Sunday, September 7, 2008

Rock On! Its Magik

There cant be a better title for the blog than the title of the movie. It is all about college dreams, music and rock and roll, and of course, friendship. On the other hand, it is all about the making of music and how it is, here, synonymous with chasing your dream.

To begin with there are these four cool dudes who have this rocking band. They seem to have everything going for them. But cut to a decade later and the guy with long curly hair is now working as an investment banker who never smiles, a dull gujju jhaveri who looks dull, a music-man who seems to be scraping it, a guitar dude with droopy mouche who looks henpecked and dull. And then there is the bored wife who seems to have only one thing on her mind- why doesnt my husband smile. Its been 5 years and she is tired of waiting for her life to pick up.

A chance encounter between the wife and the gujju triggers her curiosity about the past life as a rocker that the husband has never mentioned. She thinks this could be the reason the hubby never smiles and tries to get the rockers back together. Hubby frowns at the effort and has words, wife tries to leave, upon which hubby realises he has unresolved issues with his band and needs to get back together with them.

Story is wafer thin and is spread out like butter on the brown toast of a person trying to diet. Farhan Aktar (Aditya) as the lead singer of the band and the investment banker has zero charisma. He is competant and good looking even, but not charismatic. Luke Kenny(Rob) as the scraping musician and the killer-at-the-keyboard is just about adequate. Purab (KD) as the gujju jhaveri and the killer-drums of the band is good. Arjun Rampal as the droopy mouche loser of the present and the magic guitarist of the band is WOW. All of a sudden this wooden model boy has turned into this bankable performer. He looks fabulous, acts fabulous and is the cherry on top of this movie.

The Girls : Prachi Desai thankfully gets into sweet short dresses that highlight her hep young self. She does a good job as Aditya's wife Sakshi who is trying hard to make her marriage work. Shahana Goswami as Debbie is the dress designer turned fishmonger and a very bitter wife to Joe. They love each other but cant deal with life. Koel Purie as Devika is a friend of Sakshi's who takes a shine to KD.

The music and the rock and roll performances of the band Magik is Magik. The music and the stage performances mesmerise. It makes the movie totally watchable and such unadulterated fun.

We have mighty few genres of movies in the Hindi film industry. Its usually just masala mish mash of action, comedy and drama. It is refreshing to see a movie in the hitherto unexplored genre of a rock-band movie. The movie has no pretensions and is purely about the four rockers and what they did and how to get them back together. For just this reason, we have to be very grateful to Abhishek Kapoor.

The songs dude... are to die for and are on my playlist already. Farhan Akhtar the singer is really good. The guy is nothing short of a genius. He has directed some sublime flicks, he is adequate as an actor and now the singing thing! His voice which sounds raspy when he talks, takes on a different timbre altogether when he starts singing. The music by Shankar Ehsaan and Loy is sheer JOY.

10 comments:

  1. i want to watch this, i want to watch this ! only thing is it's playing in a theatre with crap for sound, crap for seats, crap for screen, crap for snacks, i cld go on .... do i wait and watch on dvd or wade thru the crap just because ... hopelessly confused :(((((

    have been reading rave reviews of FA, tho now that i come to think of it, i dont think it had to do with his acting, more for his looks :D glad to know AR is upto potential, cld spend 2 hrs just watching him :D

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  2. I read many reviews wherein they praised the song but run down the lyrics.. temme what else they expect if the music is total rock.. I mean, english rock songs too have shitty lyrics at times for which they go ga-ga. Its quiet tough to put hindi lyrics in rock music and still I found it if not awesome quiet manageable. Meri Laundry ka ek bill and Sindbad the sailor are my favs outta all tracks.

    P.S. Btw I watched it again this sunday (just for the heck of it..was listening to songs whole noon and could not stop myself going for it again).... :)

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  3. Ah!!! Pinkbee..

    U jus' reflected my thots :D

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  4. thanks folks.. sorry for you cp.. better get a dvd.. i WILL buy one.

    mystique.. same pinch.

    oxy - i lUUUUURRRRVEEE the lyrics too. i liked the soft song in female voice best.. its top on my playlist.

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  5. hopefully, I'll watch it this weekend. Looks like quite lot of Bolly movies these days..

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  6. That is just super ...
    I have been motivated to see this movie now after reading ur review

    Super groovy !!

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  7. Story is Wafer thin!! Spread out like butter....lolz priceless!

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  8. I'm yet to watch this movie - maybe today is a good day for it :-) Nice review.

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  9. oh do do that eye- I am sure you will like it.

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