Tamil Movie Review

Ranbir Kapoor is all set to act in Anurag Basu's next film for which the director has managed to rope in both, Katrina Kaif and Priyanka Chopra, as the leading ladies. "Even as rumours claimed that Ranbir is dating Katrina, recent buzz has it that the actor had a fling with Priyanka Chopra too during their long schedule of Anjaana Anjani in the US. Meanwhile, Katrina has always maintained that she is not on good terms with Priyanka ever since Salman got into a tiff with her. So it came as a surprise when both the actresses decided to work together in the same film,"

Ajab Prem ki Gazab Kahani is a love story that has more fun and laughter on its way to the marriage registrar than heartbreak or romance. And herein lie the film's delights and discontent.

In a town whose radius is about two kilometers, we meet Prem Shankar Sharma (Ranbir Kapoor) in jeans, canvas shoes and shirts that are either checked or striped.
He failed in class 9, has no career plan except to remain the president and mascot of Happy Club. The club, which either cons or coerces people to become members, probably has a long "must do" list. Prem's father disapproves of Prem's pointless days. The two have a strange relationship. Prem confronts his father's taunts with wit, insults and drivel. His mother loves him unconditionally.

Jenny (Katrina Kaif), a Christian orphan whose adopted parents are more stupid than vile, arrives in this kiddie town, misreads Prem and eventually the two become friends.
They have a lot in common, including the inability to convince the audience that they stammer every time a situation gets senti.Anyway, Prem is soon in love. But he can't say.So he does all that Jenny likes eating non-veg and working diligently for money (superhero in a halwai's kitchen).

While he's hoping Jenny is watching, Jenny's parents whisk her off to Goa to be married to a rich man's son. Prem is about to rescue her when she announces that she's in love with Rahul (Upen Patel). Rahul is rich and talks of a Ferrari in Frankfurt, but his politician father is dead against the marriage. Prem puts aside his own feeling to get Rahul for Jenny. In the middle of all this, one duffer and broke don kidnaps Jenny. Prem must rescue Jenny. There's lots of flying, hitting and kicking in and around a large tub of water, with soap bubbles, electric shocks and Jenny's inept attempts to help Prem.

APKGK is Rajkumar Santoshi's second shot at comedy after his 1994 Andaz Apna Apna. For a director known most for extracting awesome, guttural performances from Sunny Deol in Ghatak and Ghayal and bringing a kind of savage street violence never seen in Indian movies before, it's fabulous to note that his funny bone is happily intact. All of APKGK is his - screenplay, dialogues and direction. Though the story has mildly annoying jerks and jumps and random characters keep crash ing into it, Santoshi's snappy dialogues work very well.

As long as the movie stays in its colorful comic bubble -- Prem is so Archie, and Jenny so Betty -- it works. Every time it steps out in the real world, it begins to falter.

For example, when Jenny is being forced to marry Goa boy, her prospective father-in law tells her: "You have two choices, either become his wife in church tomorrow morning, or he'll make you his wife in his bedroom". This made me cringe, twice.

Katrina Kaif in frocks with pin tucks and gathers and colorful hair-bands is simply lovely. Except for her very-Brit Hindi, she's put in a very nice, even performance.

Prem's character, though incomplete and inconsistent -- for a boy so cocky and cool, it makes no sense that he can't string a sentence of English -- is the best thing in the film. Ranbir Kapoor's got the best dialogues and he delivers them with perfect timing and exaggerated but adorable expressions. He's really cute and cuddly that's probably why this comic love situation is not really a story.

Ranbir Kapoor as Sid (Sidharth Mehra) is really cool; Debutant director Ayan Mukerji's Wake Up Sid is happy, smart and complete with a few Karan Johar's one-tear moments; Ranbir and Konkona Sen Sharma (Aisha Bannerjee) make an unlikely but likeable couple. But that's mainly because you want to like what Sid likes. If he had fallen for that pearly girl, it would have been cool, too. And if he had shacked up with that slutty babe, we won't have cribbed too much.

Wake Up... begins in Sid's colorful world of cartoons, comics, PSP, iPod and drinks and hi-jinks bought on daddy's credit card. He's in final year of college and it's exam time. In a lovely opening scene, Sid's trying to get through a book of financial accounting. But it's dull. So he doodles, clicks pictures of his hip socks and has scary thoughts in the examination hall.

Dad (Anupam Kher) promises Sid a Porsche if he joins his bathroom fittings business for a month. Sid barely lasts a week.

Sid is clueless about life, knows it, and doesn't care. He meets his opposite in Aisha who has just arrived in Mumbai to become a writer. She is sorted, plucky and sits on the cusp of pretentiousness. Aisha gets a job as the editor's assistant at a city magazine, editor being dishy Rahul Khanna.
Sid helps Aisha do up her flat in a bright and quirky Good Earth way and then finds out that while his closest friends, Rishi and Laxmi, have passed, he has flunked. He fights with mom, dad and leaves home. Aisha and Sid start living together, as friends.
He messes up the house, she cleans it. She goes to work, he gets bored, starves. But he's beginning to change. He learns to make eggs, gets a job, bonds with his mom (Supriya Pathak), and presents his first paycheque to his dad.

Aisha, who was sort of seeing her jazz-loving editor, realizes that she loves Sid. But Sid will have to wait for Mumbai's first raindrop to figure.

Wake Up... is a cheery and warm-at-heart coming of age tale of one of Bollywood's most hackneyed protagonists -- bade baap ka bigda beta. Though the story is straight forward and most of its characters are cliches, its lingo is new and its disheveled chic look is fresh. The movie is tightly edited, has some lovely moments, smart dialogues, and a mix of peppy and rainy-day numbers.

It was brave of Ayan Mukerji to cast Konkona opposite Ranbir, cast Konkona opposite Ranbir, that too in this frothy city flick. Though the movie explains that Aisha looks older than Sid because she is, a lesser actress would have wilted. Konkona is good, but happiness doesn't sit easy on her.
She has too many layers. Happy is just a single-note state of being.

And Ranbir's Sid gets there effortlessly, without a single false note. Sid could have been exasperating, but Ranbir's infectious fun makes him so damn adorable that you not only understand his contempt for his dad's showerheads business, but even excuse his embarrassment at his mom's awkward English. I watched Ranbir's Sid with fascination and affection and was dying to run through his cupboard and try on his socks.