Om Yawnti Om

Picture this. Om Shanti Om at PVR Bangalore 10 pm show, Even before the movie starts, in fact, just when the censor certificate is shown on the screen, a 2-year old girl right at my left starts crying so loudly and keeps crying in spite of being pampered by her parents. I had to resist this terrible urge to comment out loud, "Abhee picture shuru nahi hua hai mere dost." I resisted, but nobody could resist the urge to laugh. Perhaps similar thoughts were on their minds too. The parents of the kid could have no shanti during the movie, and wisely took the kid outside the hall during the first half and they themselves left during the interval, saying "Om Shanti Om". Let's talk of the film now. It is a well-made spoof of Bollywood making the best use of SRK himself, the biggest star in Bollywood now. Farah Khan, the director and the writer, Mayur Puri have shown a good understanding of Bollywood, both of the olden days and of today. The dialogues are witty at several places.

The first half of the movie is loaded with humour, be it the scenes where Om(SRK) and his mom(Kirron Kher) exchange dialogues intentionally cinematic, or the scene where Om in his attempt to woo Shanti, becomes a south indian superstar(no points for guessing who) and performs daredevil stunts interspersed with lines like "Enna Rascala" and "Mind it". That particular sequence is rip-roaringly funny. If the first half is a spoof of the 80s Bollywood, the 2nd half starts off as a spoof of today's Bollywood, making fun of item numbers, of ambitious young directors who want to make the hero entirely disabled, and of Award functions that too with the help of many of the industry's bigwigs including Abhishek Bacchan and Akshay Kumar, making fun of themselves. It is indeed a great achievement for a choreographer-cum-director to bring more than 40 huge stars to feature in a single film, though not under the same roof at the same time. The song "Deewangi" serves this purpose, but doesn't really fit in the movie. The last half-hour of the movie is gripping, Arjun Rampal doing one of his better acts in his career and Deepika looking spooky as hell.

Shahrukh Khan is his brilliant charming self in the movie, first as Om Prakash Makhija and later as Om Kapoor, shortly OK. Deepika Padukone is stunning and is bound to have several more fans after this movie. The role of a beautiful actress Shantipriya fits her like a shoe. She does look awkward in a few dance sequences which is mainly due to her height. Otherwise she has carried herself with aplomb. Shreyas Talpade has played a decent role in the film as Om's friend, Pappu. Two or three of the songs are noteworthy. "Ajab si" tops it all, absolutely. When KK sings "Dil ko bana de jo patang saansein ye teri woh hawaaein hein", one cannot help wondering how his voice lends depth to the lyrics. I personally couldn't determine the reason my chest expanded when listening to these lyrics - whether it was due to my lungs filling with air or my heart filling with emotions. The final song, "Dastaan" is wonderfully picturised in a theatrical manner, and the tune is good too, leaving an impression after the film's over.

So much for the positives of the film. It is a commercial entertainer, but has several lapses and inanities in the screenplay and the storyline. Stunning as much Deepika is, the chemistry between the lead pair doesn't work out that well on screen, naturally. But one must say Farah Khan has improved in this aspect - considering the awful chemistry between Zayed Khan and Amrita Rao in Main Hoon Na. Overall the movie starts off and ends well, but in between it is a huge yawn. Om Yawnti Om.