I saw 'Namaste London' today and was pleasantly surprised. Ever since the Namaste London trailers began on b4u i have wanted to see it, just because it looked fun. Overall it was a lot better written and acted than i expected.
The film is set in London, the Punjab and then London again. The film starts off well and you really get a sense of how much fun jazz has.
However in my personal opinion the early nightclub scene was a bit much!. This scene was meant to display how westernised/uninhibited jazz and Imran were but it is guilty of making women at UK nightclubs look like prostitutes and the nightclubs like places for roman orgies!! (i have been to various nightclubs at home and abroad to feel justified in saying this!). With scenes like that it is not surprising that the father drags his daughter off on a family holiday.
The scenes set in India are beautiful and there is a lot of comedy as prospective husbands are introduced to jazz, in fact the India segment was so well written that i was sorry when the happy/unhappy couple return to the UK (now looking less vibrant after the Punjab).
Once home the heroine decides that despite everything she wants to get married to her English boyfriend. the love-struck hero meanwhile has the unenviable task of winning jazz's love, keeping his pride, impressing the British, reconciling Imran and his family (a nice little sub-story) and not falling into the trap of being too good to be true.
The music is good but not memorable. This movie seems to be a family film (comedy/love/sport/conterversial issues/family relationships).However this family film lacks the usual catchy songs. Not one song apart from 'Rafta Rafta' (which is no 'Aisa Des Hai Mera') is above average. With other films producing great songs ('Dhoom Again', 'Barso Re', 'Salaam-e-Ishq') you do feel disappointed.
The characters are a mixed bunch. The father played by Rishi Kapoor is at times endearing (with his family in the Punjab & at the end), but most of the time he is completely repellent and overbearing (as many have pointed out he is always unnecessarily humiliating his wife and daughter). The mother has a very small role but, when she does speak in Hindi, what she says is always true and for me she was the best character. The English boyfriend is good-looking but a bit of a jerk. In fact the British boyfriend is a very well written character just bad enough for you not to root for him, but not slimy enough to be a villain. Having said that there is no doubt, even from the beginning, which suitor jazz will end up with.
Before dealing with the main characters, I would just like to criticise the portrayal of the British. When the Singh side won the rugby match I cheered too as the boyfriend had behaved appallingly, and I was glad when Imran didn't cave into his snooty prospective in-laws wishes. However the rest of it just irritated me, because I felt that there were things that had been needlessly dwelt upon. I didn't like the way imran's girlfriend at the beginning was portrayed as the easy white meat, nor the ways she dresses and acts. Call me oversensitive but even if British women are less conservative in their love lives than their Indian counterparts, the girlfriend in this movie is not your typical British girl in terms of wardrobe and blandness!. Another more important scene is the engagement party where the patronising, ignorant and plain rude white guy who is set right by the hero. Now these people do exist and the character deserved the put-down he got but why was this stereotypical display of racism and bigotry included?! The ignorant racist scene is obviously meant to show 1)jazz's realisation of how proud she is to be Indian 2)how the boyfriend doesn't respect her or her culture 3)how educated and eloquent the hero is. However is it really necessary?.
Yes, it makes you question, but not as the makers would have you question. Can jazz not appreciate her roots without this? Can the audience not see how wonderful India and her people are for themselves? Do we really need the whole 'Rang Basanti' / 'The Rising' / 'lagaan' element from Akshay?. I find it hard to explain but it all just seemed a bit gratuitous, and forgive me but the inclusion of this scene shows, that for all the Namaskar gestures Indians can not forgive or forget (probably justified though).
To give ashkay his due in terms of acting he made a very good job of what was a clichéd role and was very believable. Something which SRK & Salman couldn't have achieved. Only problem is I don't like the look of Akshay at all! The ORANGE hair and the smile in particular. Obviously the character was supposed to be attractive rather than handsome, but why could not the role have been played by someone a little younger than 40 year old akshay? The age difference between him and Katrina is not disturbing, but I would have rather seen a 'Funjab' BOY rather than an overgrown boy. Akshay needs to stop playing the 'loverboy roles' and do something more 'omkhara', more 'water' (more 'Don' even!). Katrina was very good and believable.
