Boy meet girl, boy hates girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy engaged to girl's sister, etc. etc. etc. We've seen it a million times in Hindi Cinema. But usually, the boy and girl are traditional, goody-two-shoe perfect Indian beings who spout about tradition and culture and damn the west. Well, not in Neal N Nikki. Neal and Nikki make out and have sex. Basically, anyone expecting traditional Indian entertainment aka Yash Chopra's hit from 1995 Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge will be sorely disappointed. Ten years later, he makes Neal N Nikki, the anti-DDLJ. These two are so out there, if they ever met the lead pair from DDLJ, Raj and Simran's heads would explode! I enjoyed it better than Salaam Namaste. Completely unpretentious and fun. Moronic and utterly stupid at times, but pretty progressive the way it looks at sex and the love lives of twenty-somethings. Uday Chopra is an SRK wannabe who needs to get his own style. We have too many guys trying (and failing) to pull off the arrogant "cool dude," and Zayed and Uday are NO SHAH RUKH KHAN. Even when Shah Rukh tried to act like a stud, he still came off as dorky, which was charming. These guys try way too hard to ape his style, but really seem to believe that they're the next best thing. Sure, Uday has muscles and height but is a terrible actor. He has no depth, no range. His lipstick also distracts. Tanishaa is mediocre, but shows some sparks of Kajol. She did a much better job emoting in Sarkar- here, she went over-the-top in some scenes. I believe if she goes light on the make-up and tries to restrain herself, she'll do better. She's not one-tenth of her sister in terms of talent. Kajol could go over-the-top without hamming, or could overplay a role and make it look charming and spastic, aka the beginning of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Tanishaa is a wannabe. A toned body is the last thing an actress needs (Look at frumpy, but talented Kajol). Still, she's funny in some scenes, especially the "Are you a virgin?" conversation. Richa Pallod follows the trend of her costars and is neither all that attractive nor talented. She's bland in that Shreya Saran, Ayesha Takia, Bhumika Chawla kind of way where you wouldn't be able to pick her out in a crowd of extras. Clearly, gone are the days when actors and actresses were actually unique, instead of talentless star kids (We're looking at you, Kareena/Esha/Zayed/Fardeed/Tusshar) or cookie-cutter supermodels with the same personality (If you replaced Priyanka with Lara in a movie, would anyone really notice?). The music was enjoyable too, and the locations were nice. Gorgeous cinematography and a polished product. With stronger stars, this one could've been better, but as it is, not bad. If critics can digest the turgid Salaam Namaste, which I found disappointing in spite of mammoth expectations, they should dish out some compliments for this one too. Granted, I had low expectations from this one, but not bad! Pretty fun! Don't think about it and enjoy the candy floss airhead romance. 7/10.
Review of Neal 'n' Nikki
