Fanaa

Phataa……

Destroyed in commercialization……

Casting Coup, two words that describe the new hit formula for YRF. First it was AB and his Baby in Bunty Aur Babli, then Preity's throat and Saif's tongue (as in tongue down the throat) in Sell Ham| No Masti, UFOs (Unidentified Fugly Objects) Uday and Tanisha in Nympho and Nangi, Hrithik and ASH in upcoming Dhoom 2 and now Aamir and Kajol in Fanaa.

This one is directed by Kunal Kohli who had previously unleashed the Monstrosity called Mujhpe Shit Karoge (loosely inspired by Uma Thurman starrer 'the truth about cats and dogs') and the unabashed scene-to-scene rip-off of 'When Harry Met Sally'- Hum Tum. Well Hum Tum didn't have the famous "Big O" scene and it is understandable; I mean anybody would have difficulty, even a good actor like Saif, to fake an Orgasm with Rani Mukherji in front of you *just imagine Rani's fabulous love handles in Nach Baliye from Bunty aur Bubli*. Moving on. So from which movie did he get "inspired" this time? It was rumored that Fanaa is a Dil Se meets Noorie. I call it stupidity meets lack of imagination. It is neither as intense, dark as Dil Se nor light camp fun as Noorie. It is typical Chopra/ Johar candy floss kitsch with the chutzpah to steal from not one, not two but three movies and an international best seller.

Well you already know about Dil Se and Noorie, the third one and the major one I am referring to is Ken Follet's World War II spy-thriller "Eye of the Needle" with a movie of the same name, except that this one has Kajol in a wet sari heaving profoundly while Aamir is groping her from behind to a loud number by Jatin-Lalit.

We meet Zooni (Kajol), a Kashmiri girl, who lives with her doting parents (Rishi kapoor and Kirron Kher). Two points here: First Diabetes patients should keep insulin injections with them while watching the initial reels since the parents are super saturated saccharine caricatures and might increase your blood sugar. Second, Zooni is blind. why? Kajol refused to wax or tweeze her Unibrow. Solution: make her blind so that she doesn't realize that there's a wild growth on her face, although she does know how to put the lip gloss on her lips and eye shadow on her eyes instead of the nose. The abbu-ammi jaan want their daughter in her late thirties to be independent (as they say it's never too late!!!!) and want her to find her Shehzada, her prince, her knight in shining armor who will rescue this damsel in distress with a Unibrow.

If I had a shot of Tequila for every time somebody said Shehzada in the movie, I would have died of liver cirrhosis before the movie reached its interval point.

So they send her to Delhi with some hot mama cita friends to perform at the republic day parade. There she meets flirtatious tourist guide cum Romeo cum terrorist Rehan (Aamir). He reads her some sher-o-shayri, makes her hot friend jealous, cracks some jokes on her blindness, takes her for some "sight seeing" in Delhi, well of course sings her songs and comes up with amazing superlatives for her beauty. She falls for him. He tries to resist but cannot help it. They decide to get married after seeking permission from her parents and getting a retinal transplant for Zooni. As Zooni is getting her sight back, Rehan is getting himself killed in a bomb blast by the Attank waadis (from the word Attank I remember a movie called Attank Hi Attank, which I would prefer to forget and so would Mr. Aamir Khan)

So far so good. What follows next, however, is not only extremely idiotic but absolute proof of the completely gray-cell lacking Bush-sized brain of the writer and director running out of ideas and lack of films left to copy from. The supposedly shocking twist evokes guffaws.

Rehan is an IKF (Independent Kashmir Front or something?) terrorist. He is not dead and wants to steal a "trigger" from Indian Military base in Kashmir, so that IKF can threaten India and Pakistan with a Nuclear weapon.

After some Dhishum-Dhishum, Wham-Bam, 5000 bullets, 1 exploded helicopter and 3000 dead Indian soldiers later, Rehan gets the trigger but he is injured and there's a really bad snow storm. He takes refuge in a lovely little cottage that happens to be where no-longer-blind-but-still-has-unibrow Zooni lives with her drunken father and her kid Rehan Jr. She doesn't recognize Rehan and nurses him back to good health. Finally the truth is revealed and the predictable ending comes with a sigh of relief.

Rehan Jr. is actually Rehan's son; yeah Rehan knocked-up Zooni on their first and only night together. It is quite baffling that in this day and age (read AIDS and STDs) they don't think of protection on their humping expedition. As in typical Bollywood films the lady gets pregnant the first time itself. That is some really powerful terrorist sperm.

