A Million Pound Note like premise stretched beyond endurance to feature length. A village barber claims to know a Bollywood film star (played by Bollywood film star Shah Rukh KHAN) shooting a film nearby. He is initially believed (& feted), then disbelieved when he cannot use this personal contact to get said film star to come to their village. His struggle to convince others of his friendship with the star is the backdrop for a series of comical scenes as he tries desperately to avoid losing face in his neighbors' eyes. This largely revolves around repeatedly travelling to the film set to approach a star surrounded by multiple layers of security, strengthened by local police because of death threats from religious fundamentalists.
Self referential humor and good acting cannot conceal the essential weakness and lack of depth of the storyline. The talented and beauteous Lara DUTTA is somewhat wasted as the barber's wife; while the charismatic Shah Rukh KHAN is having an obvious ball playing a character modeled almost entirely upon his star persona. The eponymous, highly capable & sad eyed Irrfan KHAN does his best to make something out of a flimsy script but even his talent can only go so far.
The film never overcomes the obvious technical problem that the main characters are played by less well known actors while the featured player is acted by a big star. This unbalances the film emotionally right up until the unexpected and surprisingly moving ending that part salvages this melodrama from complete mediocrity.
Copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
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