* Spoiler Alert: Read at your own risk*
I was rather eager to watch Ishaqzaade because the promos looked very promising, I like the director, Habib Faisal's previous work Do Dooni Char and I like Parineeti Chopra. She's different from all the other newbie actresses we have. She's cute, has a dazzling smile, possesses great screen presence, is confident and can act! Definitely better than her sister! I went in with a lot of hopes for the movie and didn't come out completely disappointed. It was an ok-ok movie where the characters were well etched and could have been used to bring out a better love story, but weren't. The love story wasn't convincing. They fell in and out of love rather easily....! It was like a nice meal with all the dal, subzi, chapati and chaval....but the achar was missing that made the difference. Maybe all the UP style adaptations of Shakespeare's work should be best left to Vishal Bharadwaj for the complete meal feeling.
Parineeti Chopra doesn't disappoint. Arjun Kapoor is haawwttt .....until he opens his mouth! I loved watching him on screen, but the minute he delivered a dialogue, I went into a self-question mode wondering how did I find him hot! He looks and acts like Abhishek Bachchan, with a side angle resemblance to Pratiek Babbar. Seriously, didn't he get better actors to emulate? He can't eat with an injured arm, but can easily do push-ups with the same arm. But then, that's the case with all our Bollywood heroes. Even with all the criticisms, he's far more tolerable than his cousin, Sonam Kapoor! So I'll give it to him.
The music is refreshing good. Pareshan and both the Ishaqzaade songs are my favourites. I don't know if others could feel it, but I think the starting music of the Ishaqzaade title track had a little Jan-Gana-Mana feeling, maybe to drive home the point of National Integration because of the Hindu-Muslim angle in the movie. Also, one can't miss the last note of the movie where they mention how many people die because of inter-caste marriages was very Satyamev-Jayateish. Speaking of the end, I didn't like it. I'm the typical Bollywood audience. I want to see a 'Happily ever after' ending, guess I'll have to watch DDLJ and its last scene of 'Jaa Simran Jeele Apni Zindagi' to have a feel good feeling.
The final word is that the movie is a good one time watch. Should you spend money to watch it in a theatre? Well, that depends on how much money you have! I would recommend waiting until it comes on TV and hope that it doesn't get canned at the nth minute ala The Dirty Picture.
Chalo, am off to finally see The Dirty Picture.
And yes, I'll try listening to the many requests I've got to start writing again/writing more frequently and shall come back soon :) To all the regular readers, a big thank you for sticking by all my writer's mood swings and still staying loyal and pushing me to write more :)