The film is set in London, the Punjab and then London again. The film starts off well and you really get a sense of how much fun jazz has.
However in my personal opinion the early nightclub scene was a bit much!. This scene was meant to display how westernised/uninhibited jazz and Imran were but it is guilty of making women at UK nightclubs look like prostitutes and the nightclubs like places for roman orgies!! (i have been to various nightclubs at home and abroad to feel justified in saying this!). With scenes like that it is not surprising that the father drags his daughter off on a family holiday.
The scenes set in India are beautiful and there is a lot of comedy as prospective husbands are introduced to jazz, in fact the India segment was so well written that i was sorry when the happy/unhappy couple return to the UK (now looking less vibrant after the Punjab).
Once home the heroine decides that despite everything she wants to get married to her English boyfriend. the love-struck hero meanwhile has the unenviable task of winning jazz's love, keeping his pride, impressing the British, reconciling Imran and his family (a nice little sub-story) and not falling into the trap of being too good to be true.
The music is good but not memorable. This movie seems to be a family film (comedy/love/sport/conterversial issues/family relationships).However this family film lacks the usual catchy songs. Not one song apart from 'Rafta Rafta' (which is no 'Aisa Des Hai Mera') is above average. With other films producing great songs ('Dhoom Again', 'Barso Re', 'Salaam-e-Ishq') you do feel disappointed.
The characters are a mixed bunch. The father played by Rishi Kapoor is at times endearing (with his family in the Punjab & at the end), but most of the time he is completely repellent and overbearing (as many have pointed out he is always unnecessarily humiliating his wife and daughter). The mother has a very small role but, when she does speak in Hindi, what she says is always true and for me she was the best character. The English boyfriend is good-looking but a bit of a jerk. In fact the British boyfriend is a very well written character just bad enough for you not to root for him, but not slimy enough to be a villain. Having said that there is no doubt, even from the beginning, which suitor jazz will end up with.
Before dealing with the main characters, I would just like to criticise the portrayal of the British. When the Singh side won the rugby match I cheered too as the boyfriend had behaved appallingly, and I was glad when Imran didn't cave into his snooty prospective in-laws wishes. However the rest of it just irritated me, because I felt that there were things that had been needlessly dwelt upon. I didn't like the way imran's girlfriend at the beginning was portrayed as the easy white meat, nor the ways she dresses and acts. Call me oversensitive but even if British women are less conservative in their love lives than their Indian counterparts, the girlfriend in this movie is not your typical British girl in terms of wardrobe and blandness!. Another more important scene is the engagement party where the patronising, ignorant and plain rude white guy who is set right by the hero. Now these people do exist and the character deserved the put-down he got but why was this stereotypical display of racism and bigotry included?! The ignorant racist scene is obviously meant to show 1)jazz's realisation of how proud she is to be Indian 2)how the boyfriend doesn't respect her or her culture 3)how educated and eloquent the hero is. However is it really necessary?.
Yes, it makes you question, but not as the makers would have you question. Can jazz not appreciate her roots without this? Can the audience not see how wonderful India and her people are for themselves? Do we really need the whole 'Rang Basanti' / 'The Rising' / 'lagaan' element from Akshay?. I find it hard to explain but it all just seemed a bit gratuitous, and forgive me but the inclusion of this scene shows, that for all the Namaskar gestures Indians can not forgive or forget (probably justified though).
To give ashkay his due in terms of acting he made a very good job of what was a clichéd role and was very believable. Something which SRK & Salman couldn't have achieved. Only problem is I don't like the look of Akshay at all! The ORANGE hair and the smile in particular. Obviously the character was supposed to be attractive rather than handsome, but why could not the role have been played by someone a little younger than 40 year old akshay? The age difference between him and Katrina is not disturbing, but I would have rather seen a 'Funjab' BOY rather than an overgrown boy. Akshay needs to stop playing the 'loverboy roles' and do something more 'omkhara', more 'water' (more 'Don' even!). Katrina was very good and believable.
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