Scripting a love story is the easiest one that comes to the mind of a director. It is also one of the most easily messed up concepts. Yashraj films’ Salaam Namaste is a confused love story that tries to be a comedy and in the end, finds itself in no-man s land.
The story of a Chef named Nick ( Saif ) and a Radio Jockey Amber ( Preity Zinta) starts with the usual fights , but tries a different route as the couple decide to understand each other by living together before getting married. So far, so good. Then the movie is back to the usual melodrama – Amber becomes pregnant ( I wonder why birth control protections have a high failure rate in bollywood movies !!) and the romance dries up. The climax, with Abhishek Bachchan in a role of gynecologist , presents the pathetic plight of the director and made me wonder why a talented and respected actress like Preity ever signed up for a movie like this.
The movie is disgraceful, to say the least. It still has some bouts of fresh air in Arshad Warsi s comedy and some lovely picturization of Melbourne. Music is unimpressive except for the Salaam Namaste song and the cast could not be faulted for what looks like an unimaginative direction ( Siddharth Raj ).
Saif looks muscular, but sorry – he looks too old to look like a young bachelor. But, Saif s seems to have matured as an actor and does come up with a couple of brilliant emotive portrayals of his role. The movie revolves around him and Preity and in the end, he finishes slightly ahead of the more popular Zinta when it comes to performance.
Preity Zinta begins to show signs of ageing, but she is quite graceful in the first half of the movie. The screaming and melodrama look artificial, but Preity does a good job – in fact, just good enough to keep the interest on her next movie.
The movie would have been a total disaster if not for Arshad Warsi s breezy cameo. Arshad simply excels in his limited role and he would rank higher than Saif in my evaluation of the artistes.
A special mention must be made about Javed Jeffery. He appears for very few minutes, but walks straight into the heart of the audience with his desi dialogues and subtle second meaning statements.
The last scene in the hospital was scripted to be comical, but it puts the director in very poor light. It is a shame that a life changing event like child birth is picturized in a disgusting and humiliating manner.
The wonderful opportunity to present the challenges of living together have been slipped with a misplaced focus on bringing in melodrama. The movie has a good concept to begin with, but it is a classic case of a good product that is packaged poorly. It may trigger a never ending debate on live-in relationships, but , sorry - it is poorly made movie and that is the sad part.
Salaam Namaste shows that the director has a very long way to go before he can even give an average movie. A couple of lessons on being clear about what needs to be done and some common sense are the immediate prescriptions for a confused Siddharth Raj.