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thapaguru
Reviews
Neal 'N' Nikki (2005)
Uneven
To establish the legitimacy of my criticism: I've been watching both English and Hindi movies since I was five and my father rented episodes of the Maharabharata and then I saw Rocky the next day.
Yash Chopra must have gone out and gotten every swimsuit model in Canada for this movie. It's built entirely as a vehicle for his son, but surprisingly about half of the movie is extremely watchable and even well shot, performed and scripted. The movie opens with Neal (Uday Chopra) as a young man from a rich family in Canada, who's about to get married. He decides to go to Vancouver to enjoy his last few days of freedom and decides to meet as many girls as he can before the wedding.
Enter Tanisha as Nikki. She opens the film as an exaggerated Indian version of the morally bankrupt Westernized female, drinking alcohol, being sexually forwards etc. The movie is rather up-front about pre-marital sex, and even throws in a few kisses between the leads (those villagers must be going crazy in India over this). They go through some unusual love story troubles in which both sides are revealed to be dishonest about their true intentions, realize by the end that the other is indeed awesome enough to marry.
The acting is not Oscar worthy. Chopra comes off as too metrosexual on film (disturbing amounts of lip gloss/lipstick), and seems too short even by film standards. Tanisha's not bad, but is outshined by a swimsuit model. I found myself actually shouting at the TV "Give the model a bigger role," and it seemed Yash heard me and we were given Amanda (Serinda Swan). I guarantee a million Indians were on the Internet searching for her pictures after seeing this movie. Music's decent. Chopra could have spent a week more on the script as some dialogue is clunky and some obvious punch lines missed.
Overall: A fun, yet uneven movie aimed squarely at NRIs and will most likely be doomed to comparisions with the far better Dil Chathai Hai.
On a side note: the character Happy is by far the most ridiculous yet sublime musician I've ever seen in cinema. He truly shows us all how to rock while holding a mandolin, and ends up not only with groupies but a bangingly hot fiancé.