Farah Khan's masala flick Happy New Year has everything going well businesswise but it's extremely low on content. It's grand, beautiful, shot in exotic locations across Dubai, has all the SRK moves which fans love, a hit Jodi (Shah Rukh Khan - Deepika Padukone), it's visually appealing but there is nothing else apart from that!
Happy New Year is a heist thriller with a lot of naach gaana. Charlie (Shah Rukh Khan) wants to take revenge from Charan Grover (Jackie Shroff) because he betrayed Charlie's father (Anupam Kher), which landed him in jail and led to his death.
Grover runs a safety lockers' business and now that he will be shielding an expensive diamond at the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai, Charlie will steal it. Coincidently the day the diamond is going to arrive there is a dance competition at the same hotel. Charlie forms a group of people who are good enough to steal but not good dancers. The team (Abhishek Bachchan, Sonu Sood, Boman Irani and Vivaan Shah) now will take the help of a bar dancer Mohini (Deepika Padukone) to learn dancing and will eventually make their way to the vault.
The film is predictable and yes sometimes that's fine. You know the hero will make his way to the locker eventually but the journey to that locker should be gripping and entertaining and sadly this one is full of cliches. There are very few portions which are actually funny. Most of it is just illogical drama making no sense. It's not that I walked into the cinema to watch Happy New Year and find logic but in the film things don't fall into place and there are petty jokes. For instance, the Korean Dance Team is called Chicken Chilly and some dance moves make fun of Boman Irani while he gets recurring fits, now that's just bizarre!
Shah Rukh Khan has worked hard on his body for this film and he does a fine job of flaunting it. Extremely full of energy most of the times, he entertains. Deepika puts in sincere efforts but is limited because of the writing. Boman Irani plays a Parsi and is the funniest of the lot. Sonu Sood is brilliant. Abhishek Bachchan performs well too and so does Vivaan Shah.
Vishal Shekhar's music is good for the film, some songs set the mood since dance performances are a part of the plot.
Visually Happy New Year looks great but why wouldn't a film with a big banner, a talented filmmaker like Farah Khan, a good cast and great locations? That's never the challenge. The challenge is to entertain and Happy New Year falls short in entertaining, it's long length of over three hours being the weakest point.
There is no doubt that Farah Khan knows the craft well but she is yet to give an entertainer like Om Shanti Om.
If you go and watch Happy New Year, you will surely sit through it but will you walk out smiling? I can't take that guarantee.
Copyright: indiatoday.intoday.in
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