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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Zindagi Na Milegi Dobarah

India’s yuppie film genre is coming of age. It has been a ten year long trek from Dil Chahta Hai to Zindagi Na Milegi Dobarah while the film going populace became economically empowered with BPO jobs, nano (as in the size) cars, cellphones and ‘phoren’ vacations. All those cars and vacations have increasingly led to the development of a new breed of Indian – a road-tripper with an indulgent wallet.

Bromance movies are no strangers to Bollywood – the original woods where the bromantic saga Sholay played out for years in front of generations of changing audience. Today’s crowd will still lap up the bromance, but they know ‘zindagi na milegi dobarah’, so please make sure to delete Gabbar and all the related blood and crime. Keep the motorcycle and the chicks. Better still let’s change the Enfield into a convertible and a SUV, in tune with the changing times. Since everyone Rampur is an NRI, let’s go to Spain.




Road trip + Bromance in an exotic locale and we have Zindagi Na Milegi Dobarah. It is a bachelor-party road trip through a Spain tourism commercial. We have the San Fermin running of the bulls festival and Tomatina festival in Bunol. Had the characters really stayed in Spain and went to Tomatina festival first and then to San Fermin as it is shown in the film they’d have road-tripped thru’ Spain for a year for the Tomatino festival happens in August and San Fermin bull run in July.

Since our director Abhinay Deo is not training to be Ken Jenkins or Watson, only trying to achieve a minor task of scoring a Bollywood hit which I believe he does succeed in doing, I will not engage in a trivial pursuit . Farhaan Akhtar, Hrithik Roshan, Abhay Deol, Kalki and Katrina Kaif supports Deo in his efforts. Although Javed Akhtar’s poetry is nice, had it not been there it’d not have made any difference to the viewing experience (atleast not to mine) or the box office bucks.

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New York

New York is a sauve film, just like its actors. Editing and photography befits the fast pace of the city it is named after. Technically it is more in league with Hollywood movies than with its Bollywood counterparts, all credit to Kabir Khan, its director.

I had watched Kabir Khan's previous venture Kabul Express. Like New York the story deals with the a situation which is the aftermath of 9/11. What doesn't really click for me with Khan's movies is that somehow they fail to keep me glued to story. I am not able to point out anything obviously lacking with the script or the story. But despite the gorgeous heroes, breath-taking locales, slick editing and fabulous photography, something is incomplete?!


Anyway New York shows me that when John Abraham grieves or sheds one or more tears, he looks like a man who had a stroke run over by a train. Katrina Kaif is a good-fit for the American desi, with an accent to match. But the discovery of the movie is Neil Nitin Mukesh - that guy can really act! He doesn't have many films in his resume and despite his caucasian good looks(fair n lovely crazed indians will lap him up like no tomorrow) he might be Bollywood's character actor of the future.

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