Ironical though true, the fact is that RAB NE BANA DI JODI has made maximum impression when it has stayed on to be simple. And the only couple of places where it has tried to be adventurous, it has fell flat.
Worse, these are the very two sequences which were perhaps the costliest in terms of expenditure (though it’s a different story that at least one of them looks truly sponsored, courtesy on your face ‘in film product placement’) and are still the least (or shall we say ‘not at all’) talked about after the release of the films.
These are i) The item song ‘Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte’ featuring five leading ladies and ii) the entire Sumo wrestling sequence
Picture this. The first sequence comes when Anushka starts dreaming while watching her zillionth film with Shah Rukh Khan in a run down single screen theater, somewhere in Amritsar. Suddenly, the boring actors on the big screen disappear and Shah Rukh Khan emerges. He becomes Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor, Rajesh Khanns and Rishi Kapoor for Kajol, Bipasha Basu, Lara Dutta, Preity Zinta and Rani Mukherjee respectively for no rhyme or reason.
Chalo maan liya that one should suspend one’s disbelief for moments like this but what happened to choreography here? The sets are all fine but dance moves lack the zing (and get completely lost in the attempted spoof) while picturisation is boring even with good chunk of money being spent on creating the sets. Really, what a disappointment and something that was just not warranted. If one recollects, when Farah Khan and Sajid Khan attempted bringing in stars for their songs ‘Deewangee’ [OM SHANTI OM] and ‘Hey Baby’ [HEYY BABYY] respectively, it made sense and also made impact. Here, it does neither!
Now let’s talk about the other sequence which is even more disappointing and purposeless – The Sumo sequence! Why, but why the need for that? The story is finally looking like reaching a culmination (and we are eagerly awaiting it, not because we mind the length – no, not at all – but a twist in the tale is pretty much on the cards for Suri and Tani) and it seems like Aditya Chopra is ready to make you drop some tears again, just like he so very successfully managed to do in the first 30 minutes of the film. However, out of a blue, comes a ‘Japaani mela’ and lo, Mr. Suri wants to enter the ring with a wrestler just so that ‘Taaniji can visit Japan, be happy and have a smile on her face – something which he hasn’t succeeded in bringing in so far’! Now what was that!
Well, even this tangent may have worked had the wrestling sequence being picturised with either panache or humor. But nahi, it turns out to be so pedestrian that one almost imagines yesteryear comedian Rajendra Nath (may his soul rest in peace) doing some jumping around in a 60s film. Now this one just didn’t suit Shah Rukh Khan’s standing as an actor; the excuse of him being merely playing a character be damned. The sequence neither works with children, nor adults and when Suri puts a ‘Sorry’ note for Taani, he may as well have been doing that for the poor audience for whom this sequence acts as not just a speed breaker but a flat tyre.
Frankly, what was Aditya Chopra and his creative team thinking when they decided to fit in these sequences in the film? In any case, the film’s running length is close to 2:45 hours and these two sequences contribute not less than 15 minutes to the narrative. Of course, it is easier said than done to have these sequences removed from the film today but why didn’t these glaring chinks in the armor of RAB NE BANA DI JODI emerge during the scripting itself?
Well, we have been left wondering though in the wake of film’s huge success, which is pretty much on the cards, one sincerely hopes that blemishes like these are buried and forgotten and we celebrate the revival of Bollywood with a money spinner leading the way as we move into 2009!
By Joginder Tuteja
