Movie Review : Om Shanti Om !!

Posted November 22nd, 2007 by Manas Mishra

“ALL HYPE AND NO SUBSTANCE”- This is what aptly describes “Om Shanti Om”, an easily predictable drama by Farah Khan. The movie envelopes the same Bollywood classic story about love, reincarnation, etc amalgamated with excess of hamming and plagiarizing stuff from various Hindi movies like Madhumati, Karz, etc, that are still worth watching.

The movie reaches pinnacle of over-acting right from the first scene where Shah Rukh Khan is shown talking to the costume man, following his conversation with Shreyas Talpade, with really loud Kirron Kher (trying to enact 70’s filmy mom, but failing desperately) and so on.

A lot has been already written about the synopsis so am not going to discuss it again. The first half of the movie mostly involves a goof-up of the 70’s era. The director has tried to project it by means of costumes, hairstyle and unusual hamming. In order to astonish audiences, Deepika Padukone is made to dance with the actors of the 70’s (Jeetendra, Sunil Dutt and Rajesh Khanna) but even an amateur could make out the difference between the background and foreground. Even the lyrics are not in sync with the body movements (Really don’t know what the director wanted to prove here as all the three appear in a single dance sequence with SRK springing up in between, coming out of nowhere).

The first half goes far too long before a conflict (SRK and Deepika die) is introduced. The scene where we see Deepika stuck in fire shouting (last scene before intermission) for help and SRK trying hard to reach her, is too melodramatic and predictably long. From there on, one could easily predict about the second half. I am still amazed as to what impelled actor Rajesh Kapoor (played by Javed Sheikh) to name his newborn son “Om” (may be to make it more dramatic).

The second half starts with the reincarnated version of “Om”, but unlike the previous Om (who was a junior artist), this Om is a superstar. What we get to see here is “How to make mockery of the other stars”. When Om-2 reaches the set of his movie and asks about the villain, his director exclaims “Ranbir”. Also he criticizes films with deaf and dumb characters (no points for guessing as to who’s being targeted here). Then out of nowhere, suddenly SRK appears with his much hyped “six-pack abs” item number “Dard-e-disco” (what was the need????).

To add more spice to it, an award ceremony has been incorporated into the movie with stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Shabana Azmi, Subhash Ghai, etc and one can see Mr. Om Kapoor winning the award for Best Actor (who else.??). Also what is really surprising is the reaction of Om Makhija’s friend Pappu Master (played by Shreyas Talpade) when he watches Om Kapoor receiving award on TV. For him, it seems just another day.

Then comes the entry of Sandhya (Deepika Padukone again) and everything becomes too predictable again. Again when she is given the photographs of Shantipriya, her expressions are not at all in sync with the situation. Audiences start believing that now the film will end very soon but again the movie tortures them by introducing yet another song (with SRK trying to replicate the performance by Rishi Kapoor in “Ek Haseena Thi” song from “Karz”). Even when this is not enough, the entire climax has been lifted from the movie “Madhumati”. Here, the climax of the “so-called ghost” was FAR AWAY from sending shivers down the spine.

All in all, the movie disappoints big deal with actors like Shreyas Talpade and Kirron Kher being completely wasted. Music by Vishal-Shekhar is average. Few songs could have been avoided. Make-up is really poor with wigs being implanted on the heads of Arjun Rampal, Kirron Kher and Shreyas Talpade (much like the daily soaps on Indian channels) without complementing the emotions. Shah Rukh should now start thinking seriously in terms of acting and dialogue delivery and should get rid of his peculiar style. Wrinkles are quite prominent on his face and he is not able to deliver with the same emotive power as he used to do earlier. Deepika Padukone has nothing to do when it comes to acting. She should rather return to ramp.

“Om Shanti Om” has nothing to offer in terms of creativity and cinema’s aesthetic sense. Though Farah Khan tried hard to allure audience by bringing the whole Bollywood stardom, the movie at the end proved awful. Don’t know about the others, but my reaction after watching the flick was- HOME HURRY HOME…. !!!

P.S.- Farah Khan: Please keep to choreography only.. Direction has a lot more to it than just copying from other films…

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