There are numerous plot holes and the lack of research shows completely. The whole nuclear trigger mambo jumbo is laughable; I mean you expect the nuclear trigger to be well protected and kept in some kind of safe carrier plus the Indian Military must follow some protocol when protecting and transporting such highly confidential and valuable secret stuff with adequate back up. None here

When IKF chief and Rehan speak on the radio they don't use code words; which dumb military or "freedom fighting" organization would actually give a description of their mission on the radio when you know anybody could be spying on you?

Rehan is super human. He can kill hundreds of Indian soldiers, woo girls with ease, infiltrate the military base, sing songs all over Delhi, and undertake risqué missions alone while leaving no pictures or people who have seen him being able to provide a description. Ridiculous.

Tabu plays an agent of the Indian Intelligence "Agency": RAW. Wait did I say Agency, no there is no agency in India like that. RAW is a wing, a Research and Analysis Wing that monitors external intelligence of India. The thing is nobody knows how RAW works as an organization and it reports directly and only to the PM's Office, I don't believe RAW would just let any of their agents loose in search of a terrorist without fearing exposure. Tabu is a profiler who tells about the imminent nuclear attack, how does she know that IKF has nuclear weapons but don't have a trigger? Well if she has an agent/ mole infiltrating IKF wouldn't he/she know about Rehan? Also Tabu keeps referring to the terrorist (Rehan) as "Woh", as in a one person…………WTF????…………what makes her think that it is just one person and not 2 guys or 3 guys or a whole organization? What the hell is Pakistan and Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence doing? Ain't the IKF thinking of nuking Pakistan too?

What Rehan does for 7-8 years is unknown, after his supposed death he comes to steal the trigger and lands up at Zooni's place only to find he has a 6-7 year old son which basically establishes the time frame. What was our RAW agent doing during that time? RAW/police/military have no knowledge about Rehan and his activities during all these years. BTW Zooni doesn't recognize his voice when he lands up at her doorstep. That was not a statement it was a question. How can she not remember his voice or body odor?

The helicopter blasting scenes and Rishi Kapoor falling down the cliff are absolutely ROTFLMFAO moments……….rib tickling comedy this…….

The funniest scene however is when Kajol, after her retina transplant, opens her eyes and within 2 seconds starts shouting "Ammi mein dekh sakti hoon??" (Mom, I can see) Oh My Dog! hahahahahaha………….hilarious………don't your eyes take time to adjust to light? Don't the doctors make you do numerous sessions and tests to ensure proper eyesight? Heck some people go through psychiatric sessions to deal with regained eyesight but our lady of steel, Unibrow woman, immediately jumps for joy. What follows after that is even more outrageous and embarrassing; I couldn't believe I was seeing this. The police force her to identify Rehan's dead body………hahahahahahahahaha……..no the doctor cannot recognize him but the lady who just regained her eyesight can……..wow…

Technically barring the embarrassing FX, the movie is quite polished. The cinematography, sets, costumes, background score, sound, locales are astounding….

The music by Jatin Lalit is decent with Chand Sifarish as the best song.

The supporting characters are mediocre to bad except Tabu who does her best in a truly badly written role and looks very pretty.

Comparisons with Dil Se are inevitable. Dil Se was not a commercial success and had its share of flaws but it is definitely a superior product than Fanaa. Manisha's role here is parallel to Aamir's and SRK's role is parallel to Kajol's.

Aamir gives a good performance. His mannerisms and expressive eyes overshadow the extremely poor characterization. He shows shades of gray but is not menacing or despicable enough (like Saif in Ek Hasina Thi) or utterly confused yet manipulative (like Manisha in Dil Se or Madhuri in Pukar). We are as confused as him on whether and what he is doing is justified or not? And the dilemma is not a moral one.

Kajol, even with the Unibrow, looks gorgeous. This is a much understated performance from her and her arrogance doesn't come across as in her other movies or interviews. She is a strong woman even tough she is handicapped yet comes across as vulnerable. Certainly her best performance. Compared to Dil Se's SRK though, she fades a little bit, it probably was SRK's best performance till Swades; he was completely, madly and blindly in love with Meghna (Manisha) ignoring all the signs and the warnings about her background. It came across believably in Dil Se, not quite in Fanaa.

The chemistry between Aamir and Kajol is natural but cant match the one between SRK-Manisha.

Kunal Kohli, the only thing I hope is that Taran Adarsh doesn't take up direction because of Kunal's commercial success. I do have a compliment for him; the movie has some of the most poetic dialogue in recent times.