Watching a movie 3 weeks after release does have its pros & cons... & if the movie has been riding high on hype for quite some time, you sure tend to be inundated with perceptions/opinions from all quarters & if the movie happens to be ’’Main Hoon Naa’’, you just can’t hide!!!
Shahrukh-bashing {don’t most of us just love to do that!} was at its pinnacle when the movie released & to be honest, I felt a little let-down with his MC act at the Filmfare awards this year... Shahrukh sure went over-board cracking crappy jokes which initially made you laugh but began to perturb you later...
I heard some good things about the movie but it was from people from whom you expect nothing else... The promos were good enough, the music was kinda catchy, but didn’t seem to have that lingering effect... So when I finally made it to the theatre, I didn’t have too many expectations & was in a mood bordering to indifference {that explains the 3 weeks too}...
I couldn’t catch the beginning & was straight away taken to the some TV studio in which our man, Ram Prasad Sharma is out to defend General Bakshi, who is all out to make peace with Pakistan, but who Raghavan, the bad boy, won’t let happen... Anyways, lemme stop narrating the story...
The plot is actually wafer-thin, there’s hardly anything innovative but whoever said you need something new to churn out a hit... The story, despite a some loose-ends & cliches, is a pacy one & at the end of the day keeps you entertained for 3 hours... There’s plenty of action, comedy, song-n-dance, drama {both family & patriotic} happening through every frame of the film to keep you hooked...
Farah Khan does a real good job for a first-timer & it shows that she has been properly fed on a staple diet of 70s Bollywood potboilers... What I specially liked was the manner in which she interwove Pancham Da’s lilting melodies into her story... A befitting tribute to the man which also made the frames of the film more melodious, the chemistry of actors on-screen more electric...
There’s no match for the comic timing Shahrukh has; his facial expressions, body language go all out to make the viewers laugh like morons {atleast I did :D}... Watch out for the scenes in which he serenades for Sushmita... The movie gives him ample chance to play the action hero, & he does justice to the role, jumping roofs, fly-kick-flying in the air {a’la Matrix style}...
Sushmita sizzles whenever she occupies the screen, she makes the most of the role which honestly doesn’t have much to offer... She simply takes the cake in the scene where she tenders Shahrukh’s wounds - oooomph which can make you die of laughter, I can’t imagine anyone else doing that... :))
Zayed Khan shocked me... With what I saw of him in the trailers of ’’Chura Liya Hai Tumne’’ {you didn’t expect me to see that film :p}, I never thought he could ever act... But here I guess, the role suited him to a T & he gives a commendable performance as a college brat... Ditto for Amrita, she goes through her role with ease... It’s a confident performance from her... Suniel Shetty delivers the perfunctory performance of a baddie; it couldn’t have been better or worse...
The supporting cast do their job well; they make you smile/giggle/cackle depending on how NOT ’’sick-n-crappy’’ you feel while watching them... I, for one, had a hard time controlling my laughter during Satish Shah cameo, others would have found him disgusting {though there was none in the latter category in the hall I saw the film}...
The action is a bit over-the-top; we really don’t have to freeze Shahrukh floating in the air before he delivers the power punch... He could have saved some moolah had he done without those Matrix-inspired action scenes...
The designer college look has been perfected by many now & Main Hoon Na offers nothing new in this regard... However, the picturisation of songs is amazing...
The songs go well with the flavour of the movie... You end up liking the music more after you’ve seen the songs in the movie... Some numbers & the background score, more markedly, is in good ol’ Pancham-style, as confessed by the director herself... The catchy qawaalli with the hues all bright is a visual treat with the female leads swaying to Farah Khan’s choreography, which isn’t much different from her usual style... Ditto for the brilliantly-done prom song where Farah Khan pays tribute to Asha Parekh - Shammi Kapoor era... {BTW, do we have proms in Indian colleges or are movies setting the trend???}
It’s a fun movie, a total masala one where not an emotion has been left unused... & for a movie-starved guy like me, it was a refreshing change... I could go another time to watch it... :)