Jhoom Barabar Jhoom sucks big time!

Making a Yash Raj production is the easiest job for directors these days- they will sign a plethora of stars (who are ready to do anything to get into a Yash Raj production, thanks to the media overhype it generates), hire a good production designer, costume designer and a choreographer, record some songs, zoom off to Europe with your stars and cameraman, shoot whatever you feel like shooting, shoot some good scenes exclusively for the promos and unleash your movie onto the audience! The formula kind of worked well for the producers till Dhoom:2, but the rate at which their movies are flopping (Kabul Express, Ta Ra Rum Pum); if they continue to make duds like JBJ (Acronym for Jhoom Barabar Jhoom- Very important these days, a very stylish way of promoting your movie), it would not be long when Yash Raj films will be remembered as the banner that used to make (successful) movies in the past. Well, in case you are interested, this apology for a movie is about Ricky Thukral (Abhishek Bachchan) and Alvira Khan (Preity Zinta) who meet at the Waterloo Railway station. Both of them have come to receive their respective fiancees and since the train is 2 hours late (I heard comments from the audience about how Laloo Prasad Yadav's presence in the UK ministry could have saved us of this torture), they decide to tell each other how they met their fiancees and got engaged. So goes Ricky first describing about his meeting with Anaida (Lara Dutta), Assistant Manager at the Ritz, Paris and the audience is treated to Anayanka Bose's excellent camera angles capturing the beauty of Paris. 3 scenes, one song and cut back to Waterloo. Now you have Alvira describing her fantasy tale of how she met her fiancee, the very successful half- Brit, half- Indian lawyer Steve Singh (Bobby Deol). The routine of 3 scenes, one song continues and you are cut back to Waterloo only to be forced to believe that in between narrating these stories, Thukral and Khan have actually fallen in love with each other!!! How these love stories progress and how Shaad Ali Sehgal makes your head spin with his narration is what the rest of the movie is all about. Honestly, by the time the tour of Paris was over, I was not really bothered about who was in love with whom or who was about to fall in love with whom. Love is blind but the film makers who make love stories in Bollywood are blind, deaf, dumb and crazy!!! Coming to the performances, Bachchan Jr. is at his boisterous best here, but he really seems to have enjoyed every moment of shooting for this crap. There is something endearing about the man and his over the top performance in the movie does not affect the star aura that he has even one bit. Lara Dutta is first- rate. She looks hot and her French- Hindi accent in the first half and her foul mouthed Punjabi avtaar in the second half are both equally convincing. Bobby Deol gets some respite from his inane action roles and he charms his way to the audiences' hearts with his honest performance. Preity Zinta looks awfully out of shape and old. She goes on repeating herself here too adding to the audiences' woes. From the middle of nowhere, Amitabh Bachchan crops up every now and then mouthing few lines of a song. No one quite understands why he is there in the movie, but the veteran manages to hold his own with his unquestionable screen presence. Shankar- Ehsaan- Loy's tracks are pedestrian and cannot be compared to the winner of a sound track in Sehgal's "Bunty Aur Babli". The title track is definitely foot tapping, but that does not mean it should keep playing in the background throughout the length of the movie. The songs have been very well choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant, though she seems to be suffering from a Farah Khan- Kunder hangover. The screenplay is a drag, dialogues are pointless and the direction is shoddy. Shaad Ali Sehgal showed promise in Saathiya and played to the galleries in Bunty Aur Babli. Here he appears to be confused about how to get the best out of his stars with the help (!) of a lack lustre script and he fails big time. I hope JBJ is a good lesson for Shaad. If there is one technician who impresses, it is Aki Narula. The designer seems to have had a ball dressing up the galaxy of stars in the movie. Abhishek carries off his outlandish costumes with elan, Lara Dutta looks super stylish in the first half and super sexy in the second, Bobby Deol looks affable with his highlighted streaks and trendy clothes and Preity Zinta as always looks casual and cool in her cute clothes. JBJ is a very good example of wasted potential and half way through the movie one starts wondering- Is complacency setting in at the Yash Raj studios?