”Security is the essential roadblock to achieving the road map to peace.”
–George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., July 25, 2003
UNDAAZED
That is exactly what I felt after watching ANDAZ. Try as I might to be dazed by this spectacle, I was just left dark and gloomy that I had watched it. The movie is an exercise in predictability – predictable story, predictable acting, predictable situations, predictable songs and a hopelessly predictable climax. Even when Priyanka Chopra declares her noble intentions wrapped in not so noble actions in the end, except people on the reel, no one actually is shocked or bemused . instead, you just yawn and say . This was anyways going to happen!
So begins ANDAZ with a blooming .friendship. between Raj and Kajal. After Kajal does a Forrest Gump . .run Raj run. and restores his legs, their .friendship. grows beyond bounds. That you have no premonitions or expectations of any kind, the fact that they are .best friends. is iterated at least a dozen times . its almost an exasperated try at making us hammer in our brains that they cannot fall in love . no. Not so soon perhaps. But of course, we always knew that a man and woman can be everything but friends. And if they are best friends, it follows that best friends fall in love only when either of them in on the thin red line of getting engaged/married with someone else . providing handsome situations for (i) The hero / heroine to do his I want my girl / boy Boo-Hoo act (ii) The second hero / heroine to make that valiant sacrifice by giving away their love, without of course realizing their good luck. Don.t worry, ANDAZ is no different. Didn.t I tell you its predictable?
So just when the hero conveniently joins the air force, the damsel in friendship also falls in love . pretty easily by a millionaire. Of course, the hero cannot bear to see tears in her eyes, asks her to marry him. Really . what would he do anyways? Anyhow, to complicate matters, just when she is about to leave, she comes to know oh-my-dear-he-loves-me-i-am-such-a-fool situation. As conveniently as everything else, she just quips . .Why didn.t you ask me before?. to which the devastated hero has frog like face with eyes popping all over the place. So much love for friends eh? Now as if to redeem himself, our hero puts his mind out in flying and is sent to Europe for a Indo – *** joint exercise. To his misfortune, he has to meet the .other. heroine Jiya (or whatever her name was) and she falls head over heels (literally, she is drunk in the scene) in love with our hero . of course our hero cares a hoot. All it takes for him to fall in love eventually is one Kadva Chauth and one Hamming session on Rocks-don.t-have-hearts-and-cannot-love philosophy. Really, the kadva chauth left a bitter taste within us . come of it . I can now write a thesis on the Kadva Chauth . If someone cannot change the script, at least for heaven.s sake change the occasion!
Anyhow, turns out, the hero who has barely fallen in love discovers that Kajal is actually Jiya.s Bhabhi. Conveniently for all of us, right after marriage, Kajal.s husband died . just in case he would create any problems further. Gates open, love blossoms and Jiya schemes a sinister plot to give us a surprise twist in the end by uniting the lovers . surprise! we are not surprised though! Tsk! Tsk! They just might have killed Jiya for the added effect of sacrifice and make the movie more predictable. I mean, if it was this predictable, why not a bit more. Everything is back to happy days, and best friends realize they are the friends in love . while a valiant sacrificial lamb of a heroine looks on. Oh lovely . And as if to justify how predictable things get, every character of the movie then embraces the couple and camera just stops with all 16 people showing their 32s and standing arms in arms. I only hoped they didn.t display the banner . .The beginning.. Shudder!
From acting point of view, really there was nothing much to act. The scenes and situation were ones which even I might act out with finesse, then why even bother about the cast. Though Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta look hot respectively and together (why they even have a song together), they don.t do much in terms of acting . Though Lara does look to have potential. Akshay.s second act as I-am-lord-Ram after Deadcan (for the un-inspired, its Dhadkan), fails again miserably. He is best suited for Wham-Bham roles and must stick to that. His facial expressions change from extremely happy to extremely sorry . whether for us or himself we don.t know.
The music is also predictable as if to keep up the mood of the movie. Almost every song has been sung by Kumar-nosy-Sanu, and with each song he increases his aalaps progressively. Every song takes away 6 to 7 minutes easily, and there are 8 to keep you interested in the Loo. The songs fall in predictable situations . you can almost hear a song coming! We didn.t try guessing the lyrics, but I am pretty sure we would have. A movie with a predictable script doesn.t need any direction to speak of, but whatever direction from whichever angle to wherever, deserves a kick in the butt. There is no screenplay to speak of (oh come of it, I could have written a better screenplay!) , and its pretty evident by a lack of script. I had heard the girls of the movie scream how different their role was . I suggest, they take a look at DDLJ, K3G, KKHH and realize how stupidly common they are.
In the end, why did we see that movie? Well, we saw another movie . OOPS! And to get over the hangover of seeing my own species strip, and before we changed our sexuality, we decided to view some hot chicks to restore our sanity and sense. However, in comparison, the other movie at least had an element of surprise. But then, we had not prepared our selves for such a predictable fare- in retrospect . it didn.t matter! In the end, well, I had just thing in my mind.
Oops we saw Andaz!
”I recently met with the finance minister of the Palestinian Authority, was very impressed by his grasp of finances.”
–George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 29, 2003 (And I thot finance minister had a grasp of everything else….)