Finally - Soul Over Style ?? ...

                             Years ago, when Dhoom was released and set the box office on fire, I asked a friend, whether it was really worth the hype. He replied promptly, “well, the bikes are super-cool, music is superb.. and ofcourse there's john abraham" .. WHAT ?? I thought so.. I mean wasn't this one supposed to be all about genuine cop-thief one-on-ones? the thief pulling it off and giving the cops a slip followed by breath-taking chase-sequences with cops on the trail? Were the other factors so extravagantly exploited that the basic plot itself had taken a back seat ? I thought I should better check out myself to know 'what actually is the soul of this movie'. My expectations only soared higher after the opening sequence where a team of thieves outsmart the cops through hacking stuff at the traffic signal. From there on, it was only a down slide for me. After the 2 hours of masala, i came out of the cinema hall with some interesting observations.

• The audience had roared and whistled when the title song had come up.
• They roared and whistled when john would vroom off on his bike away from the always-hapless-in-bollywood police.
• Same when they see john escaping out of the mall in disguise fooling junior B.
• but wait ! what about the actual robbery act in the mall ??? Did I miss it ? naah ! the director left tat to audience's imagination to plot the loot in their minds. So why to show it on the Screen ? Smart ! and how our heroes (robbers in this case) manage to break-in despite the tight security right after the title track ? 'let the audience sketch it in their mind again' decided the writers. Quite safe considering the audience has other distractions to roar and whistle for !
• And finally, the final act in goa, i thought, was supposed to be the film's highlight. Probably the writers were scratching their head for this one when they must have heard some noise of children playing in the flat below theirs. ' when noise can pass thru, why can't my heroes drill thru ' must have been the idea. And the improbable act was completed from scratch to finish in one 5-minute new year song (salaame) ! wow ! even the likes of Italian Jobs and the Ocean 11's would have been ashamed !

Never-the-less Dhoom was a block buster. nothing new though ! its not an alien fact in Bollywood that the writers take the audience for granted, confident that the loop-holes in the scripts would be overlooked, add one item number, foreign locations, star actors and the movie is an assured Hit ! 'All style, No subtance' has worked big time ! But just like the Evil-must-end formula in our movies, the indian audience came to a saturation point and slowly our expectations and perception of the movies have evolved through. And so its good for the future of Indian Cinema that Yash raj's fat-budgeted but technically brilliant movies are being rejected by the audience (tashan, lafangey parindey, dil bole hadippa, pyaar impossible to name a few). and Nobody has to be an Einstein to guess why these didn't click. Its the sheer Lack of creativity in the Scripts ! 'Serve the Old wine in a new bottle, add some fizz '(songs, item numbers as mentioned earlier) has been the writers' mantra which has worked in the past more then often. and hence its good that this movie called 'Blue' was a disaster as its makers had the audacity to believe that even with a poor script (or the lack of it), the audience would still embrace the crap for its pointless stunts, rubber sharks and Kylie Minogue's Chiggy-Wiggy . Kites didn't even attempt to be different with it's love v/s hatred formula but Rakesh Roshan went on record to say that the movie will create history at box-office. Within a week, the movie was history at cinema halls. Same for Ravana where the audience just couldn't digest abhishek's attempt for a Heath Ledger moment (bak bak bak.. chak chak chak.. Wat in the world was that !)

As these so-called mainstream movies were unanimously rejected, some intelligently scripted ones found acceptance from the audience. Tere Bin.. Laden didn't have any star actors, producer and director. Tightly budgeted, it struck chord wid the audience with its engaging screenplay and good performances. Udaan, easily one of the best movies of the year, got its share of recognition too. Uncomplicating in its narration, it was the realistic portrayal of its characters and the fluctuating father-son relationship in the movie which the audience applauded. 'A Wednesday' is another example of a powerful script being the winner. Ditto for Dibakar Banerjee's 'Oye lucky lucky oye', an unconventional conman drama, and Anurag Kashyap's Dev D, a contemporary take on India's most loved drunkard - Devdas .

There have been many such small-budgeted movies released over past 2-3 years which have done fairly well at the Box Office. These are the kind of movies the producers need to look upon and know that if a strong script is invested upon, the movie has every chance to perform well even with adequately performing actors and not necessarily stars. With the audience preferring matter over style, we can only hope that the industry brings out meaningful movies with more frequency in future. Ofcourse we don't expect every movie to be all-brains stuff and even after years, every once in a while, a 'ghajini' and 'dabangg' will come and capture the audience. But with majority of the Big Banner movies having failed in last couple of years , lets hope that the industry has got the message loud and clear that Style is not what matters anymore ! its the Substance and the Soul !