Happy New Year

Watch this if you love Khan and Dubai, and are good with suspending belief for over three hours.

Visually Happy New Year looks great but why wouldn't a film with a big banner, a talented filmmaker like Farah Khan, a good cast and great locations? That's never the challenge. The challenge is to entertain and Happy New Year falls short in entertaining, it's long length of over three hours being the weakest point. There is no doubt that Farah Khan knows the craft well but she is yet to give an entertainer like Om Shanti Om.

Happy New Year is a muddled mess which has its own warm moments but as a package fails to work. Three hours of Shah Rukh flaunting his abs and swagger gets too much to take minus a strong storyline. Farah Khan has redeemed Tees Maar Khan but Happy New Year is her most mediocre work. It's a magnum opus which is pretty much hollow from within and remains an all frills, no thrills show.

Surely, smarter films can be constructed with such resources, thereby opening up a new universe of possibilities for viewers and distributors alike. I can already hear box-office registers ringing, but ask yourself this: Would halls be full if Shahrukh Khan chose to forego his friends' films?

Happy New Year is just a disappointment when it comes to the kind of work that SRK and Farah have done earlier - the last two times Farah Khan and Shah Rukh Khan collaborated they made brilliantly entertaining films - something you would expect to continue. The biggest loss of this film hence is Farah Khan's failure as a director. Her failure to draw any other emotion - love, agony, patriotism - out of you apart despite attempting to do so in multiple scenes in the film. HNY is just a lesser film, though a fairly decent festive watch - for people of all age groups.

One sure hopes that Farah had spent a little more time on the movie itself than on the promotions, because even though it is sure that the movie will ride the wave of a Diwali Weekend and Shah Rukh's popularity and do good business, this is her flimsiest movie yet. The spectacular entertainment that is expected out of her is all but a fizz. It may be entertaining in parts, but at best it is a one time watch. Watch the movie if you are a Shah Rukh Khan fan – but the movie has nothing more than his fabulous body to offer.

So what is new here? Nothing really! The same references to past movies; The same 'mera baap chor hai' revenge story; The same inconsequential dance songs.

I am pleasantly surprised and happy that Happy New Year attempted story. Yes, most of it is expectedly lame and laughable. But, isn't it cool that Farah Khan thinks her audience to be worthy of it. As if nodding to the fact that the audiences tastes are changing, even if the nod is a weary one and the change is ever so slow. Thank you, lady, and I mean it sincerely.

Despite so-much going on in one film, the narrative is sluggish and often sleep-inducing.

A film like Happy New Year makes things easy for its audience. It's just as easy to dismiss it as it's easy to like it. The downright absence of logic and the immature humour could offend anyone. But watching grown men act like bumbling idiots has been a great idea of fun for time immemorial. End of the day, it all boils down to how you watch your film. If you like to have fun and you don't mind entertainment over cerebral arguments, Farah Khan's Happy New Year is worth your time.

Combination of Farah Khan's direction along with Shahrukh Khan's charisma and Deepika Padukone's glamour leaves little scope for the audience to give Happy New Year a miss. However, performance by other stars also seemed promising.

Farah Khan's 'Happy New Year' is the Typical Over the Top Masala and Action...

Despite its three hours long drama, the movie rarely bores you with these two romancing while Abhishek, Boman, Sonu and Vivaan giving an impeccable contribution in fun. The action sequences have been worked upon and once set it is deemed to give you goosebumps. Performances of all creates a massive impact . As said before Shah Rukh Khan's screen presence is a major relief for us.

The film is stupendous', 'whopper blockbuster' and 'Full on dhamaka'. Shah Rukh Khan who plays Charlie, a street fighter in the film can be seen throwing punches and performing aerial flips in the movie.

Happy New Year is an entertainer. In spite of the slow initial reels, the star-studded and rich film engages and entertains the audience. It will, therefore, fetch handsome profits for all concerned.

Happy New Year is like a Bollywood Night in Dubai on loop, with a few stale heist tropes thrown in. Some of Farah Khan's tricks to propel her story are painfully old-fashioned, one being the villain discreetly mixing a pill in to the drink of the good guy so he becomes unconscious. So much staleness, packed in to a running time of 3 hours, is revolting even to the brain-dead stupor that we, fans of Hindi movies, sometimes habitually get into, just for the sake of time-pass entertainment.

If you must watch this film, then tell yourself that "I am feeling alright, because it's a nonsense ki night."

Farah once again walks the line between spoof and tribute in this rather long, self-aware entertainer with enough moments to make you smile...

The story is simple, perched on a lavish canvas - glitzy, glamorous, gorgeous bodies (read: male torso) and with self-deprecating humour which stands out and entertains in parts (a recap of moments from SRK's own films!).