Idiotic! Triple Idiotic!!!

Long time readers of the blog know that we usually don't do movie reviews. For reasons elaborated earlier.

Of course, we have been tempted to break our own rules, as and when we found them convenient. Like here. and here. What use is a rule, if it can't be broken, eh? Especially, when the movie encourages us to play by a different set of rules...

So, here we go... of course, with the mandatory *SPOILER ALERT* warnings, though we suspect that everyone has already watched this movie and is singing its praises on twitter and facebook...

So, here we go...

They show a guy feigning a medical condition to get off a plane. Another guy running out without his pants on (Aside: what's with the pant-dropping fetish throughout the movie anyways?). Apparently, because they are soooo excited at the prospect of meeting their long lost friend. We keep quiet at the sheer impracticality of it all, accepting humbly that we have come to watch a light comedy, and we shouldn't be nit-picking on logic anyways.

A glimpse of a favourite Hirani stereotype is introduced. The muggu-geek who HAS to have a South Indian name. While Swami of the "what is the procedure to change your room?" fame was funny the first time around, this repetition begins to grate on your nerves. Aren't there other muggu communities to pick on? But, leaving regional chauvinism aside (not to speak of personal pride: I have had enough people pulling my leg calling me Swami post Munnabhai... now they might start calling me Chatur... or worse, Silencer!), a huge kudos to Omi Vaidya who played this role, to still make it watchable. To me, he was the best actor on show (with Aamir running a close second). And for him alone, we keep quiet again.

Suddenly, the 'comedy' switches to some nauseating visuals of paunchy men in their underwear. Apparently,  it is necessary for the movie to be realistic to show pot-bellied men since collegians are not the fittest of people around. It is ok to have 40-plus guys playing collegians though. Since we are big hypocrites ourselves (like we promise not to do movie reviews and proceed to do just that), we keep quiet.

There is a stereotype principal with his cuckoo-talk of ruthless competition. Which he proceeds to demonstrate by breaking an egg! (I half expected some Peta beauties to land up there all naked!). Somehow, for reasons I find hard to explain, I absolutely adored the 'Dean' of Munnabhai and really hated this 'Virus' character. Since we can't say why, we keep quiet. And laugh like the Dean did.

And then we go to the supposedly funny gags. Filched from internet mail forwards of all places. Yeah, I have never heard of the 'why didn't they use pencils in space?' before. Or the 'do you know who I am?' no?-so-I-smartly-thrust-exam-paper-into-the-bunch one. Or the 'squeeze toothpaste back into the tube' line. Or even the burkha-clad ladies posing for a pic. This from a guy who gave us the amazing Circuit. Sob. Sob. We are too nostalgic on Munnabhai and Circuit to say anything here.

Suddenly, we go into the sermonizing mode. About the rote-driven education system, about pressure induced student suicides, about price-tag 'watch'ing pseudo dudes, about making your dreams 'click' and not getting 'engineered' by parental pressure, about the importance of making fun of paralytic fathers and poor moms. Oops, scratch the last one. That was apparently meant to be a gag and not a sermon. And we decided, may be we should speak up a bit.

But wait, this was apparently supposed to follow Chetan dude's novel. So, throw in the romance with the princi's daughter, the breaking into his house to talk to his daughter, the daughter giving the keys to his office, the question paper stealing, the jumping from the window and hospitalization etc etc. Since they did not show the sex scene with the princi's daughter, which Chetan had dutifully outlined, we started to howl in protest.

And then all hell broke loose. A pregnancy over webcam (to showcase Airtel broadband?), a irritatingly inane slogan which even induced newly stillborn babies to kick out (in disgust?), a totally Bollywood-ish shaadi-se-bhagaake-jaana scene (what? no guys in jeeps following the runaway bride? note to Kamal: when you remake this in Tamil with Prakash Raj as the girl's dad, please ensure that some guys with handlebar moustaches give the car a good Kollywood chase...) and we were already pulling my hair apart. We decided to strongly diss the movie after the 'Aal is well' pregnancy.

Surprise, Surprise, Aamir Rancho is unpronounceable-name wala scientist. Whoa, that's a kahani mein twist that I never saw it coming. Abbas-Mustan would be proud of you, Hirani Sir. And thus, we end...

Oh no, wait... the movie isn't over till the geek drops his pants. And till, Kareena does the one thing for which she was really cast in this movie... Smoooooooooooch...

As Shakespeare once said, "Aal is well that end's well"
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PS1: I did like some bits. Like the chamatkar-balatkar speech. And the breath-taking shots of Ladakh.

PS2: My super boss loved this movie. So, officially, I give it 5 out of 5.