‘Friends: Bandra’
Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na was the top new Bollywood release over the weekend. Scripted by the cousin of Altaf Tyrewala (No God In Sight), the flick launches a raft of pretty young things including Aamir Khan’s nephew. From its watercolor filter opening to its lite jazz score, this flick plays like an episode of Friends, with the same overly posh surroundings (a gorgeous Bandra bungalow) and overall blandness.
The movie is beautifully lit and hyperlocal — Bandra has never looked so good. The kids spend half the movie at Bandra Fort, Land’s End, guppofying amid the ruins with the Sea Link behind them or doing musical routines on the slippery rock flats. Bandra nightclub Squeeze, Dino Morea’s restaurant Crepe Station and bits from the Carter Road promenade figure prominently. Like Hollywood continuity, the flick telecopes the city. One second the college kids are on Carter Road, the next at Flora Fountain, a feat which can only be accomplished in a fast car after midnight. A mare is ridden from Nariman Point to the airport, which is a bit of a ride even by taxi. Save for the token fatty, the cast is uniformly easy on the eyes.
But there’s not an original idea in this looker’s head. Aamir Khan consistently puts out flicks that are decent by Bollywood standards in that they don’t insult your intelligence, but mediocre by the standards of the larger film community. He’s in the import business: spot a foreign idea, do a middling adaptation and hope the locals gives it props just for being in Hindi. This flick is the rather basic love story from Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, with college friends meant for each other, intent on marrying someone else. Jaane Tu leans on cliché after cliché and rips from better movies: Moving portraits from Harry Potter; that surreal, David Lynchian night mare; the creepy, artistic, housebound brother from The Wedding Crashers, only not gay.
And the plot is lightweight. It felt like being in college again, with a cast that resembles people I knew and the same laissez-faire attitude to the block-and-tackling of a rom-com: setup, conflict, release. There are no great highs or lows. The lovers barely have time to stew in their wrongheadedness before heading to the mandap. You can do a Western-style story, but why throw out the Indian-style emotional connection? The young cast, though competent, are not very affecting. Despite the overhead dance shot, Jaane Tu is no Dil Chahta Hai. Even with a ‘Papa Kehte Hain‘ (Daddy Says) shoutout, it’s not even a Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, and that was quite the callow love story of its day. Those flicks simply had more mature, more engaging actors.
But as a pleasant timepass, you could do worse. Male lead Imran Khan resembles Clive Owen without the menace, leaning heavily on handsome, expressionless eyes. Female lead Genelia D’Souza looks vaguely like Alyssa Milano with a pouty Priyanka Chopra mouth and intense Kajol eyes. She’s just 22 and has already spent five years in South Indian film, as well as another Hindi weekend release, Mera Baap Pehle Aap. The college posse, as carefully typecast as in a Disney flick, are uniformly attractive.
I loved all the scenes filmed at the old Portuguese ruins, my daily hangout (watch here). People really do gossip, chill, smoke and make out there. A.R. Rahman’s soundtrack isn’t particularly memorable, but the lyrics of ‘Pappu Can’t Dance (Saala)’ are hilarious (watch here). Aamir Khan pulled in a stellar supporting cast including that genius Paresh Rawal as an abusive Maharashtran cop, Naseeruddin Shah as Imran Khan’s late Rajasthani father, Ratna Pathak as his mom, Rajat Kapoor playing yet another Westernized, amoral bastard, and noted dancers Sohail and Arbaaz Khan poking fun at their own Neanderthal personas. Sohail used to be a dedicated meathead at my Bandra gym. Finally he’s found a role equal to his talents.
The trailer:
on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008, 12:12 am in Film, Video clips › 
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I want to see this movie badly but it is not playing in Indianapolis..
Genelia is a very good actress with a fresh face and does a great job in every role she does compared to the whole lot of actresses including priyanka and all the others..
Watch her telugu movie Bommarillu..she steals the show..I saw a lot of her telugu,tamil movies..heros pale before her, she can carry the movie without a hero too..
Did u see smita patils son in this movie manish? He is supposed to be there in this movie and all reviews say he is an excellent actor..I want to see this movie just for him too..smita patil was a powerful actor..his name is some babbar..
u know I like aamir khan movies..I dont think he is mediocre the way u think Manish, I think his scripts are original like taare zameen par, lagaan etc., He is the next satyajit ray of India..he knows the pulse of indian audience.. I would compare him with some good western directors.. I disagree with u Manish, he is not mediocre..He is way above average 85 percentile..
If I have to name four indian bollywood directors who will make a mark on western audience it would be sanjay leela bhansali, madhur bhandarkar, aamir khan and raj kumar santoshi..they consistantly make high quality films..
south they are stalwarts like maniratnam, adoor gopalkrishnan, kviswanath etc., but on the whole I would rate Aamir khan as not only a great actor but also a great director and a producer.
