There is one scene in the movie where Bobby Deol and Abhishek Bachchan are seated in a scooter with a sidecar. As they careen through the streets of London, Sholay’s famous friendship song ‘yeh dosti hum nahin thodenge’ plays in the background. Given that we are almost 75% of the way through the movie, I secretly suspect that the director Shaad Ali cast both these stars in the movie just so he could have them re-do the scene made famous by their illustrious fathers.
Jhoom Barabar Jhoom is out an out a parody of Hindi movies, gleefully taking a dig at stereotype Bollywood. The storyline is very simple and is really an excuse for the director to fit in melodramatic courtroom scenes, snatches of the heroine prancing around with her towel after a bath and even a gentleman clad in black with light bulbs accessorizing his clothes. And I am not sure if it was meant to be, but Amitabh's random presence in the movie also seemed to be laughing at his completely irrelevant omnipresence these days.
Does the movie work? Almost. The movie plunges into the storyline straight on while the audience has not yet warmed up. The plot could have excluded anything that was non-standard Bollywood. That would have made the digs more apparent and kept up focus. The second half is basically one large song (foot tapping definitely). The movie is not brilliant but any steps to be irreverent should be applauded. However, going by the reviews and audience reactions, I would think it will probably be a very niche audience that will catch on. The question – how did the patriarch of all things fantastic in Bollywood, Mr Yash Chopra, actually produce this movie.
P.s. If the sarcasm does not appeal, you can always entertain yourself by trying to guess whether Preity Zinta has merely forgotten the collagen treatment for her eyes or if it went bad. The lip job is more obvious though.
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