The movie was released on Aug 4th Friday. As my brother was spending time with me, we decided to have a movie time on Rakshabandan. We booked tickets for the morning show at 9 am as he has to leave by train early evening. We reached theatre 5 minutes before the movie time. There were few people around. The mall officials were still sweeping. Around 9.30 am, they let us in and we were surprised to find that there was no one to watch the movie except for us. We had the full theatre reserved for us.
The movie revolves around tourist guide and an engaged girl who goes in search of a lost ring. Performance by lead actors is the only saving grace to the film. Shah Rukh Khan as a cynical tour guide is convincing and charming, at the same time. He perfectly outlines the feelings, mental state of a tour guide who is suffering from loneliness and frustration of life. None other than SRK could have pulled this off with such an ease. Anushka Sharma at the same time delivers a decent act of a Gujju girl even though her accent makeover was uncalled for. Music is good but as said earlier, too much is too bad. Background check score, choreography and cinematography offer nothing new.
The story is different from the other love stories seen in films. Imtiaz Ali’s screenplay in the first half is full of light, humorous and fun moments which entertain the audience thoroughly. The viewers enjoy the arguments between a Punjabi tourist guide and a Gujarati girl. They also find Sejal’s efforts at impressing Harry and winning brownie points very cute. Equally endearing is how Harry slowly but surely starts caring for and liking Sejal. Having said that, it must be added that the humor is city-centric and youth-centric.
Once the second half starts, the fun quotient reduces dramatically as romance takes precedence over all else. Although the romance is interesting and engaging, it becomes repetitive, especially when Harry keeps telling Sejal to return to India and keeps holding himself back. Though the elite audience will understand the inner turmoil of Harry, the masses will find his actions irritating after a point of time because they will interpret it as his indecisiveness. Perhaps, the biggest letdown of the screenplay post-interval is that Harry’s backstory is just not explained. Frankly, the audience waits for his backstory to unfold because a reference to that is made in the first half when Harry thinks about his past and ends up crying. The ending is cute and unusual although the climax may not satisfy every class of audience.
While the pre-interval portion is very entertaining, the post-interval part is neither entertaining nor emotional. The romance in the post-interval portion is good but repetitive.
I prefer 3 stars out of 5 for the movie, but give full marks for the enjoyment we had in the empty theatre and food counter.
A Special Rakshabandan day to cherish for me and my sibling….
Thought Is Free 
Leave a Reply