Uncles wanna play 'Rockstar-Rockstar'

Grade: C

London Dreams

Indian Release Date: 30/10/09
CBFC Classification:  U/A
Running Length: 2 Hours 34 Minutes

Cast: Salman Khan, Ajay Devgn, Asin, Rannvijay Singh, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Om Puri, Brinda Parekh
Director: Vipul Shah
Screenplay: Suresh Nair
Cinematography: Sejal Shah
Music: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy

London Dreams has some very potent ideas, the toll which a single-minded obsession for recognition takes, the corruption of friendship due to jealousy, hard work vs. natural talent. The fact that it uses music as a tool to express these things is only coincidental since the essence of making music or even real love for it is sorely lacking or simply dismissed with a few clichéd grandiose dialogues. It could have been about baking cakes or cutting grass for all you know & wouldn’t have made an iota of difference.

Arjun (Ajay Devgn) & Mannu (Salman Khan) have been childhood buddies from the typically colorful Punjabi villages shown in cinema. Arjun has a dream to sing to a packed Wembley stadium even though his family hates anything related to music due to a past connection which ruined their reputation. Mannu on the other hand is a carefree & lovable ruffian who would love to never have to grow up & face adult responsibilities. Arjun prays to god to clear all the hurdles in his path & lo, his abusive dad drops dead (unintentionally funny) which leads to him being taken away to London by his uncle (Om Puri). He makes it clear to little Arjun that he despises music just as much as the rest of the family & this is all it takes for Arjun to make a run for it right at the airport, not to be seen by his uncle again for years together.

When we meet him again, he’s all grown up now, but still holds the obsession he had ages ago. He forms a band with Zoheb (Rannvijay Singh) & Wasim (Aditya Roy Kapoor) called London Dreams & soon Priya (Asin) also joins in. The band does well at an audition & that’s their ticket for the big time. Meanwhile Mannu, whilst all grown up still is a child at heart & when he’s not playing in those marriage procession bands or sleeping around with the married women of the village, he’s running up a huge debt with various people on the promise that when his famous friend returns from London he’d pay off all his dues. When Arjun does return to India, he notices Mannu’s natural talent for music & he takes him back to London to be a part of the band. However when Mannu’s talent & natural charisma start to outshine Arjun’s, a streak of jealousy starts to pollute Arjun’s mind. Meanwhile Mannu being oblivious to all of this goes a step further & makes Priya fall in love with him & this more or less drives Arjun off the edge & he starts to plan Mannu’s downfall with the help of Zoheb in an effort to reclaim all he sees as rightfully his.

Even though the movie has a strong emotional quotient its plot is riddled with logical blind spots.

•    How does a young Arjun survive without any support in an alien country?

•    How come the uncle didn’t spend time looking for the boy after losing him?

•    Does Arjun have the valid documentation to live in U.K. or is he an illegal resident & if he is why doesn’t anyone bother to check that?

•    How come Arjun or the other band members don’t have an iota of the local accent in spite of having lived in the U.K. for a very long time?

•    The formation of the band is so impromptu that it doesn’t have an ounce of credibility.

•    How does a band which sings primarily Hindi songs with complex lyrics manage to get such a huge fan following in literally no time in a foreign country & I don’t mean just by the Indians out there?

•    Since when did foreign reporters start using Hindi as their primary language? 

•    Why would an “international rock-star” who’s lived all his adult life in London & is about to perform at Wembley stadium, own a ‘Givson’ guitar instead of the original ‘Gibson’ one?

But then, this is a typical Bollywood movie & any form of logic is normally the last thing anyone bothers to check.

Setting the movie in London (& Paris) is nothing but a ploy to generate some eye candy in terms of scenery & women. The opportunity to incorporate different parts of London (& Paris) effortlessly into the story & in turn giving the place an identity of it’s own in the film is wasted by recycling the same old mundane spots used by a thousand other Hindi movies (Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, etc). Like 99% of Hindi movies out there this movie too crudely reinforces the age old myth of foreign (read white) women being of loose moral fiber & wanting to sleep with every s(w)inging dick within a ten meter radius. The movie could have been easily set in any other city in the world & it wouldn’t have made any difference whatsoever.

For a movie about musicians the music in the movie is surprisingly lackluster. Other than ‘Khanabadosh’ I didn’t find any of the songs something I’d want to listen to ever again. The dialogues through out are uneven, while some are genuinely funny, others are unintentionally like the one priceless bit where Rannvijay names one of the drugs found in Salman’s bloodstream as methane!!! What next? Helium? Plutonium? Uranium?     

Ajay Devgn (Numerology, not a typo) & Salman Khan look too old & unconvincing as “rock-stars”. On stage they seriously look like two packets of meat dressed up in the typical gaudy fashion which plagues most Bollywood movie “rock-stars”. However both of them do manage to inject some life into the movie due to some half-decent acting, especially Salman Khan. Ajay Devgn plays the character in the same manner her plays all his brooding & intense roles. He’s good at what he does but it’s the same old charade all over again & with added character touches such as the self-flagellation (to remind himself to be focused towards his goal, but I kept on thinking “Silas! Silas!!”) he comes off looking downright stupid in parts, especially during the climatic performance at Wembley stadium. Actually the entire climax was preposterous, right from the steady shower of plastic bottles by an irate audience to a complete lack of any kind of backstage security resulting in every character (band or non-band member) running amok & many other things plus while we are at the topic of preposterous things don’t even get me started on the back-story about Arjun’s grandfather.

Salman Khan displays a natural childish charm which would have been endearing if not for the downright crass dialogues at times. He does well in a few emotional scenes & is one of the few saving graces of the film, plus he’s playing to his strengths (essentially playing himself on screen). Asin does well in a very poorly written role, though I wonder why she was a part of the band even if she doesn’t even have any role to play in the music of the band. Rannvijay plays henchman to a scheming Ajay Devgn & is stiffer than a log of wood. Aditya Roy Kapoor displays a natural airhead sort of talent, while Brinda Parekh after Corporate (2006) & this movie, seems to have relegated herself to playing the seductress role in Hindi films.

London Dreams has an interesting theme which grows into a half-baked plot (though picked & plucked from a variety of movies) populated with single note characters living through absurd realities who share some real emotions at times. It has all the ingredients any normal Bollywood masala movie would need, but if you are looking for something smarter then your dream lies elsewhere.  

Final Verdict: Dream On…..this isn’t the one to make your time worth it.

Grade: C
 

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