YUVRAAJ - piss-poor Bollywood melodrama slash RAINMAN rip-off

YUVRAAJ is an unwatchable movie from Subash Ghai - one of Hindi cinema's most unreliable directors. He's made iconic movies like TAAL and even the recent, earnest political drama BLACK AND WHITE but he's also made some complete stinkers.

YUVRAAJ (Hindi: "prince") is about a cock-sure arsehole (Salman Khan) who wants to marry a rich cellist (Katrina Kaif). Her father forbids the match until this waste of space makes some money. So our "hero" decides to team up with his playboy younger brother (Zayed Khan) and exploit their third brother (Anil Kapoor) - an autistic, musical genius who just happens to have inherited their father's fortune.

The movie is superficial and glitzy and at times seems like little more than an advert for Austrian tourism. Katrina Kaif, Salman Khan and Zayed Khan are poor actors, the script is cumbersome and ridiculous, and poor Anil Kapoor is stuck in a role that is absurd. He's the only reason to see the movie, and believe me he's not reason enough. As for A.R.Rahman's score - it's a real embarassment. Apart from the songs "Tu meri dost hain" and "Mastam mastam", the numbers are over-worked, bombastic and truly poor quality.

Movies like DOSTANA - for all their compromises - are moving Bollywood forward. Movies like YUVRAAJ set it back by around a decade. Avoid at all costs or waste two and half hours pondering the strange life of Salman Khan's hair-line and Anil Kapoor's collection of haute couture lapel pins.

YUVRAAJ went on global release on November 21st.

RACE - the superficial

RACE is a fantastically superficial, depressing and boring Bollywood action thriller. The film is characterised by hyper-glossy women; self-conscious slo-mo action shots; an ear-threateningly loud score; and a penchant to shoot all the stars as if they were in rap videos.

The brothers Burmwalla are best loved for their hit movie CHORI CHORI CHUPKE CHUPKE but have significantly amped up the stunts and the sex scenes since then. In this film they concoct a ludicrous tale about two feuding brothers who are both the subject of $100m life insurance policies. The brothers and their accomplicies scheme and plot to kill, defraud, bribe and triumph. They are aided by two hot chicks, and held up by a comedy double-act of coppers. The plot has so many implausible plot twists that the audience is long past caring well before the end. Still, giving credit where it's due, unlike some convoluted thrillers, the Burmwalla brothers do manage to tie up every loose end.

As we go from plot twist to plot twist we're kept busy by fast-paced, western-influenced dance numbers; some action scenes and a bit of light relief. The dance numbers are universally poor, both in terms of the songs and the choreography. Fans of Bipasha Basu will find no hit song to match "Beedi" here. And Katrina Kaif as the second hot chick is, as always, wooden and lacking in true dance ability. The action scenes are ambitious by Bollywood standards but car chases have been done better in movies like DHOOM. And overall, KRRISH had a more high-quality tech-package than RACE. Which brings us to the light relief. Johnny Lever - veteran comic actor of Indian cinema - is outstanding in his five-minute cameo. And Anil Kapoor is decent as the Columbo style cop. I even liked Sameera Reddy as his idiot side-kick.

Still, I can't help but thinking that RACE is a step back for Hindi cinema. All style but no substance and the abasement of actors better known for art-house work. In particular it's a shame to see Saif Ali Khan, who was so outstanding as the Iago character in the brilliant OMKARA, posing like a rapper. It's a shame to see Bipasha Basu, who also made a breakthrough as a serious actress in CORPORATE, take a step back to steamy love-scenes and being just a "body".

RACE is on release in India and the UAE.

PARTNER - serviceable Hindi remake of HITCH

PARTNER is a loud, crass, unabashed Bollywood remake of the US Will Smith rom-com, HITCH. Directed and re-written by one of Bollywood's leading comedy directors, David Dhawan, the movie makes no concession to Westernised tastes or production values. This is old school Bollywood of the type since surpassed by movies such as KRRISH and OMKARA. It is entertaining in a sort of low mindless fashion and features a lot of popular dance tracks that ape a bizarre range of Western influences from hip-hop to salsa.

