Review : Namastey London

[amazon_link id=”B0016GON32″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][/amazon_link]Review : Namastey London
Rating : Average (3.2/5)
Genre : All-in-one
Year : 2007
Running time : 2 hrs and 17 minutes
Director : Vipul Amritlal Shah
Cast : Akshay Kumar, Katrina Kaif, Rishi Kapoor, Clive Standen, Upen Patel, Nina Wadia, Javed Sheikh

NAMASTEY LONDON : Just about tolerable

After the nauseating Waqt Shah returns as director again. This time with a love story. Take a Brit girl, a Funjabi boy, the girl’s fat hypocritical father, and the boy’s caricaturized Pindi family, and what have you ? You guessed it. Namaste London.

Gorgeous and leggy Katrina Kaif appears as Jasmeet or Jazz, the very-British daughter of a very Indian father Manmohan Singh (Rishi Kapoor). With her ability to down several shots of vodka, and conjure up ex-boyfriends and memories of oft had one-night stands, she is adept at scaring away all the good desi boys, her parents try to arrange for her. However when she really gets serious about her thrice-divorced, English boss, Charlie Brown (Clive Standen), Dad gets worried enough to spirit her away to India under the guise of a sight-seeing vacation. Only being a typical desi Dad, he’s actually planning to get her married to the first “achha ladka” he can lay his hands on. Thus starts a series of “boy viewings” where we are introduced to men obsessed with Indian Idol, the saas-bahu serials, and over-analysis.

Jazz is vastly amused but really starts to feel the pressure when Dad carts them all to his home-town in dear old Punjab, and everyone begins to drown in a surfeit of the two staples of clichéd Punjabidom – desi ghee, and tall glasses of lassi. Enter the son of the household, the local Jat, Arjun. Resplendent in a pink kurta, Arjun not only helps repair Manmohan’s stranded car, but is also skilled at serenading Jazz, in full view of her father. His masculinity thus established, he becomes the apple of Manmohan’s eye, and Manmohan decides that this particular Neanderthal is just the man for Jazz. Jazz of course, thinks otherwise . . .

Life is full of truths one must accept. One of them is that this film lacks logic, and one must not tax one’s brain with finding intelligence where there is none. The film’s characters are black and white, no greys here. No common sense either, for that matter. The film’s story or plot if you will, has such gaping holes, that at the end of it all, I was amazed that Shah had managed to make a cohesive film of it.

Inspite of all that, this is a tolerable film. The first half was better, because in parts it was funny (all the prospective bridegrooms and their fetishes) and in other parts ludicrous – which is also fun. Plus when exactly are digs at the mustard fields of Punjab not successful ? Katrina as Jazz is all that and more. Akshay as the Punjabi Jat, carries off the pink well, and displays some of that admirable comic timing which make him such a good fit for these kinds of roles. Rishi Kapoor has put on even more weight; I can now safely call him rotund. However credit is due and deserved by the entire cast for handling such incongruous and sometimes lapsing-into-stupidity roles with ease.

The second half of the film sank into the melodramatic, with lots of patriotic fervor thrown in. The film then relied heavily on it’s main principle – that of the glorious culture of the motherland. India/Pakistan are portrayed as salvation for the cultureless immigrants. Have a wayward son/daughter ? Go to India and all ills will vanish and even the most Brit.-inflicted child will be saved ! Pub hopping, vodka-drinking women harboring intentions of independence will metamorphose into butter-churning, domesticated, coy Punjabi maidens, ever ready to hop onto tractors driven by their manly men. Your son ready to switch religions for some gori mem ? A spell in Karachi should change his mind !

Another reason that despite it’s flaws, this film was watchable, is that the humor (except for one particular joke which was beeped out, but displayed very clearly in the sub-titles) is not of the vulgar kind. No sniggering at women’s chests, no sexual innuendoes etc. Yes, you have your doses of women being shown their “rightful” place – like the scene where the formal marriage decision is taking place and Jazz and Arjun sit opposite each other. Arjun’s grand-mom asks him to look at Jazz carefully – so that he won’t complain later. She also asks Jazz if Arjun is acceptable to her – but that’s in a very different tone, like taking her answer for granted. After all which girl wouldn’t want a crude, unsophisticated Jat for her very own ?

The direction is fairly OK, although the music is nothing to write home about. The only song that I actually liked was Rahat Fateh Ali Khan’s “Main jahaan rahoon”. To put it bluntly, this film will succeed commercially because of Akshay’s bankable charm, Katrina’s statuesque beauty, Rishi Kapoor’s conviviality, and a story which despite it’s rough edges is enough of a romantic tale to sway the junta.