Not many people can be such perfectionist actors like aamir khan either..he acts very well too..I admire that man..
I love me some token fatty. But where’s the token Tamil? Seriously! Everytime I watch a B-Wood film with my fella, he says “Oh! that guy/girl is Tamil!” So proud…
aamir khan is the next satyajit ray ? okay madam. perhaps our karan johar is godard, yash chopra is david lynch, david dhawan is truffaut. obviously our ram gopal is alfred hitchcock, anurag kashyap is his clap boy. why stop there, salman khan is rambo stallone, amitabh bachchan is jack nicholson, and om puri is trusty sidekick morgan freeman, and that some babbar guy is obviously some other ferrel. but pappu still can’t dance saala.
Okay, kp, but who is the desi/Bollywood Woody Allen? Seriously. I can’t watch these new Bollywood movies, MD grumbles, because the actors look about 12. They wear Nickleodeon clothing and Sesame Street smiles. Yuck.
I would love to watch a desi version, not a Bollywood remake, mind you, of Hannah and Her Sisters, or something like that. Come on, young fim-school wallahs. Get crackin’!
I want to see this only because of the bandra connection. Can’t wait to see Carter road and Sea Rock again!
Prakruti, I haven’t seen an outright good Aamir Khan flick in some time. They’re all mediocre dating back to Mangal Pandey and even before.
Pappu could be the token South Indian, or could be just a N. Indian nick.
That is the question.
Why are desi novels so much more advanced than desi film? Because the writers are selling to more urban, Western audiences.
Yeah, that part is fun. I liked Lage Raho Munnabhai’s Carter Road and Coffee Day scenes, but this movie virtually camps out at Land’s End.
kp…After satyajit ray Aamir khan was the only indian director to bring an Indian movie to the top five oscar foreign entries with lagaan as far as I know.. And After watching Taare zameen par, I felt that aamir khan is probably the only actor who makes offbeat movies and yet makes them commercially successful which is a great combination.
I
n the next ten years Iam sure aamir khan will bring an oscar home after Ray..
Karan Johar, Yash chopra, david dhawan, ram gopal verma are commercially viable directors but do not have the classy unique touch like bhansali or aamir khan or madhur bhandarkar or raj kumar santoshi…watch their movies they are not making typical bollywood movies all the time..all these directors experiment..saawariya by bhansali, taare zamenn par by aamir khan, chandini baar and page3 of madhur and lajja or damini from santoshi are very fine movies with a different touch..
And there are a lot of other good non bollywood ones too..
then there are brand new generation of Indian/NRI female directors mira nair, deepa mehta, tanuja chandra are making very fine movies..ofcourse India would not encourage directors like deepa mehta or water..canadian govt.had to bring water to oscars as its entry..
and some of the western actresses and actors who get oscars dont perform better than smita patil or naseeruddin shah…but it is just that oscars are judged by western audience who cannot understand the body language of indian actors that well as well as they understand western actors or actresses..Plus if people like aiswarya rai who cannot act get opportunities to act in western films instead of indian actresses who can really act like may be konkana sen or even genelia , may be western audience would know what talent real indian actors or actresses have…
Not all western directors are making that great movies either..some oscar winning movies just win it not because they are fine movies with great direction but for novel themes on which the movies are made..so underestimating bollywood or indian movies is not right..
most bollywood movies are right for poor indian audience who go for a movie to escape from reality, some song, some dance, some fights,some over emotional dramas or romance makes them happy..so most bollywood directors make them for just that audience..very few bollywood directors make offbeat movies..and those who make them are pretty good..
typed something lost it bad internet connection at home..
Anyways Manish, ketan mehta made mangal pandey not aamir khan..aamir khan just acted in that movie..
Aamir khan only made lagaan , taare zameen par as director.. as producer he produced others including jaane..
Greatness about aamir khan is he is making offbeat movies yet knows pulse of audience and his movies are commericially successful offbeat movies..look at lagaan, a fine movie with right scenes, right actors, great cinematography, novel story..and it was top five oscar foreign movie..same with Taare zameen par with a dyslexic kid, it has no romantic lead, no romantic songs or dance..it is about a kid and his problems..it was offbeat and yet commercially successful all over India..even satyajit ray could not make a commmercially successful artsy movie that too accepted by audience all over India..
that is the greatness of aamir khan..
So if anyone after satyajit ray who can bring oscars to India it will be either aamir khan or deepa mehta.. next ten years aamir khan will definetely bring an oscar to India..
watch aamir khan movies closely..all actors selected perfectly fit their roles, there are no wasted scenes, novel story line, perfect lighting and cinematography, great crisp dialogues..all characterstics of a great direction..u dont see that near perfect direction that much even in hollywood..the quality of his movies is high like Ray, he spends less money, minimalist coming up with great movies..
