For the way it’s been made, it will be watched. It should be. Go for the kill!

There’s no proverbial chemistry between the leading couple, and that makes for a film of its own. Not this one. Another Delhi movie, maybe. “Love degi, degi love? (Will you give me love),” he seriously proposes. You know what the answer’s going to be. But you want to laugh.

This film is first-rate tribute; it’s visceral, I realise — both clichés for compliments. Nothing more appropriate comes to mind.

Luthria rightly recreates retro from the ‘70s. And this is not just in the low angles of the shots; strange prints on expensive nylon shirts; or trumpets for a background score. It’s most importantly in the sense of the big screen occasion, and a throwback to smart, terse dialogue.

The picture’s premise is strong. The setting is solid. The scam’s quite awesome. The friends make for quite a foursome. All are equally endearing. As are their antics. And then the screen flashes, Interval. Everything dopily goes down a slope thereafter, and onward to America, arrogance and all that jazz.

It’s a sort of flick you ideally discover without burdens of expectation: a caveat you must bear in mind, in case you were planning on rushing off to cinemas right away. Where any Bollywood movie without a gyrating, lip-synching hero perceives itself as ‘different’, this one, from an audience’s point of view, is truly an experiment.

Forrest Gump in its scope, Rain Man in its approach, slightly convenient in its ‘Bollywood opera’, world-class in its photographic treatment (Ravi K Chandran), more sorted than Kurban (from the same producer, along a similar theme); you can sense, throughout, honesty in the film’s purpose.
There is least empathy for a problem you haven’t faced yourself. This film expresses that well. Being looked down as Muslim is at some level a global reality. Prejudices are part of human DNA, Americans being no exceptions.

The fact that you don’t feel like the fourth idiot watching 3 Idiots is, for its genre, the greatest relief. This is in every way Munnabhai – part 3. I think you shouldn’t miss it at all.

You’d much rather stick with this rare Rocket, than an yearlong racket that goes on in the name of filmmaking in Mumbai. Harpreet’s unique honesty in a sales firm goes well in the context of this film within Bollywood itself!

There’s the nation’s best-known actor, without his best-known assets: his deep voice, and his deadly presence. Amitabh entirely trades off his screen aura for a child-geriatric Auro. Mainline audiences can’t be used to this. They’re likely to laugh or leave. Surprisingly, they’ll laugh at the intended notes, and leave, quite satisfied actually. Therein lies the film’s grandest achievement.