has also given us some very memorable movies. If I have to write about them, it will take me a lot of time because most of the movies produced by the banner have been fantastic. I’d like to say here that I liked movies like "Bunty aur babli", "Fanaa", "Dhoom-2"(the action scenes were a treat to watch but the prequel was more entertaining) but "Jhoom baraabar jhoom"(worst movie made this year). If you talk about this year, the YRF banner has given us "Tara rum pum"(good. but the director’s first movie "Salaam namaste" remains one of my favourites) and "Chak de.India"(which is a modern-day classic"). "Jhoom barabar jhoom" was awful and unfortunately, "Laagaa chunari mein daag"(LCMD) falls under this category. You really start wondering if this is the same production house which gave us movies like "DDLJ", "Mohabbatein" and "Veer-Zaaraa", among others.
The plot has nothing much to offer. It is very predictable(and so are the dialogues). Barki(Rani Mukherjee) and Chutki(Konkona Sen Sharma) are small-towners living in Banaras. Their parents(Anupam Kher and Jaya Bacchan) are very poor and Barki realises this very well. She leaves studies early to help her mother. She and her mother doesn’t let Chutki know much about the problem. When things get worse, Barki goes to Mumbai to earn money so that she can help her family. But she doesn’t have good qualifications and cannot speak in english. Things happen and she sleeps with a person(Harsh Chhaya) who promises to give her a job. Alas! The person cheats her and she decides to become a high-class hooker. Meanwhile, Chutki completes her education and gets a job in Mumbai. She stays with her sister. she works. she starts dating someone. she finds out that Barki is a hooker. blah blah!
Rani and Konkona perform well and they are the only reason you might want to watch the movie once on tv(please don’t waste money and watch it in a hall). Among them, Konkona is better here. She does really well in her first out-and-out commercial role. She gets to sing and dance here. She is exceptional in the scene in which she finds out about her sister’s true identity. Rani is worse than in the other YRF release of the year "Tara rum pum"(which was also a much better movie). Anupam Kher is wasted. So is Hema Malini in a small role. Her "mujraa" is not at all good. Jaya Bacchan is okay. Abhishek Bachan performs like he always does. Kunal Kapoor is better. Director Pradeep Sarkar had made a confident debut with "Parineeta"(though the only thing I liked about it was Saif’s performance). He does a bad job here. Its not entirely his fault. The plot is dumb. The script has many loopholes. Music by Shantanu Moitra is equally bad. "Hum toh aise hai bhaiyya" & is good to watch.
At the box-office, the opening collections have been poor. Gone are the days when a Yash Raj movie used to guarantee a 95-100% opening. I’m not impressed with the trailers of YRF’s next venture and Madhuri’s comeback movie "Aaja nachle". But yes. Madhuri is looking beautiful. I have decided not to go for it. As far as LCMD is concerned, give it a miss and you won’t regret.