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Take a superstar who is typecast as the college boy romantic hero, take every genre of movies from comedy to drama to action, think of outrageous moments from many popular films, add over the top slapstick and shake really hard, OK you can stir a bit too! What you end up with is a comedy that never takes itself seriously and is a barrel of laughs. Farah Khan is known as an excellent choreographer - but this is also one savvy lady. She takes her romantic hero, decides he is too old to play college boy, but wouldn't it be fun to have him do it anyway. Thus is born the character of Major Ram Prasad Sharma (Shahrukh Khan). He is overly straight-laced, non-nonsense and socially untested having studied in military academy through out. But he has to go back to school undercover to protect the army chief's daughter Sanjana (Amrita Rao) from the terrorist Raghav (Sunil Shetty). As an added bonus his estranged step mother (Kirron Kher) lives in the same town and his half-brother Lucky (Zayed Khan) is in the same college. Major Ram is like a fish out of water in the college, he is the gawky misfit, and his only friends are the other misfits. But he does slowly win hearts and friends and even gets to be the paying guest in his step mom's house. However he is thrown for a toss when he encounters the stunning chemistry teacher Miss Chandni (Sushmita Sen) and turns into an idiot every time he sees her. In the meantime Raghavan is playing his own game and trying to stop the implementation of a prisoner exchange program between India and Pakistan. Major Ram has to step in but Raghavan has many an ace up his sleeve. In the end will good triumph over evil?
The story is put together very well and the situations are hilariously contrived. Things kick off with Ram's arrival in the school and the the fun never stops. Many a moment is plucked out of some popular film or other and seamlessly blended into this palette of situations. Ram's first meeting with Chandni is something I can laugh over again and again. Shahrukh is not afraid to parody himself as the singing romantic hero - arms uncontrollably raised in air, his rendition of Ek Ladki Ko Dekha to Aisa Laga had me in stitches. He gets into the spirit of the comedy really well as the college student who is goody goody, but has no sense of fashion or style, and has no smooth moves on the ladies. Sushmita is hot! She looks exactly like you would expect a stunner to look - someone who can make men tongue-tied if she happens to walk by. Frankly her role does not demand any more and she does the job well! Amrita Rao is very good as the vulnerable Sanjana. Zayed is a pain in the behind, but I happily suffered through that as everything around him was great. Satish Shah as the spiting teacher was hilarious, Boman Irani as the forgetful principal was very funny, Bindu ji, Naseer Shah and Kirron Kher were great as expected. The surprise package was the bad-ass Raghavan played by Sunil Shetty - the heavy metal accompaniment every time one saw him helped a lot too! Hey, and I liked Rakhi Sawant as the chocolate eating Mini!
Anu Malik made some excellent tunes for this movie - the title track is amazingly good, Tumse Milke Dil ka Hai Jo Haal reminds me of why Qawwali was so popular in the yesteryears, Chale Jaise Hawaiyen has wonderful choreography with the longest shots in cinema to date, Gori Gori is catchy and infectious, and Tumhe jo Maine Dekha keeps with the overall spoof feel as the lead pair walk right out of college into an exotic locale while the walls segue around them from one place to the other. The movies spoofed are too many to count - Sholay's Basanti rickshaw, KKHH dance moves, K3G bhajans and aartis and the whole rice on the doorstep thing, Matrix moves, every romantic song SRK has ever sung on screen, countless Jackie Chan films.. The list goes on and on.
Some have made the mistake of thinking this is a serious action flick - you would rather be better off finding seriousness in Mel Brooks films! There is nothing serious here, just a lot of irreverent poking fun at everything and a barrel of laughs. It helps that a lot of times the lead man is poking fun at himself! Kudos to Farah for her smarts and her sense of style. Many will not get it but this is one intelligent film.
score 8/10
HeadleyLamarr 13 May 2007
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1655411/ |
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3-12-2019 23:28:11
