Bodyguard

Rating : 3/10
Release Date : 31st August, 2011
Time : 150 minutes
Director & Writer : Siddique ; Music : Himesh Reshammiya, Pritam
Starring : Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Raj Babbar, Mahesh Manjrekar, Aditya Pancholi, Rajat Rawail, Asrani, Reema Debnath, Rose Dawn
Its sometimes a fine line between being idiotic and being funny. Being a clever spoof or a film trying too hard to be cool. Pushing the edge a bit or being just plain crass. Bodyguard, in each of the above choices, manages to find the lower, worse path with unerring accuracy.



There is nothing more to the story, no depth, beyond what we’ve seen in the promos. Salman Khan is a bodyguard to Kareena, daughter of his benefactor, Raj Babbar. Kareena, as a game, and partly out of irritation at Salman, pretends to be in love with him, without revealing her identity, despite her friend, Rose, warning her not to do so. The bad guys, Mahesh & Aditya, make sporadic, half hearted attempts without any clear motivation or finesse / brains to do so. Salman keeps beating them up. The end is bizarre, silly, idiotic. Pretty much like the rest of the movie…


I would give credit points to Salman’s bicep move and Kareena’s looks. I would deduct major points for weak characters, a love story without sizzle, showpiece songs that don’t fit, a slow pace that drags, jokes that are crude & tasteless, a villain who’s either plain dumb or well, dumber for his inability to strike, fight scenes that are overdone (too many aerial kicks & flips & somersaults). And nothing really seems to make sense. Special mention of bad acting and tastelessness in general of Rajat Rawail...



This is a movie that had great potential but decided to go the masala route, appease the single screen audience. In its current form, it falls kind of in no mans land, in between genres, audiences and stories.

Ready

Rating : 4/10
Release Date : 3rd June, 2011
Time : 140 minutes
Director : Anees Bazmee; Writer : Salim Khan; Music : Pritam, Devi Shri Prasad
Starring : Salman Khan. Special Appearances by the rest of the cast, including Asin, Arya Babbar, Paresh Rawal, Mahesh Manjrekar, Puneet Issar, Manoj Joshi, Manoj Pahwa, Anooradha Patel, Akhilendra Mishra

This is several notches below Dabangg & about par with the crass, loud stuff that passes in the name of comedy today. It could almost be called the Salman show as he plays to the gallery, beats the baddies and loves the ladies.


The plot, for what its worth, has Salman as the spoilt brat, with his entire (wealthy) family wants to now get married in the vain hope that he will settle down. The guru maharaj suggests someone, Asin opportunistically arrives in her place (as she’s fleeing some baddies) and proceeds to win over the entire family. Salman soon finds out that she’s an impostor but by then its too late as he’s also fallen for her. The afore mentioned baddies arrive, some of whom get beaten and the rest cajoled just in time for the happy ending.



Salman wisecracks, removes his shirt, talks to the camera, does some fancy stunts, drives very fancy cars and behaves like someone on a high, in both reel and real life. Asin may have inveigled herself back into Bollywood with some of her dresses. The rest of the family tries to make up for their limited screen time (there are quite a few of them) by going for higher decibels.



Most of the audience laughed in all the right places for most of the film. Their sense of humour and mine clearly don’t match.