Movie Reading : Happy New Year

Happy New Year, by far the most awaited film of 2014, breaking all earnings records, and continuing to do well across the world.

Sometimes I wonder what makes a movie successful. No matter how much we criticize the over-the-top performances and scenes which require no application of any senses, Farah Khan is always able to mix all other ingredients well enough to make her movies phenomenal successes, be it Main Hoon Na, Om Shanti Om or Tees Maar Khaan. The common theme across these 3 movies and Happy New Year is that all of them are no brainer and require zero application of IQ. The ending is pretty much known and the only motivation to see the movie remains how the characters reach that ending. But still they are successful.

So basically, get a superstar, make some ridiculous story having badla (revenge) as main theme, get some stupid jokes and spoofs on old movies, garnish all these with patriotism, and bingo!!! You gonna cross 200 crs in no time. In 2 lines, that’s what HNY is.

Let's talk a bit more about it. First of all, IT IS definitely a long movie. The time when theatre  shows used to be “12 se 3, 3 se 6, 6 se 9 and 9 se 12” is over and no one wants to see a predictable movie with some cheesy and cheap kind of performances for 180 minutes. Still, it is a light hearted movie (if not laugh, you would smile at least). It contains lot of spoofs on SRK’s own movies and many slow motion scenes. Showing the scenes normally would surely have reduced the movie’s long duration by 10-15 minutes.  

OK. Enough criticizing. The movie is not as bad as you might be feeling after reading till now. The refreshing thing about this movie of Farah Khan is lesser screen time for SRK and entry of female lead (though she is not a lead in strictest sense) after an hour of the start. I mean, in which movie you make someone like Deepika make her entry after one hour? HNY is not a one-man show. All actors (all of them losers) make a good amount of contribution and you do remember a thing or two, good or bad, about each of them in the end. Abhishek Bachchan could not have fallen lower than this, but he makes you puke and smile at the same time. Boman Irani is flawless as ever. Don’t know who taught acting to Sonu Sood. And Deepika, well, good performance as a side actor. One second, there is Vivaan Shah too, who doesn’t do anything other than hacking.

More than once, SRK says,

“Duniya me sirf do tarah ke log hote hain, winners and losers, aur zindagi har loser ko winner ban ne ka ek chance jarur deti hain”

Each character is shown as a loser, a good for nothing person. But every one of them is best at doing one specific thing and SRK identifies that one thing, makes a formidable team and make all of them a winner in the end. Not only that, as captain of the team, he finds out what motivates each team member and ties his larger goal to others' smaller goals. Now this is called managerial acumen. 

HNY is a simple movie and the sole message comes through the movie is importance of team work, coordination, making people agree, handling conflicts and taking spontaneous decisions when things do not go according to the plans. Are there better movies than this depicting all these things? Of course yes. But they are more serious type of movies, they are for people who like to find logic in most things, for people looking for intellectual gratification, and they do not have SRK. So, if you are one of those people and you are not really a fan of SRK, HNY is not your cup of tea, therefore staying away from it will be beneficial for you.

BUT, if you ARE a die-hard fan of SRK, or you just want some light entertainment, which doesn’t require application of your left/right brain and you are ready to give 3 hours of your time (without forwarding some useless scenes), you will not really feel so bad after watching HNY.

In the end, dialogue of the movie:

“Kismat badi kutti cheez hoti hain, saali kabhi bhi palat jaati hain”.

Towards the end, which transforms into a more meaningful one:

“Kismat bahut sahi chiz hoti hain, agar iraado me dum ho toh saali palat hi jaati hain”.