The entire movie is a spoof. Then you have a spoof within a spoof. Then a spoof within a spoof within a spoof. So far, so good. You have learnt to excuse the joke driven situation (versus situation driven joke). Then…well, Farah Khan forgot where she had started and Shah Rukh Khan finished of the script for her. And we have this mess – moderately funny, but mess nevertheless.

Unpretentious and completely transparent in its intentions, Om Shanti Om is an entertainer in the true sense of the word, mixing up genre elements like comedy, drama, action and emotion to create a heady broth of Manmohan Desai-style exaggerated entertainment. With tongue firmly in cheek, the writers make light of everyone and everything in sight, packing the first half with so many in-jokes and movie references that it turns out to be every trivia collector’s wet dream.

Om Shanti Om is such an unabashed tribute to Karz , it makes you want to run home and dig out the old-is-gold DVD and rewind to the saucy seventies when anything was allowed in Bollywood, including souls that slipped through janams, ghosts that walked, chandeliers that killed, mothers who waited centuries for sons to return and filmy romance was all about haseenas, dewaanas and don’t-ask-for-logic attitudes.

Want to celebrate the crunch-popcorn-Manmohan Desai movies of yore? Then you’ve come to the right place. Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om is dedicated to the imperishable magic of the movies. Flog them or fume over them, but nothing compares to those tickets which make fantasies real. Mmm, that’s entertainment.

Cut the crap, cut the gyan-baazi, cut the will-it-won’t-it work naatak. Shah Rukh Khan and Farah Khan’s OM SHANTI OM is a true-blue masala entertainer. If MAIN HOON NA was a chauka, this one hits a sixer!

As a masala movie, it has its sad moments, happy moments, dance and drama. But there is that extra something missing that takes the zing out of it. Ok, the sets are good and Farah has taken pains to get the 70s look and feel, but that alone is not enough. I guess the villain has to be the script. It leaves a lot of loopholes.

Om Shanti Om is an exultant, heady, joyous film reveling in Bollywood, and as at most parties where the bubbly flows free, there is much silly giggling and tremendous immaturity. You’d do well do breathe in the filmi fumes, lift your own collar-tips upwards, and leave sense out of the equation. More cameos are written in than dialogues, so sit back and play spot-the-celeb. Or watch the Khan have a blast on screen.