Pappu could be a the token South Indian, or could be just a N. Indian nick.
Neither.
Apart from Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak strong references to Papa song (Aamir’s debut movie in mainstream cinema, he had done some art movies before like Holi), it is also a dig @ Salman Khan.
Here, more info:
It’s official. The ‘Pappu can’t dance’ number in the latest Aamir Khan production wasn’t meant to poke fun at actor Salman Khan.
Aamir, Salman and ImranAamir, with nephew Imran Khan in tow, set the record straight on Salman’s television gameshow ‘Dus Ka Dum’.
In an episode telecast on Friday, host Salman asked Aamir if he was the Pappu referred to in the song in Imran’s debut film “Jaane Tu…Ya Jaane Na.”
The lyrics refer to someone named Pappu as a “muscular bachelor” with an “MBA” who can’t dance.
relax prakruti. here, see this, you will like it.
just chill chill just chill. ok ? forget about oscar etc.ok. just take it light.
On the “Pappu” question, thought I’d share this…a couple of days ago on the SAJA mailgroup, Ashok Row Kavi, former journalist and prominent gay rights activist was talking about about the divide he sees in coverage between the English press and the Hindi & Marathi press, and to illustrate his point, he gave this example:
I’d buy that, but the fact is that Bollywood is quite sensitive to its international audience. Karan Johar is a good example. I think a greater problem is that the Bollywood audience is too diverse, and Bollywood is too wary of setting its movie in a specific social/cultural milieu, for fear of alienating the rest. So the movies are all set in some kind of generic social and cultural nowhereland: is it possible to create interesting characters or tell good stories without providing them with a well-defined social or cultural background?
The better Bwd movies of the past few years (Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi, Maqbool, Omkara, Being Cyrus, Blue Umbrella, Manorama, Lagaan,Company,Mai Madhuri Dixit…) all picked a certain social milieu and stuck to it. They could not target the bigger Bollywood market because of this, but they succeeded in telling the stories they set out to do. I recently watched Bommarillu (which Prakruti mentioned above) with a few friends (though I don’t understand Telugu myself), and I enjoyed it more that the regular Bollywood movie because it was set with a specific Telugu background and cultural nuances and assumptions that it could reference, and also occasionally question. Bwd is just unable to do that: because there is no background at all to reference, except some sort of Bollywoodland.
That doesn’t mean I don’t catch every Bollywood release I can: I don’t even know why .
Really? I mean REALLY?
sakshi, you captured the highlights of bommarillu movie very well despite not understanding the language. It is not like typical bollywood movie.. It is very realistic..Iam just like that genelia character in that movie bommarillu and a lot of uncles in my family are like that over protective bossy father of siddarth..that is a very realistic portrayal of telugu families..
watch K Viswanath movies - sankarabharanam, swarnakamalam,murari they are classic movies capturing telugu culture..
watch maniratham movies - saathiya or alaipayuthe, mounaragam..they are also very realistic movies..
Thanks for the recommendations, Prakruti.
Gives an entirely new meaning to the Junoon hit.
Decent post, and I appreciate your viewpoint, but…
…please show me a Hollywood version of Lagaan, from which Aamir Khan imported something?
I rest my case. Cheers!
Bad Movie! Save your money people. The movie is horribly boring……..
ok Manish, I agree with u..Just saw this movie today..u are right..Aamir khan did not do anything unique or new with this movie..
There is a telugu movie made 4 years back or so called “nuvve kavali” with Tarun and it has the same story..two neighbours, friends are best friends , they always fight with each other , best friends… parents think they are made for each other…they dont realise they love each other..the girls parents fix her marriage..later they realise. Nuvve kavali is so so much better than this movie Jaane tu… it is more realistic than this movie..
Also did not like Genelias acting for the first time..she looks artificial and uncomfortable in this movie..she did really good telugu and tamil movies like bommarillu etc., in this movie she looks inhibited and not that great..
music is ok..Imran khan is just ok ok resembles aamir khan.. ratna pathak, shah look good..smita patils son is ok ok..Not a memorable romantic movie like maine pyar kiya or quayamat se quayamat thak or kaho na pyar hi..just another forgettable romantic movie..
Nuvve kavali movie has better musical numbers which are so well picturised than jaane tu too..here they are..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu-opZet-Z4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YQqmwwmoxs
I really liked this movie! Not enough Bandra scenes… Like the songs, LOVED Ratna Pathak.
Forgot to add…doesn’t one of the sidekick girls (don’t remember names!) look like an Indian Reese Witherspoon?