Sorry. There was no other way in which I could title this review to do justice to my feelings and still get away without getting banned from MS.
Neal N Nikki was the most creative piece of non-creativity I have seen in recent times. A story line that is soo bleak, it makes you want to go on anti-depression pills. It would challenge some of the best in the industry to make any impact with such a bleak story line. And to think that something like that was entrusted to someone like Uday Chopra!
I had seen Uday in Mohabbatein and the only thing I remember about him in that movie was the lip-locking. Funny. Now that I think about it, the only thing I remember about him in this movie too is the same! (pervert little me!) whateverz! I think the only person who might be taking some notice of Uday would be Emraan Smoochmi. ’’You cant act - neither can i. You will smooch - so will i’’. Some competition building up here, folks.
The story goes something like this. Uday is an NRI - canada-bred punjabi. Agrees for an arranged marriage with Richa Palod. Decides to freak out before his marriage. His agenda? Meet 21 gals in 21 days. (Now...whos the pervert?). And anyways..what was he doing in canada all this time? He should have gotten over his girl-cravings by this age. Goes to vancouver for the same. Gets into this pub and meets our girl Tanisha. Has his date messed up because of her.
They keep bumping into each other. The usual i-cant-stand-you formula gets applied. They kinda become friends. Well, then he decides to help her get even with her ex french boyfriend. They get closer to each other in the deal - they end up doing it. (20 more to go, neal..times running up)
They split up. He goes back to get married. Whoosh! Tanisha appears there. Shes Richa’s cousin, mind you. In the end, Richa loves someone else so she quits the marriage. Neal n Nikki are back together again. Thats the tale in a nutshell. Took me some time to write this much, cause even though I saw the movie only yesterday, I had to force-recall the story line. Could be because the human brain has this tendency of shielding painful memories. Wonderful organ.
Usually if a movie contains a few bad scenes, I dwell all over it and pour my anger at having such inappropriate stuff placed there. I elaborate what I felt was wrong and why. Here its not necessary. If I were to remove such scenes from this movie, only the credits rolling would remain.
Hey! Im not mad without a reason (other than the unforgivable one that the movie destroyed an otherwise perfect sunday for me). The reason is the absolute lack of creativity - the cardboard faced acting and the stupid belief that talking loud about sex and virginity would make the movie appear ’cool’.
Uday cant act. period. He should seriously consider some other means of making a living. If he continues this streak he can hold the whole nation for ransom, threatening to release a new movie. I only hope there are no more budding aspirants in the Chopra family.
Tanisha is hot. Shes a real bubbly character. sweet and sexy (read mini skirts and bodices barely hiding what they are intended to). I like her, shes kinda cute. But she too is a lousy actress. She is introduced in the movie singing the song ’ Halla Re’ in which she croons ’ I wanna shake my body - move the night away’. Little did I realise that she meant it literally. Cause there was nothing much else she was doing for the rest of the movie.
There was another thot that came to my mind when I saw this movie. Bollywood movies are coming of age, they keep saying. What with the skimpy dresses, lip-lockings and openess towards sex related topics. One thing I noticed about Kal Ho Na Ho, Salaam Namasthe and Neal N Nikki, three movies which come under this genre - all are stories of NRIs in foreign lands. Maybe bollywood needs to make such movies about people back home with an indian backdrop to really prove the point that we are not afraid to expose ourselves to such stuff.
All in all the movie is a disaster. Its one of the movies which, after you have seen when you go back home, if you see people laughing on the streets, you wonder if they are laughing at you, knowing somehow that you had wasted yourself on this movie. Makes you feel sheepish.