VEER-ZAARA
Last week, I took my parents to watch Veer-Zaara
at Naz8 in LA
area. After visiting the sightseeing places, I wanted to ease my hard-to-resist
itch of watching an awaited movie from the bollywood factory.....
Overall, the movie is good for watching once, but nothing new or innovative.
It's a very typical Yash Chopra film with loads of Punjabi stuff, mustard
fields, heroines running to embrace the hero, etc......and it has shades of DDLJ
(both written by Aditya Chopra). Shahrukh is same as in his last few movies...he
retains the same romantic angelic face. Recently, he said in a interview that he
sleepwalks through romantic roles now, which basically means that he doesnt try
to be creative for these roles (this is obvious in this film). Still, he is a
good star and has tremendous screen presence. He did pretty good as an oldie,
though his hands looked younger than his face. The scenes depicting life and
culture of Punjab plus the melody 'aisa des hai mera' did wet my eyes.....I
thoroughly enjoyed watching the first half probably because I havent been to
India for almost 3 years, just because of these village scenes...Divya Dutta is
impressive as Shabbo with her right-on Punjabi dialogues, infectious smile and
excellent timing in dialogue delivery. Amitabh looked a waste.....Lata
Mangeshkar should stop singing now, her voice jars.
It's good to see Yash Chopra stick to his no-nonsense exposure policy for
heroines. In times when actresses are shedding their clothes faster than the US
stock market fall (very few of which are actually appealing), here is a film
where the heroines are fully-clad in salwaar-kameez and look very beautiful. For
the last 2 yrs or so, I have loved to watch Rani Mukherji. She stands out in
this film too with her author-packed role.
The sad part is that Yash Chopra is still stuck with the same mindset. Today,
Bollywood is undegoing an evolution thanks to maverick
directors taking risks and churning out out-of-ordinary movies (Ramu's
Bhoot,
Ashutosh's
Lagaan,
Farhan Akhtar's Dil Chahta Hai,
DK-Raj's
Flavors...). It would have
helped India if Mr Chopra would have also put his hat in the new ring and
presented something different. But alas, he stuck to his romantic formula. The
movie will probably be a big hit thanks to shahrukh's star status, romance,
etc..., but will probably miss most of the awards.
In sum, Veer-Zaara is watchable, but
doesn't move Bollywood ahead.....Think out-of-the-box next time, Mr. Chopra!
-Sanjit, 11/29/04.
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