o! Just Me

I wasn’t really sure if the Movie would live up to the hype and publicity before the release; the scarcity of the tickets at the box office (in Pune) yesterday was tempting me to wait for today - the day for which I got the ticket for Salaam-E-Ishq. I missed the usual Paid Preview I enjoy at Mumbai and thus had to delay by 2 days. Today’s report about the movie on the gossip, media TV was disheartening. I had made up my mind that I would come out at any time if it start to bore like Baabul.

Even though it was not that good, Salaam-E-Ishq wasn’t bad either. Govinda was at his usual funny self, Salman was still unable to act effectively, littered with his tattered Hindi (his hindi sounds like it comes out from somebody who learnt it recently & had been used to speaking English all his life). Priyanka, well, she is new to the industry and she still have to learn to spruce her acting skills lot more. Besides her dance/song sequence it was hard to digest her acts. Her acting still reminds of the same kiddish acting she did in Krrish.

Anjali played by Anjana Sukhani (she did a coke commercial with Aamir Khan), did a commendable Job working amongst the veteran actors. She is pretty, sweet, cute and lovable. She didn’t have to do much but her part was enough. I feel the comic relief couples - Ramdayal (Sohail Khan) and Phoolwati (Ishaa Koppikar) were unnecessary addition which added to the already long movie that runs for about 3 and half hour. The couples never got a proper chance, place and time to make love. Something always befell them in one way or the other - I like the Suhaag Raat, being hot but not in front, hot at the back thingy.

Salaam-E-Ishq is a movie of love stories, in fact all of 6 love stories - a rather bheiya, rapid-fire dialogues from Govinda, good cache of high profile actors, based on a benign view of humanity and a feeling that makes sentimentality feel righteous. Director, Nikhil Advani tried to follow the many over-worked-mostly-successful formula of being inspired by non-hindi movies. Eventually, S-E-I is a twisted but softened Indian version of the 2003 Holiday Love Lorn Flick - Love Actually.

S-E-I flips through myriad stories of people falling in love, and some falling out of love; none terribly hatke (read different in hindi) nor compelling in itself. An intense sad love story of Ashutosh (John Abraham) and Tehzeeb (Vidya Balan) when Tehzeeb was in a Mumbai-Goa Train accident and lost her memory (some sorta amnesia where she forgets from the chapter when Ashutosh begins in her life). A family of Vinay (Anil Kapoor) and Seema (Juhi Chawla) almost on the brink of a family break-up because of the sleek Anjali (Anjana Sukhani) coming in the life of the 40 year old Vinay.

Shiven (Akshaye Khanna) and Gia (Ayesha Takia) got engaged but Shiven felt that he is not ready for marriage and somehow broke up with Gia (some camcorder are so unpredictable), who got engaged and almost married to Rohit. Rohit is the Boyfriend of Stephanie (Shannon Esra). Stephanie came all the way from New York to Delhi and is being assisted by Raju (Govinda) along with his taxi which breaks down at the most unfavorable time. Raju felt that Stephanie is his dream girl sent by his Bajrang Bali and of course finally shirked “I Love You” to Stephanie. She responded “Why didn’t you say it?” with the typical White-Foreigner-Speaking-Hindi course-cuteness, “Main Bhi Thumse Phyar Kharti Hoon”.

The story lacks substance, reminds me of Love Actually, carved with the typical bollywood-hindi-scissors to suit the Indian mindset, and still trying to stay away from the conventional bollywood-lab-soup and deal with some masala out-of-marriage/relation bold drama fueled by the recent Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna. However, John’s part was of exception, Govinda was cool, while others fail to achieve much resonance. The scenes are fragmentary, though comic moments from Ramdayal-Phoolwati was quick and refreshing, dialogues from Akshay was clever, Govinda’s heart touching comical dialogues were delivered in immense profoundness, item numbers were sexy but most of them looks like a way to distract from the sheer filmy-ness. You’d be seeing this movie for the actors, the colors, the dance and the songs. Of course, like most Bollywood movies, this needs just one-time-view-&-forget.

This is the typical 21st century Bollywood Movie; so we got lots of color, lots of dancing and singing. Ah! the Dark skin Indian’s affinity for the White-Fair-Blonde women will never end. As usual, we see lots of white-troupe dancing amongst the Indian dancers, lip-syncing to Hindi tunes, trying to mimic the curvy movements but being hulky and the audience loving it like those Indian Parents feeling proud of their white-bahus. We seem to love the whites when they dance, sing and dress in the Indian dresses. It is rumored that for a particular shot of the dance sequence on the London Bridge, Salman came early prior to the camera and other technician. He then offered and foot the bill for breakfast of the whole dance troupe.

Blooper — Is it just me or the fact that of late, most Bollywood movies are sporting Apple Mac Books (that too the silver 17″ Mac) these days instead of the usual Windows Laptop. But they’ve got a blooper here, there is no Windows Media Player per se for the Mac (though there is MPlayer for OS X). While Priyanka was sneaking at the Salman’s Macbook, she saw a movie on Windows Media Player. You can clearly see the Windows chrome (we don’t have that chrome on a Mac). They could have at least looked at a Mac and used a Quicktime Player instead of the Media Player for Windows.