Movie Review - Fanaa

I am on a week’s leave at home now and with time hanging heavy on my hands, doing all sorts of random things. The more productive activities have involved getting a dental check up done - good teeth, a medical check up done - alive and kicking - and writing my blog. The not so productive stuff included watching Fanaa yesterday.

If I were to draw up a list of things that make a Bollywood movie successful, I would include – produced by Yashraj films, starring two hot favourites, excellent costumes and sets, good locales, good photography, good technical quality and atleast one good song. Please note that this list does not include good screenplay, good story, good acting and other such meaningless stuff. Fanaa passes the successful Bollywood movie test quite easily.

The first half reminded me a lot of the 5th term projects in B-School. Cut and paste from the most obvious sources on the net till it was a complete kitsch of various clichéd stuff with not much originality thrown in. Heck, 5th term in B School is meant for sacking out and hence one is easily forgiven. But Fanaa.. Characters mouthing stuff like ‘Ma kehti hai ki kuch paane ke liye kuch kona hai’. Aarrgh. Also the shayaris that all characters quote back and forth become a bit tiresome after a while. You would think the characters couldn’t say ‘May I use the ladies’ without composing a nice shayari to say it. Infact when Kajol tells her mom that she is in love, her mom quotes shayaris and ignores fairly reasonable questions like 'how does he earn his living?'

The only ray of sunshine is Kajol. She acts the part of a blind girl with her usual verve and charm and makes you realise why she is the star she is. Rani waddling like a duck in Black, making blind people look imbecilic, can learn a lesson. Perhaps Kajol’s portrayal may not be the most realistic but atleast it makes you see her as a normal person. Aamir looks like a fat, smug and leery middle-aged man with his long hair.

Just before the second half begins, Aamir cuts his hair and gels it. I think the movie’s attractiveness factor went up by two notches just on account of this. The second half of the movie was like the B School projects from the 2nd term. Your grades still matter at this point and hence the quality of cut and paste is more professional. You have fished the net really well and have so many sources that the end product looks almost original and quite snazzy. And in the movie, Kiron Kher’s character has died, so you know the movie can only get better.

Coming back to the story, Kajol has been under the impression that Aamir is dead - har har. As though yash chopra would easily kill off a hero who costs INR 30 M. But fate brings them back together. A cutesy child is introduced and at regular intervals says cutesy things always referring to him self in third person. Tabu comes in as a part of our intelligence force. As my friend pointed out, she looks like a top notch McKinsey consultant mouthing some aggressive stuff like ‘Can’t you do something about the weather?’ Shiny Ahuja comes in a blink-and-you-will-miss-him role. Sundry characters join the fray looking for a Kashmiri terrorist who has stollen some key nuclear part and will shortly blow up India once he gets it to his team .

Oh by the way, the whole story is about the Kashmiris fight for their independence. If you actually hope to get an idea of why Kashmiris are frustrated enough to take up arms, then please skip this movie.

So finally we come to the end. Aamir Khan and Kajol are in a stand off facing each other with automatics. One, a hard core terrorist trained to kill and the other, soft and round from years of leading a cosy life at home. But when it is time to pull the trigger, the latter wins.

Bharat Mata ki jai.