Review : Partner

Rating : The worst (-20/5)
Genre : Comedy
Year : 2007
Director : David Dhawan
Cast : Salman Khan, Lara Dutta, Govinda, Katrina Kaif, Rajpal Yadav, Dalip Tahil, Suresh Menon, Ali Haji

PARTNER : STUPID, STUPIDER, STUPIDEST

It’s amazing – you talk about “Jhoom Barabar Jhoom” or “Cheeni Kum” and people are moaning about the film, not happy, sitting on the fence – “Oh, it’s boring”, “Oh, the topic is too controversial”, etc., etc . And then you have films like “Partner” which come to you straight from David Dhawan and via the toilet, and people are giving it a Thumbs-Up ? Funny film ? Family Film ?? Oh, despair.

This film however does answer a very important question, one which has been giving me sleepless nights : “Can David Dhawan films get any worse ?”. And the answer folks, is YES, they can. Case in point – this one. Partner is probably the worst David Dhawan film I’ve seen. After I saw the film, I whined and moaned and bitched about this film for a whole hour, after which someone pointed out to me that this was a check-in-your-brains at the door kind of film (in fact the theater where I saw this film was offering locker rentals for this very purpose). And it’s not like David Dhawan actually dabbles in high-IQ , or even no IQ plots. Yes, I understand that. But even for the master of the absurd, the illogical, the non-sensical this one is a new low.

For starters, it has no plot. Yup, you heard me – no plot. Yes, I know , everyone says it’s inspired from “Hitch”, but the resemblance is so remote, it’s heard to detect. I mean, “Hitch” was bad enough. David Dhawan’s Indianised interpretation of it is the pits. Salman Khan is Prem, our very own Love Guru – why, oh why ? A cartoon character informs us – it’s because living in a houseful of sisters that’s what he learnt, you know, stuff about women. And it’s only a loser who lets precious knowledge go to waste. Therefore, the Love-Guru. Various men approach the all-knowledgeable Love Guru to find out how to win over women. One of them is Bhaskar (Govinda), a supreme idiot of the first order, who also happen to be Chief Financial Officer of a company. How ? Don’t ask. Bhaskar lusts after his boss, the very rich and beautiful Priya (Katrina), but since Priya seems so unattainable (you think ?), he needs help.

Prem, after much persuasion, agrees to help. He also meets intrepid journalist, Naina Sahni (Lara), a single mom and journalist, who often needs help escaping the clutches of Chotta Don (Rajpal Yadav), and decides that she’s the woman for him. Naina doesn’t agree and neither does her brat (child artiste Ali Haji). Thus the film – how these 2 get their women to assent.

OK, besides the no-logic part, I have a philosophical question. In most desi cinema everyone’s going on about the purity of love, love is in the heart, it’s not superficial etc. so how is it that the heroes (and they might be walking-talking mountains of blubber) always go for the model types ? Now, in all truth, Govinda has put on all a lot of fat. Add to that gravity, age and the incessant pelvis-grinding and you have a thoroughly unwholesome hero. Could you imagine a David Dhawan film with a correspondingly unwholesome female lead ? Yeah, I’m waiting for that one.

So then is anything in here even remotely watchable ? Yes, the songs. They’re loud and in-your-face but catchy and enjoyable. Salman has slimmed down and looks good. The women look good too, but unlike Salman, they have not much to do except look pretty and brainless. And the character of Lara’s kid – precocious, rude, and a perfect motivation for birth-control.

I’m not sure what to say about the direction. The film went from one absurd scene to the other. In the middle of these sprang, loud, boisterous song and dance numbers, which had no link whatsoever to what was going on in the film at the time. The dialogues got pretty crude (and sexist). I do think that if comedy is coming to this and we think of such films as “family films” we need a grading system to warn parents of impending dangers. While Partner is an exercise in long-drawn out double entendres, the last half hour is devoted to adult bedroom scenes. Women in short negligees and the come-hither look in the eyes are not kid-friendly.

This film left me numb (after the one hour of bitching post-movie). I went with low expectations, low – not rock-bottom. This film fell below them. Which is why I agree with a friend’s appraisal of it – it’s like a large, cool drink of water. From the toilet-bowl.