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This year's Diwali bombs!

Three grand 'Diwali releases': Garam Masala, Kyon Ki and Shaadi No 1. Three huge disappointments.Tell us which was the most unbearable of 'em all at mirrorfeedback@indiatimes.com

Mayank Shekhar & Mayank Shekhar

Insanity Incorporated

Film: Kyon Ki
Director: Priyadarshan
Actors: Salman Khan, Raima Sen, Kareena Kapoor
Rating: *

Rumble, tumble, jumble, mumble, bumble… and on and on and on and on… Just stop this. For I don't quite care if our lead man manages to get out of dementia; we actually seem to be getting into one already. And I only refer to the first thirty minutes, which is when the South Mumbai multiplex we were at was fairly packed for its late night show.

And what we got to see was perhaps the most sanitised sanatorium this side of the Swiss Alps. Sitting through electric shocks; jumping the iron gate to get back flowers and other sundries for his mates; imagining technicolour thrash-metal bands strumming guitars with bombshells bursting all over… was Salman's insane character.

He is accused of having murdered his wife. Which was actually an unfortunate accident, we're informed. Well, the doc in the hospital (Kareena) is so informed, through the inmate's diary where she also learns the words and tune of a lullaby the prisoner would sing to his ladylove (Raima Sen). Replaying the track should help him return to normalcy. And so we get to watch a song (and the occasional dance) around trees (for those who'd been missing this Bollywood phenomenon for long).

This is the final thirty minutes, by when there aren't too many left in the theatre. And I've made do without the minute-by-minute minutiae of the mayhem on the movie-screen – just to save you the trauma of reason.

So I am left among the brave few in the hall to ponder over how Kareena's psychiatrist, engaged to Sunil Shetty's suave suitor (or whatever his role) gets love-struck with Salman's madcap character in a matter of seconds. I have to also find out if the lead man Salman – a jittery, nervous wreck in one shot; a surefooted smart aleck in another – was given a different brief for his character each time he entered the sets.

I must also wonder if the insensitivity with which the film handles the subject of mental degeneration is unacceptably intentional, or just unpardonably puerile. (Surely the community that deals with the mentally challenged should be incensed by this senseless depiction).

But what I really wish I could figure out by the end of the film is, who is this demented, dictatorial, doc daddy (Om Puri) who physically tortures his patients, and mentally tortures his subordinate and his pretty daughter (Kareena) for absolutely no fathomable reason.

Nope, I have no answers. You know why? Kyon Ki…. Main paagal ho raha hoon. I am going maaaaaad!


Shoddy No 1

Film: Shaadi No 1
Director: David Dhawan
Actors: Fardeen Khan, Zayed Khan, Sharman Joshi
Rating: *

It's not that hard to tell how this film must have been scripted (if at all it was, in the first place). A cash-counter must have commanded, "Aaj kal kya chal raha hai?" (What sort of films are doing well in the theatres these days). "Comedies, sir… No Entry, Mujhse Shaadi Karogi, Masti, Kya Kool Hai Hum… all hits!" "Okay then, let's make a comedy and slot it for a Diwali dhamaka!"

So it must have been for Priyadarshan's Garam Masala that opened on the same week. So it is with this immensely sad Shaadi No 1, the hurried, harried 'grand' release.

We're left to release our frustration on these pages then, as we watch three Biwi No 1's for the wasted price of one.

It doesn't help if 'hit' Yash Chopra films are repetitively referred to, if Sholay is paid its umpteenth ode, or if elements of the soundtrack is directly cut-n-pasted from Main Hoon Na.

You have a trio of nave wives. Another paraded threesome of brassieres – basically six attention-deficient ladies, so replaceable, you can't tell one from the other.

And then there are three jocks, so hell-bent on practicing bigamy that eventually you do realise they're not joking.

The one who isn't either, is the Punjab da Munnabhai (Sanjay Dutt), who must fix this household, and who's been given a toilet-paper roll with mundane 'misaals' (proverbs) to spout every time he enters the cantankerous screen.

Sure enough, within the predictable lines and set-ups, you'll find a few situations worth a smirk. But since comedies, though often taken seriously, do not come with warnings, I have an important one to flash: Mouth-to-mouth respiration administered when a human body is saved from drowning, should not be confused with a peck on the lip!

Rest of the warnings vis--vis this tired, noisy farce is of course the film review itself.

Dhawan, the anointed progenitor of this movie genre, recently swore to this paper that he'd never make "typical comedies" anymore. About time, director saab. I'd rather you take a halved slice of lemon and just squeeze that dry. It'd save your moneybag a lot of money; and us, a lot of time.


* Fuh-get-about-it, ** Ho-hum!, *** Oh, not bad at all!, **** Too good!, ***** We're speechless