Delhi-6

For the impatient, AVOID IT.

Why ? Read on. (Warning: Spoilers ahead!)

Let's look at different aspects of the movie :

The Negative Side:

Plot: The movie starts on a high, highlighting the importance of relationships in life, and of faith. How fascinated foreigners are with Indian ways is captured well too. But somewhere down the line, it gets lost. It appeared more of a 'COS' curve(think trignometry if you have studied maths, otherwise its something that starts at a high point and then eventually touches the lowest ebb). So all of a sudden, you have this Shani baba coming in from somewhere proclaiming that the Masjid was actually a mandir 350 years back, and the next thing you know is that neighbours start (almost) killing each other. Well, religion is a tricky thing and can make people do weird acts, but just in a moment? Is that the tolerance level of people in Old Delhi? And if that wasn't enough, right at the moment when the riots are to start, the Kaala Bandar appears from somewhere, and Hindus and Muslims are brothers again 'in just one moment'. Phew! Want more ? And it just takes a couple of lines from a protagonists to make everyone realise that Abhishek is faking to be Kaala Bandar so that the riots can be avoided. Ha Ha ! Are people in Delhi-6 really that crazy(if not foolish) to take life changing decisions in a moment?

Abhishek: The weakest link of the story perhaps. I found him totally unconvincing in the role of an NRI. The accent he put on was too fake to be believed. I guess he should have been sent for a accent training at some BPO firm. I feel John would have been a better choice. Even better, a new actor could have been pulled in. After Rang De Basanti, Rakeysh Mehra could have taken that chance and people would have trusted him. But well....

Director: When you make a movie like Rang De Basanti, you set some expectations. Not that RDB wasn't a commercial movie, but it had a message: it seemed to stem out of reality, from our everyday life. But out here, the director didn't bother to do a check on what's expected out of him. He starts off well and then suddenly takes us back to a 1960s-1970s. Dude, people are impatient today and they want more. If someone is going to spend 200 bucks in times of recession to watch your movie, they expect something good out of it. I wonder if RDB was really made by Rakeysh Mehra(or whatever way he spells his name)?

Climax: Why couldn't you just let Abhishek die ? Why did you need to let him survive ? And what was the ghostly Amitabh Bachchan doing there? You had one chance to atleast give a decent end to all the hysteria, but ROM you chose to make it a fultoo desi film.

The Positive Fews:

Kaala Bandar: The idea of kaala bandar was fun though. It reminded me of 2 things: first, how media hypes up things in india, and second Muhnochwa! Back in 2002, when I was studying in Allahabad, eastern UP was attacked by Muhnochwa thread, a creature that came in night and snatched your face and vanished! We had a real good laugh at the thoughts back then, throwing our own innovative theories what Muhnochwa could be. The hype went down gradually, and no one ever found a muhnochwa. But Delhi-6 did remind me of my college days, and I must thank ROM for that. But that's not good enough dude. You made a bad movie.

A R Rehman: It's not the music. It's AR Rehman. As always, awesome. Its the music that saves the movie from being a total disgrace. AR Rehman rocks!(and pops, and jingles, etc etc)

Summary: Avoid it. Don't spend USD 10 / INR 200 on this movie. Better wait for it to be released on a moser baer VCD/DVD and then watch it. This is not a Rang De Basanti.