I watched Jaane Tu again on Youtube... And thats when I really wanted to write a review.
Abbas Tyrewala you lovable Parsi...the guy who imbibes everything of Mumbai in a undefeatable package...the man who wrote Munnabhai ...and the delectable Om Shanti Om makes an impressive debut as a director...
The movie starts on a self-deprecatory note with a classic plot device ...a set of friends narrating an old story that culminates in an airport while going to pick up from an airport to a girl who seems quite bored with the group... Yawn...another love story....in this way Abbas teases the audience but also underdogs himself...
The group of friends is perfect and anyone who has studied in colleges can identify with it. Bombs ( Alishka Varde) is the classic Marathi gal who would develop a soft corner for. Rotlu and Jignesh as the loser stereotypes are excellent and the other gal with super spunk...In fact casting is so perfect throughout the movie....Naseer, Ratna Pathak Shah, Jayant Kripalani, Anuradha Patel , Kitu Gidwani, Rajat Kapur, Paresh Rawal really add charm to the scenes and the crazy duo of Arbaaz and Sohail play the best cameos of their lie...
The movie has a spoofy touch to it all over as well. Almost as if Abbas had an Om Shanti Om hangover...But here all the references are subtle and you would not pick them up sometimes. It was almost as if Abbas took all the standard set of classic Bollywood cliches and shuffled them in a different goofy way. Some of them like the the dream sequence with the horse is something like Zanjeer, the whole Ranjhore Rajput flashback is actually a version of the QSQT first part where Dalip Tahil kills someone but here Naseer dies,leaving Jai to be raised by Ratna Pathak Shah, a Dil type college fight and the jailing of the hero, a scene where Imran jumps over a hedge like Aamir Khan in JJWS, Rotlu giving Tu hi re the really rotu touch, the Hum Paanch type talking to the dead husband...and lots of others...
The lead cast is not likeable immediately but they grow on you mainly because they dont try too hard. Imran has a lot of his uncle especially when he smiles and when he explains something. Genelia although blessed with an irritating voice and diction, d0es manage to sprinkle a simple girl next door type feel to her role. This kind of a love story cast that was missing in Bollywood for a long time.Simple, effervescent, casual and completely natural ...
There are some absolutely superb dialogues in the movie ..when Aditi says ' College ke 5 saal kaise beet gaye pata hi nahi chala' and Ratna Pathak interjects ' Phone pe beta, phone pe'. Jignesh talking about ' Aditi ko visa bhi mil gaya, sab ko nahi milta hai' an intelligent quip and also 'mera surprise birthday party hai,zaroor aana'...All of Ratna Pathaks dialogues are cool just because the way she says it...there is a scene where she talks to Naseer ' tum sarphire, hinsak.....pause...mard' ... her interludes with the cop Waghmare ( although a restrained Paresh Rawal but lacking enough Marathiness to pull off a Waghmare) are wonderful..What delight she is ...oh how I miss Sarabhai vs Sarabhai...
Songs are truly cool...Pappu cant dance works due to the interesting lyrics where as Kabhi Kabhi Aditi due to the strumming tune...Kahi pe Nigahen is also nice...Although I have to say the choreography could have been much better for Pappu cant dance and kahi pe nigahen.
The movie though thoroughly enjoyable raises some tough questions for the love story genre.. Now could Abbas have pulled this off as a pure love story, if you remove all the set pieces like the Rajput Rathore angle, the portrait talk, the police inspector angle, etc. I dont think so at all. Since the story drags the most when there is focus on the love story. In fact the purposefully negative characterization of Sushant , and the disturbed family life of Meghana are easy writing gimmicks. At the end of the day, I never felt the love...which is where Jab We Met scored a bit. And if I compare it with the love stories it tries to spoof, then I really thought Aamir and Madhuri or Juhi loved each other a lot more in Dil and QSQT. In fact it doesnt even come close to the Aamir's silly fling with Pooja Bedi and Ayesha Jhulkas pain in JJWS.
Hence Abbas Tyrewala is a smart writer who acknowledges the limitation of his own film-making in some way just like Pappu cant dance saala actally refers to Imran's debut without a dance number. Since Yash Chopra's karva chauth and chiffons style refashioned by his cronies like Kunal Kohli is not working, I am seriously wondering if the Bollywood love story ki death hi ho gayi kya.
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