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Where?s Yashraj headed?
Neal 'n' Nikki is the worst Yashraj film, says Saibal Chatterjee. Trailer | Review
Does Yashraj Films, contemporary Bollywood’s biggest and most successful production outfit, really know where it is headed? It seems it doesn’t.
Given that somebody as seasoned and accomplished as Yash Chopra is at the helm of the company, it is indeed surprising that it can deem it fit to foist a film as insane and exploitative as Neal 'n' Nikki on the audience.
Sadly, one must confess that we had seen this monstrosity coming. Three of the last five films churned out by the Yashraj banner - Hum Tum, Dhoom and Salaam Namaste - pushed the boundaries of narrative vacuity to breaking point with the sort of frenzy and desperation that the only the Ramsay brothers, in the heydays of their Z-grade horror flicks, could have rivalled.
Even by those standards, Neal 'n' Nikki goes completely overboard with its fixation for push-up tops, deep necklines and high hemlines. Unfortunately, there isn’t a single line in the film that is remotely original.
Had the film come from any other banner, it might not have raised so many eyebrows. Yash Chopra is a brand and his production company has a reputation to protect. A few more films like Neal 'n' Nikki and Yashraj Films will be down in the dumps. That would be bad news indeed for Bollywood.
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| Uday Chopra and Tanishaa in a still from Neal 'n' Nikki. The film goes completely overboard with its fixation for push-up tops, deep necklines and high hemlines. Unfortunately, there isn’t a single line in the film that is remotely original. |
As films,
Hum Tum, Dhoom
and
Salaam Namaste
were equally pathetic, but they got away with their banalities because of the presence of stars like Saif Ali Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Rani Mukherjee and Preity Zinta in the cast.
Neal 'n'
Nikki
has absolutely nothing going for it in terms of star value although Uday Chopra tries his best to ape Shahrukh Khan. As for Tannisha, her acting ability seems to be as scanty as the outfits she is made to wear.
Indeed, Neal 'N’ Nikki does no justice whatsoever to Yashraj Films. The company’s downward slide began with the success of Mohabbatein, which was no more than an excuse to let skimpily clad starlets like Kim Sharma and Shamita Shetty loose in a narrative woven around Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai.
In the 1990s, Yashraj films specialized in good old school romance movie repackaged expertly for present-day consumers of Bollywood kitsch. Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, directed by Aditya Chopra, and Dil To Paagal Hai, helmed by Yash Chopra himself, had rewritten box office history without having to resort to a vulgar display of skin.
But post-Mohabbatein, the script has changed drastically even though, in the past 12 months, the banner has delivered films like the stolid Veer-Zaara and the sprightly Bunty Aur Babli, which clicked because of their soul, and not the bodies of their female protagonists. Neal 'n’ Nikki has neither soul nor substance, neither romance nor sense.
The Yashraj banner appears to have discovered a new formula – it mixes great locales, bright colours, and cool central characters to tell stories that never really go anywhere although the dramatis personae fly in and out of countries without a care in the world for geographical boundaries. Hum Tum and Salaam Namaste clicked. So did Dhoom. But the reason for their success was all wrong.
It is time the multiplex audience rejects Neal 'n’ Nikki. By doing that it would be doing itself – and Yashraj Films – a good turn. The makers of DDLJ are surely capable of doing better. If they don’t learn their lessons from Neal 'n’ Nikki, the only way they can go is down.
