Happy New Year
Year: 2014
Director: Farah Khan
Cast: Shahrukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Abhishek Bachchan, Sonu Sood, Boman Irani, Jackie Shroff

The average John (or Jaani or Janardan for that matter!) has seen or rather has had enough of real life. So when he walks into a theatre to watch a movie, he just wants to escape from the daily grind and be transported to a world of fantasy where underdogs like him can turn into heroes to woo beautiful girls, sing and dance, crack punchy one-liners, bash up villains and win limitless treasures!

Well, this is not my philosophy. This (or somewhat meaning like this) is what once MKD aka Manmohan Desai said and that’s the formula on which he made so many successful movies in the 70s and 80s. Now we are in 2014 and the formula still has not changed much. Yes, its practitioners have changed. If Rohit Shetty takes the crown in this department, Farah Khan does come a close second. Her brand of films- a crazy potpourri of comedy-action-melodrama-song-and-dance is an unabashed continuation of the famed MKD-formula. She missed the box-office bus in her last outing- Tees Mar Khan. But she now comes back with vengeance and delivers a typically low on intellect-high on ‘entertainment-entertainment-entertainment’ extravaganza in Happy New Year. And to make sure that she gets back her Main Hoon Na and Om Shanti Om mojo, she brings back her lucky mascot SRK! How is the experience?

What’s the plot?

An ex-University topper turned corrupt boxer throwing bouts (Shahrukh Khan) assembles a crack team consisting of a beefcake strongman (Sonu Sood), a safe-cracker (Boman Irani), a low-life drunkard (Abhishek Bachchan) and a computer hacker (Vivaan Shah). Then he hires a famous bar-dancer (Deepika Padukone) to teach his team some dancing. His secret plan? To participate in the World Dancing Chapionship in Dubai to rob diamonds. The reason? To avenge his father’s (Anupam Kher)  humiliation at the hands of a crooked diamond merchant (Jackie Shroff). How will this bunch of losers come up trumps?

What’s hot?

·        Lavish production.

·        Some funny scenes and lots of big and bright song-and-dance sequences.

·        The actors enjoy themselves fooling around. Surprisingly it is Abhishek Bachchan and Sonu Sood who outdo SRK and Boman Irani in making you smile through their silly antics.

·        Deepika Padukone steals thunder in her relatively small role and it is her entry which really injects some energy into the film.

What’s not?

·        The three hour-plus length tests patience.

·        The star attraction Shahrukh Khan merely goes through the motions, coming across more like an efficient rather than energetic participant in this enterprise.

·        Farah Khan’s directorial devices-especially her inside industry jokes and the constant references to earlier Bollywood classics-are now getting tiresome.

·        The heavy dose of outrageously silly illogical screen happenings is not as funny as it tries to be. Many gags fall flat and are stretched beyond acceptable tolerance limits!

·        The manipulative ‘Indiawale’ jingoism gets too much!

Verdict

Happy New Year revives Farah Khan’s talent for dishing out big screen Bollywood potboilers that don’t take themselves too seriously. It is intended to be a silly harmless well-packaged big screen entertainer and it mostly succeeds in achieving that goal. But it is neither totally happy nor new; rather a jerky ‘Now it works-Now it doesn’t’ kind of a masala movie experience, where everything- from the plot to the directorial tricks to the main star- appear stale and tired. Not that it is going to stop it from making big bucks!

Rating

2.5 stars