Review of Jawani Diwani—A youthful joyride

This is a blog I had published elsewhere, and not that I am particularly proud of it, but since it was anyway going to get deleted, so thought why not publish it here:

Review of Jawani Diwani—A youthful joyride

Rating: %#@&

“What’s with the rating?”—You ask. Nothing really. The movie just doesn’t deserve any stars. Of course, you know what those printed characters mean. Right? Actually, the movie could have won an Oscar had it played Shahrukh in it. No, the movie isn’t that good. It’s just that its entertainment-value compares with Paheli’s.

The promos of the movie were really misguiding. And, it’s not the ‘ennahtainment vahl-yu’ that I’m talking of. Our serial kisser-boy, Emraan Hashmi (Mann Kapoor in the movie) was quite restrained with just three kisses in the entire movie (yes, you read it right; no printing error this is), with one being the replay of the other. He’s our average lecherous Indian male with seriously above-average luck. As a struggling singer he saves the life of Radha (Hrishitaa Bhatt) who happens to be the only (and surprisingly lonely) daughter of ‘cassette-king’--Umesh Jumani (played by Tiku Talsania). The instant chemistry that follows is to be seen and not believed, for unlike in this movie, the life of an average-Indian-lecherous-male is not guided by a bad script. By the way, Mann promises to marry her after taking a short trip to Goa.

What follows is a shoddy (excuse the euphemism) mix of lame digs at the likes of Anu Malik (sorry, don't know the in vogue numerologically correct spelling), & of jokes (excuse the exaggeration of calling them that—jokes) that are vulgar & miserably predictable, which makes you cry for the wasted money and time (dear ‘time is money’-types, if you’ve read this this far, you’ve already wasted quite a bit). But, don’t worry there’s something to laugh—the meant-to-be-emotional scenes.

I’m sure there must be a major number of Celina Jaitley *fans*, if you can call them that, who’d have wanted to watch the movie only for her. Alas! There are too many frames in the movie, where you get to see only her face, and believe me, you can’t help but wonder—if the makeup wasn’t up to its job, or if the cameraman did it too well.

Yes, not to forget, there’s one Chappubhai too. The role’s played by Mahesh Manjrekar, who I award full points for reminding us in, between that is, that this was originally supposed to be a COMEDY movie.

It’s in Goa that Celina (Roma Fernandez) falls in love with Mann, who falls in bed with her, upon discovering which Chappubhai forcefully locks them in wedlock (that kind of thing is possible in this kind of movie, indeed).

When it occurred to me, I was thrilled by the ingenious way in which Air Mauritius™ decided to tackle their till-now-successful-tourism-industry-caused-overcrowding-problems simply by advertising itself in the movie. (It’s to Mauritius where Chappubhai sends our literally we(l)d-locked couple to spend their honeymoon).

But, I won’t reveal the S-U-SSSSSS-P-E-N-C-E of this edge-of-the-seat-thriller; it really does make you sit on the edge of your seat, as you decide between running for the closest exit—wasting money in the process, or waiting a bit more, & wasting time, alternatively (Ah! The options offered by life).

Well, the movie has a saving grace, after all—music, what with those Arabic lyrics that nobody understands that nobody anyway cares to understand. No wonder, the title track & ‘Sinine sinine’ have made their respective ways to the countless pirated MP3 discs. Also, the choreographer, I bet, was really experienced. I’ll put my money on experience of no less than THREE DECADES in conducting mass PT-drills!

It would, however, be unfair to say that everything about the movie was bad. It had a nice ending, meaning, with it the movie at least came to an end.

Well my take on the movie? Throw in a bit of skin (male or female doesn’t matter—who’ll anyway be able to differentiate in such confusion and such extreme close ups?), mindless Arabic lyrics, dhinchak-dhinchak rickshaw beats, loads of blue filter (the cinematographic blue; the other kind of *blue* was sadly not there :( )to the scenes at random, step-less robotic dances, and remove any residual story left in the movie, and you still can’t get ‘Jawani Diwani’. It would still need the bad acting of Celina Jaitley, hairy armpits of Emran and a concerted effort of the entire crew to put this youthful joyride firmly on a collision course. Such movies—“Java devani” (Gujarati for: “to let go”).