Review: Jhoom Barabar Jhoom

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom

Directed by: Shaad Ali Sehgal

*ing: Abhishek Bachchan
Preity Zinta
Bobby Deol
Lara Dutta

Rating: **

When Shaad Ali had debuted with Saathiya, every soul claimed “a new director and a new vision was born”. With Jhoom Barabar Jhoom after the super-boring Bunty aur Bubli, that vision has drowned in a Tsunami.

Though Jhoom Barabar Jhoom is endowed with mammoth production values and it seems it had an infinite budget, it goes boom on grey-matter value!

Its pointless, meaningless and torturous. Its not what you expect when you read the kind of names involved in the credits.

It crawls into start when the very wannabe Ricky Thukral (Abhishek Bachchan) meets one suave, Paki-British, Alvira Khan (Preity Zinta) at London’s Waterloo Railway Station waiting for their respective fiancé’s on the way from Birmingham. The trains turns out to be 2 hours late one after the other which gives these two freaks enough time to narrate their respective “how I met and fell in love” epics to each other. These flashback stories turn out to be excruciatingly boring and un-funnily enduring. The jokes fall flat and the plots seem hopeless.

The film does pick up minute momentum in the second half when secrets come tumbling out of the glass closet. The characters change and so does the narrative. It becomes slightly entertaining and then you want it to end which it eventually has mercy and does.

The script is filled with loop-holes and the dialogues are downright bad. The screenplay on the other hand mimics a tortoise. Gulzar's lyrics are beautiful and un-understandable by common man in parts. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy hit the right instruments and notes.

Speaking of entertainment, the parts that do entertain the most are when Mr. Amitabh Bachchan jumps in and pulls of difficult steps in a rug-coat and awkward-hat with class. He’s a delight to watch, no matter what he does. And of course, the brightest highlights of this caper are the spectacularly choreographed (Vaibhavi Merchant) and mesmerizingly shot songs amidst foot-tapping music. It’s the best song picturisation you shall see after Tumse milke from Main Hoon Na. Especially, the brilliant “Kiss of love” and the ten-minute title song-sequence. Amazing. It seems they’ve spent millions!

There are only four performances to speak of thankfully. Abhishek Bachchan as the bling-bling, I can sing, wannabe Ricky Thukral is over the top. The character is interesting but he hams it up in some parts and under-plays in others. What were you thinking dude??

Preity Zinta as the don’t-touch-me Alvira Khan is just about passable. Another surprise.

And more surprise, the best performances from this spam-fiesta come from the two under-dogs. Bobby Deol is spot on as the mama’s boy Satinder in the second half. He’s deliberately nervous and shy. Just like the mama’s boy next door. One of his best performances.
Lara Dutta on the other hand steals the thunder from Priety for once. She’s is superb as Laila and equally love-able as Anaida. She is also inevitably hot. Check her out!

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom desperately tries to be a mad-comic-caper, stealing our hearts and making us laugh. It fails miserably. Its full of bling-bling, massive production values, designer clothes, pink limousines, shimmering sets and golden celebs. But everything that shines, ain’t gold. Is it? Its like a double-frosted, cherry topped, blue-berry cheesecake but it doesn't taste that great.

- Abbas Aziz Dalal.