Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Bobby Deol, Lara Dutta, Amitabh Bachchan (special appearance)
Direction: Shaad Ali Sahgal
Genre: Musical
Movie Overall Rating: *** (2.5 stars out of 5)
Length: 138 minutes
The aim and intention of my reviews is to critique and recommend while not revealing the whole story to enjoy the movie when seen. Minor details may have been divulged for proper review!
Its crazy, outrageous, brainless, script less, bizarre, also different, glitzy and funny! But as advised by a family friend before we entered the theaters, leave your intellect, and logic behind!
Jhoom Barabar Jhoom is on the lines of Shad Ali’s favorite topic-spinning tall tales and fabricating inconceivable fantasies, ala Bunty aur Babli. Here the fibbers are laidback desi Londanite Abhishek as Rikki Thakral and Preiti Zinta as Pakistani Britisher Alvira Khan. Both having outrageous romantic stories to swap while waiting at a train station to pick passengers arriving from Birmingham. While narrating their love stories set in Paris with theatrical songs at Louvre, Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe and other in London singing with Madame Tussauds supermen, this very unlikely pair - the Bhatinda born small time entrepreneur of illegal businesses who keeps saying “I have class!” and polished prim and proper Lahori British girl get smitten with each other!
The other characters in this farcical ludicrous love story are Pakistani Parisian Ritz manager Anaida Raza ( Lara Dutta) and Punjabi Britt millionaire lawyer Steve Singh( Bobby Doel).
Jhoom Barabar … starts and ends and jhooms intermittently with the bohemian gypsy Amitabh Bachchan’s singing and dancing in London’s Waterloo Station . His outlandish colorful designer jacket, feather hat, double-necked guitar, necklaces, rings, jeans and boots, makes him look like a cross of Carlos Santana, George Clinton and Jack Sparrow!
Except for the title "Jhoom" song, the rest of the songs in this musical movie are colorful wacky numbers! “Ticket to Hollywood” has Lara in micro miniskirt with ostentatious & theatrical back up dancers, “kiss of love” is horrendous with blonde Bobby dancing in court with superman and batman wax statues in background! “Bol Na Halke Halke” leads us to Indian railways,roadways, patli galis(bylanes), Taj Mahal and even Humayun ka maqbara with ridiculously confusing dream sequences. The dance contest with the elongated jhoom barabar song tries our patience.
Abhishek Bachchan carries out his funny guy character with aplomb. If JBJ does well for any reason, it will be for him! But this is his third movie with a similar character after Bunty aur Babli and Bluff Master. He should stop repeatitive roles even though he does it well. But as Thakkral, he overacted a little specially on the british colloquial "blimey". Preity is pretty as always. Lara Dutta is very accomplished in both her characters. She is equally at ease in her french accent and her south hall street foul talk. Bobby Doel both as the blonde lawyer and the gay optician looked and acted miserably. Huffy bhai aka Hafeez bhai, Rikki darling’s partner and associate in crime and illegal business is an interesting character. Played by Piyush Mishra who wrote his own poetic dialogs, added a witty dimension to the film.
The movie has some funny moments, some silly, some you may just laugh because you paid to watch it! There are some mistakes and many gimmicks too. - Preity’s butterfly tattoo changes from left to right in different scenes. Shaad Ali as a director is so enamored with films he grew up with, that he likes to bring in a thread of those into his own movies. -Abhishek Bachchan and Bobby Doel ride a motorcycle and sidecar just like Sholay’s Amitabh Bachchan and Dharamender, with the song playing in the background. -In a dream sequence, Abhishek acts like coolie with red shirt, just like his fathers movie - Shad Ali repeats the Bunty Bubli scene of wedding at Taj in another song sequence. - Abhishek snickers and talks about ashji and amit ji in Madame Touassads...... JBJ seriously needed a better editor and more importantly a script writer. What it had for sure was a choreographer and flamboyant dress designer!
Jhoom barabar jhoom is good when you have nothing to do and want to rest your brain!
