Happy New Year: All--nonsense roller-coaster

Happy New Year

Starring: Shah Rukh Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Sonu Sood, Boman Irani, Vivaan Shah, Jackie Shroff

Rated: 6/10

Will it make money? Yes, big time! Does it make sense? No, none at all. But then, when the kumba of Farah Khan-Gauri Khan-Shah Rukh Khan and the like get together, they make sure they have all the fun on the sets. Some of it spills out into the screen too, often cocking a snook at what people call meaningful cinema, or for that matter, even cinema.

In between all this fun and frolic, they also make a movie. The result? A Happy New Year in Happy Diwali time. Which means, a lot of nonsense, a lot of naach gana, a lot of SRK and a lot of nostalgic self-indulgence.

So you have a big heist in operation but behind the green room of a world dance competition; a burst of in-your-face colours alongside in-your-face dialogues; expected SRKisms like lampooned dialogues from Main Hoon Na, Mohabbatein other famous Khan movies like Devdas, and as always, DDLJ. The intent? To have fun and make fun of any and everything that has made the now ageing Khan India’s darling.

Unlike all previous Farah movies like Om Shanti Om and Main Hoon Na, there is no attempt in this one to have a well-fleshed out story though a revenge angle is lightly woven into the three hour riot. There is hardly any romance and that’s a tad odd when Shah Rukh is in the centre of things. Yes, he has become old and haggard and also unkempt for some reason (please shave SRK!), but to have Deepika on the screen and yet not have a Chemistry class going does not make sense. Instead, Farah overtly worships the highly botoxed abs of SRK which make him look like a robot with the wrong jab. Sonu Sood too bares it all. He may be hard of hearing but is OTT with his body basics.

Boman Irani as an eligible Parsi bachelor bumbling through his community bylanes makes as much sense as any Honey Irani yelling her skull off as his mother. You can say the same for Abhishek Bachchan who is a new addition to this bandwagon but does well in a dual role.

Deepika Padukone is madam Eastman colours and seems to not mind being the lone bimbette in the film not doing much among the bunch of upstarts. Despite her big watery eyes and sexy figure, she stunningly fails to attract SRK in any which way which Farah needs to explain.

Oh, and I almost forgot! There’s Jackie Shroff too in a blink and go I-am-bad, I-am-bad mode. He, too, is not here to make you cringe with villainy but to have fun. So he makes little impact on the film. Also, don’t forget these are Indiawalleh and all set to do their own jugaad to get what they want — this time it is attention they seek so Bharat too is on a flip side roller coaster.

So, you can say safely, Happy New Year is one big party the kumba is having with paid tickets for unsuspecting visitors like you and me. They are not bothered if we are getting our money’s worth. They are! And, that’s the bottomline here. The public, of course, will be in paisa phenk mode for this no-we-will-not-allow-any-method-in-this-madness film.

Already, it claims to have collected Rs 44.97 crore on the opening day!

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 26 October, 2014