Mastizaade doesn’t feel like a real film till she shows up, all glamorous and grinning and completely in-on-the-joke, more even than the director. Her mock-horrified expressions are priceless, and even when dancing along to a song that tastelessly appears to abuse her by co-opting the Punjabi word for’more, ’ she’s the one taking control by joyously leading the jig.
Leone commits to the parts and campily plays up to the camera, and - while this may appear exaggerated considering the rest of this film’s cast - her screen presence proves to be striking and, more importantly, bright. Here is a girl acting sincerely in an utterly idiotic movie, sure, but it’s great to see such a self-aware turn - she even mocks the infantilisation of the male gaze by cocking a snook at her own hit Baby Doll - and to watch Leone visibly, and infectiously, having fun. Properly directed, here’s an actress waiting to impress.
Alas, to nobody’s surprise, nothing else works.
Zaveri, who casts himself as a Pattaya pervert, appears to be flaunting his methods when he autobiographically shows his leading men make trashy, tawdry advertisements - ads that sell substandard products by thrusting sex and double-meaning in our faces - but there is little to buy into here.