Laugh’s like that

Ajab Prem ki Ghazab Kahani
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Katrina Kaif, Salman Khan (for a minute!)
Director: Raj Kumar Santoshi
Rating: Two and a half stars
The kid’s brilliant. So watch it Hrithik Roshan, Shahid Kapoor and all the big and small Khans. At the rate he’s going – by sheer evidence of his screen charisma, technical felicity and youth power – Ranbir Kapoor is more than likely to be the Next Best Thing, if he isn’t one already. He’s RK Jr and he’s more than super A-Ok.
One BIG movie that can accommodate his talent, and he’ll be unstoppable. Alas, Raj Kumar Santoshi’s Ajab Prem ki Ghazab Kahani (tongue-twister of a title that) is not that Biggie. Yet the actor does make the old-wine-in-newish-bottle watchable and remarkable for it wow moments -- like RK Jr’s soliloquy in church and that scene of self-reflection on losing out on love, picturised against a hillscape in the declining evening. Applause please.
There is a bubbling chemistry, too, between goofball Prem (Ranbir Kapoor) and the Cinderella-like Jenny (Katrina Kaif). It’s heartening to see them together, never mind that corny in-joke about her fan mania for Salman Khan, who by the way, pops up in an uncredited guest appearance. Indeed, that’s the problem with director and co-writer Santoshi: he lays on the romcom much too thick like an entire tub of butter expended on a single muffin. Too much huffin’ and puffin’, including Santoshi fetching up in a Hitchcokian appearance to shrug grandpa-like at the lead pair. Cute? Just a little.
In fact in sum, Ajab..Ghazab is just that. Quite zany and ticklish occasionally but far too pancake-flat for most of the way. No Andaz Apna Apna this, which incidentally, is recalled very quietly in the background score. Or was it sound engineer Rakesh Ranjan fiddling around with the AAA soundtrack cleverly?
Aah, Santoshi was far more peppy and punchy then. This time around, there is an element of the woodenly retro, what with Prem and his pals running a ‘happy club’, besides dashing off for skirmishes with eunuchs (two even tumble and kiss!) and bellicose police officers. Balloons fly, a nasty stepma hisses, the only Nasir Husain touch that’s missing is the good old, late Rajindernath in a woman’s frilly nightie. Oh oh, no that’s there,too. Only Prem opts for the heroine’s pink sleeveless top instead. How gulabi is that!
Technically Santoshi frequently opts for a gaudy look, even outmoded back-projection shots and Steven Bernard’s awkward editing with antiquated wipes when a jump-cut could have made the pace snappier. Moreover, characters keep multiplying like rats as if Santoshi believes that entertainment means the more the madder. It doesn’t. He just has to re-see the classics of Charlie Chaplin or the breezy romances of Shammi Kapoor – both of whom are invoked here – to understand that less can be more in the movies. For instance, a nutzoid don and his henchguys in black become irritating as hell, particularly in the climax which makes the Priyadarshan finales seem far less anarchical by comparison.
The plot, if one can call it that, is simply this: hazy lazy Prem-sees-girl-falls-in-love-but-doesn’t-tell-her-so-till-she-drags-out Upen Patel (!) from semi-retirement. Patel’s a politician’s son, gifts Jenny a diamond necklace and irrevocably behaves like a sun-tanned Big Moose. Before this, Jenny has also been saved from a wedding to a beefy bozo rekindling Zabisko from Amar Akbar Anthony. In effect, it takes two weddings and no-funeral for true love to go chirpy-chirpy-cheep-cheep.
Throughout the gags could have been infinitely more inventive. Stillsitting on cream cakes, knocking on wooden heads and personality mix-ups are always good for a few guffaws and giggles. Pritam’s music score in serviceable, not quite in the class of his Dhoom and Jab We Met, which you hope will not turn out to be the Sholays of his career. Nothing vaguely comparable after those.
Of the lead players, Katrina Kaif’s looks bankably gorgeous (but pray, she should take care of those worry lines already creasing her forehead), and does reveal an incipient flair for comedy. Without Ranbir Kapoor, of course, this one would have been a mere ajab movie. He brings the much-needed underlining of ghazab to it. Sid has woken up and how.Way to shine!