Mere Brother Ki Dulhan

To be serious on a Friday evening is sacrilegious. It is also a good excuse not to go at My Brother Ki Dulhan (My Brother’s Bride) with a cinematic laparoscope, when it is not pretending to be anything other than a vehicle for fun. If you want to watch a Bollywood movie, with its staple of North Indian wedding, a few colorful songs, eye candy actors and toned down drama suited for a global audience My Brother Ki Dulhan is a light entertainer for you to consider on a weekend.

Katrina Kaif is getting better as an actress though she is not playing a character far removed from her real life references. Dimple Dixit, a boisterous, fun loving girl had all the fun in the world and is ready to settle down with the man her parents will pick for her via the arranged marriage route. Then the unthinkable happens, that is if this is your first Bollywood film ever. If not, go to kitchen, grab a bag of chips, get back into the story without missing a beat.

Imran Khan, not a comedian by nature, fits well into comic story lines as I had witnessed in Delhi Belly. Ali Zafar is a comedian at heart kept in check by his London address in this movie. I’d like to see more of this Pakistani music star’s Bollywood forays (maybe start with Tere Bin Laden.) It was good to see Kanwaljeet Singh and Parikshit Sahni, old horses from Doordarshan’s hey days, back together in a main stream film.

Music is forgettable, cinematography is neat with shots of Taj from across the Yamuna as our Bollywood cinematographers prefer to show it and the director holds the game together without getting lost in creating spectacles for drama or tears.

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Delhi Belly

If this film was made in Hollywood, ideally, it will be titled Hershey Squirts or McShits, had it been a Canadian indie Beaver Feaver will be the name, in Arabic hands it’d have been called Yalla Yalla. For more ideas for suggesting a location-specific name for Delhi Belly when Aamir Khan Productions dubs the film for international audience and holds a public competition for the title of the dubbed version, visit Wikipedia.

With a team of Indians with roots and learning experiences from outside India, it does not come as a surprise when the movie speaks to the audience in English and identifies more with slick story-telling style of a Guy Ritchie or a Quentin Tarantino flick, with lot less gore and lot more $hit. Script writer Akshat Verma who went to film school in LA to make non-Bollywoodsy films in Bollywood finds his luck with Aamir Khan Productions and director Abhinay Deo.

Imran Khan, Aamir’s US born nephew and an actor in own right plays one of the major roles. The ensemble cast comprises of LA based actor Poorna Jagannathan, stand-up comedian Vir Das, Kunaal Roy Kapur, Shehnaz Treasurywallah, Vijay Raaz and Paresh Ganatra among others.

This is not a film you’ll take your family out to the theaters to watch. It targets the 20-50 urban demographic with connectivity, access and an open mind to non-traditional India. There are not many LOL situations but rather some well-timed brain chuckles and farts (what else do you expect from a film named after traveler’s diarrhea) packed in a tight script.

Quite unlike a typical Bollywood movie there are no song interruptions in the story line. It does have a few songs, the controversial Bhag Bhag D.K.Boss amongst them, but they form part of the background score like in Hollywood movies, marketed later as from the sound track of the movie.

If you are not from India, but would like to get a taste of Bollywood movies and prefer to take it slow and easy, this’d be a good starter. Enjoy!

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