Luck By Chance

Plot: A young actor Vikram Jai Singh (Farhan Akhtar) comes to Mumbai from Delhi to make it big in the movie industry. He has a couple of friends with whom he hangs around. Sona Mishra (Konkona Sen Sharma) is the neighbour of one of his friends. She is also a struggling actress who is waiting for her big break. They both bump into each other by chance and a friendship grows. On the other hand we have Romy Walia (Rishi Kapoor) who is a producer of some considerable repute in Bollywood and Zaffar Khan (Hrithik Roshan) who is a big Bollywood star who was launched by Romy. Romy is married to Minti (Juhi). Zaffar walks out of one of Romy's movies which was also a launchpad for Nikki Walia (Isha Sharvani) who is the daughter of Nina Walia (Dimple Kapadia) who was once a Bollywood super heroine herself. Due to a series of freak chances our Vikram Jai Singh lands in the role vacated by Zaffar. This obviously puts a strain on Vikram-Sona relationship (who still is a struggling actress by the way). Well Vikram plays Nina and Nikki both and ends up a superstar. The movie is all about these characters and their lives and how one shit leads to another shit and so on.

My Psychobabble: For a change let me start with the two good things in the movie. They are Juhi Chawla and Rishi Kapoor. Juhi is freaking awesome! She looked gorgeous, her body language perfect to the part she played and her accent and dialogue delivery was like watching a virtuoso at the peak of her performance. And Rishi Kapoor was amazing! Kya laga hai yaar banda wo producer get up main. His lose ill fitting shirt, his glamorous bling bling accesories, his often crooked eye brow, his pronounciation of "volcano" as "vulcano" and so on was just superb. These two together over shadowed the entire star cast of the movie.

Beyond them the movie is just another average mildly amusing run of the mill Bollywood movie. Matlab itni buri nahin hai but then again there is nothing spectacular or great about it. At times it appears to be dragging its feet like a completely pissed and bored child in his school assembly while at other times it looks only as alive as Inzamam-ul-haq on the running end of the wicket. Direction is OK as is the screenplay and editing. The movie often appears disjointed in its own story line if not completely broken. Best analogy would be to compare it to a handsome man who has just had a head on collision with a car. Mara nahin hai, zinda hai and you can make out that he probably looks good but his bones are dislocated and broken in places.

Tangent: Fock that was a new literary low even for me. This Xbox 360 is secretly draining out my literary powers I am sure. Grrrrr!

As for the actors. Farhan Akhtar is a write off. He looks marginally good, has a passible phsyique has voice that is permanently affected by a chronic cold and his dialogue delivery is only as exciting as watching paint dry. He has this drone of a voice which doesn't vary a fraction of an octave during his acting. No matter if he is excited, angry, pissed, sad, turned on (highly unlikely opposite Koko) he just spits out his words using the same continuous even pitch. For all I matter a ticking grandfather pendulum clock could be doing his voice over instead of him.

Konkona Sen Sharma (Koko) is a good actress. She has played good parts in her earlier movies but somehow her casting as this struggling actress in main stream commercial bollywood is not probably the best choice the casting director made.

Hrithik is but of course a marvellous actor but this time somehow wasn't on his best. But then he is Hrithik! As an actor he would out perform the best of the best on his bad day! As a hunk, well glance around and the honey eyed females in the hall speak loud enough through their lecherous stares about him ;)

Tangent: Don't freaking ask why I glance around or how can I see their expressions in the dark. Stick to the review for heaven's sake!

Isha Sharvani (Niki Walia) is a promising actress. Ab uski figure se nazar hata pata to shayad kucch review likhta but for you male members of this homo sapien species, she is a perfect eye candy (with clothes to match wink wink). And of course has acted well too (ahem). Dimple Kapadia is good. She is of course a matured actress who knows the tricks of the trade but somehow she hasn't come across as spectacularly as either Juhi or Rishi. This reminds me, there was a particular sequence where Rishi and Dimple are sitting on a couch discussing the movie they are about to make. The camera zooms into the shot from afar and you see only them together on the couch. A pounchy, curly hair Rishi Kapoor and a seemingly aged and slightly heavy Dimple Kapadia were a far cry from their raunchy and saucy performances in their youth. It was so amusing watching them together like this and thinking back on their "hum tum ek kamre main band ho" days. Sigh!

Verdict: Not a great movie but not a complete bore as well. Things could have been better but then again they could have been worse too. I would recommend watching it once but don't make any special arrangements or change your plans to fit this movie in your busy schedule. Not worth it.