Salman Khan stars in the Will Smith role, playing a dating guru who helps losers win the women of their dreams. In his old age, Khan has become a pastiche of himself, bearing his be-muscled chest at every opportunity; constantly sporting stone-wash jeans c 1987 and wearing an ever more implausible set of hair pieces. Nonetheless, you can't help but admire the way in which he throws himself into one high octane dance number after another, wearing an ever higher quotient of sequins. The schmuck is played by Govinda - a Hindi comedy legend - and he is suitably goofy and sweet. He gets a far bigger role than in the US original. Indeed it takes forty minutes of the movie's two hour run-time for Salman Khan to agree to take his case. The object of Govinda's desire is played by Katrina Kaif, whose stilted English Hindi accent is a definite disadvantage in any movie in which she's meant to play a genuine Desi. Still, she's pretty enough to play the eye candy who falls for the loser with the kind heart. The Eva Mendes role goes to Lara Datta. In this version, instead of a reluctant feminist who's plotting against the dating guru, her character is a single mother, who needs to be convinced of Salman Khan's ability to be a father. Cue lots of standard Bollywood scenes with a cute munchkin.

Overall, the movie is not subtle but it does slide easily down the throat. The songs are classic Bollywood club hits - notably the Mambo No 5 rip-off, "Do U Wanna Partner" and the bhangra number, "Dupatta Tera Nau Rang Da". The only bit that went from "so naff it's amusing" to "so naff it's just naff" was the final scene in which the date doctor has to give the schmuck step by step instructions on his honeymoon night.

PARTNER went on global release in August 2007 and is now available on DVD.

NAMASTEY LONDON - bear with it....

NAMASTEY LONDON is an infuriating film. Which is not to say that it doesn't work on some level. I began by watching the DVD extras, including some interviews with the cast and crew. Director Vipul Amrutlal Shah, the man behind WAQT: A RACE AGAINST TIME, was keen to emphasise that this was NOT a typical Hindi film. He wanted to avoid those typical dance numbers in front of famous London landmarks and photograph the real streets where ex-pats live. The lead actors, Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif, were also keen to emphasise that their characters were just normal people - nothing special. Akshay's Punjabi boy, Arjun Singh, should not be over-played as a village idiot. And Katrina's London-bred modern girl, Jasmeet, should not be a caricature either. The movie should be a funny, moving tale of love between two opposites with some soft-pedalled social criticism thrown in.

So imagine my surprise when I started watching the film. It is about as unrealistic as any Bollywood movie ever tried to be, with London and Indian iconic landmarks up the wazoo. Despite being a London bus-driver, Jasmeet's father somehow lives in Hampstead-style mansion. Jasmeet herself is no modern career girl in a dull office. Rather she skips into work in a mini-skirt and has a desk over-looking St Paul's Cathedral! But the real kicker is that her English boyfriend, hillariously called Charlie Brown, lives in an English country house full of antiques and while he looks about thirty he has apparently been divorced three times. 45 minutes into the film, Jasmeet's father packs the family off to India and marries her off to the Punjabi boy. Again caricatures. Punjabis drink milk straight from the cow, drink too much alcohol and eat too much ghee!

Still, these flaws are common to the genre, and if we look for identifiers of quality in an old-fashioned Bollywood film we have to ask two questions: how were the song and dance numbers and did we feel all sappy about the central love story? The songs were basically mediocre so no luck there. But where the film does luck out is in casting Akshay. Because while Akshay has a very narrow range, he can certainly do what he does well - and that's the good-hearted simple boy turned romantic hero. He really looks heart-broken when Jasmeet dumps him and we will him to get back together with her. Katrina is window-dressing, although she does a good job of speaking heavily English-accented Hindi. Her straight-forward English, however, has a strong American accent.

As for the social critique there are some nice lines about how ex-pat Indians want the best of both worlds. But the best speech is given by Arjun Singh on a boat on the Thames. He explains to patronising Englishmen the strength of India. Sure, it's patriotic flag-waving, but you can't help inwardly applaud a country where "a Catholic woman steps aside so that a Sikh can be sworn in as Prime Minister by a Muslim President in a country where more than 80% of the population is Hindu."

NAMASTEY LONDON was released in March 2007 and is now available on DVD.