London Dreams takes us back to where we belong – the original bollywood. Apart from being a masala melodrama it is tale of two best friends who have at least two things in common – their passion for music and their love interest.
Vipul Shah seems to be madly in love with London – his previous film was titled Namaste London which was a huge blockbuster. So there was nothing wrong in expecting a masterpiece from him this time – he got the chance of a lifetime to recreate the magic of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam – casting Salman Khan and Ajay Devgan after a decade! But he fails miserably.
London Dreams could be referred as a mainstream, star studded and mega budget affair revisiting the root concepts of Hindi cinema – so we take it as a hatke attempt by Vipul Shah. Rajkumar Santoshi planned London Dreams with Aamir and SRK ten years back, when it didn’t materialize was taken over by Vipul – that’s the major issue – the plot is rotten and it stinks too – London Dreams might have been successful had it been released ten years back – it’s too late to become a hit.
The director took foolish advantage of cinematic liberty by collaborating some illogical events complemented with most unreasonable sequences. He forgot that our lead heroes are in their 40’s & they cant be shown to us as upcoming rock sensations. Salman will remain a Rockstar all his life, accepted, but guys please spare Ajay Devgan – he looks so uncomfortable on the stage with mike in one hand, his other hand moves in the air with the same pattern throughout the movie. His awkwardness can be easily noticed from his expressions. He definitely made a fool out of himself by accepting this role.
Ajay Devgan
Arjun’s(Ajay Devgan) grandfather is shown succumbing to his failure of not performing in the Wembley Stadium out of stage fear(you would find it funny, the way it’s shot) – this is a good reason for his family to become anti-music and force Arjun to stay away from it. His uncle played by the veteran actor Om Puri takes him to London (don’t know why) where Arjun - the kid runs away – plays his flute on the roadside - collects some pennies and gets himself admitted to a music school. Woah! All in one single day. Doesn’t it sound ridiculous ?
There’s couple of scenes where Ajay punishes himself with his belt thinking he got deviated from his ultimate aim of becoming the greatest Rockstar of all times – it looks very exaggerated on the screen. You won’t be convinced by the post interval scenes where a girl from nowhere comes and makes Salman addicted to drugs, only thing she doesn’t do is playing lullaby to him.
The show stealer scene comes at the climax where Ajay sings the dullest song of his career in the Wembley Stadium where I believe half the audiences are Brits, it’s a hindi song – do they really care? I don’t think so. Post the song Ajay vents all his frustration to Salman using very irritating set of dialogues. On the stage, there are 90000 people in the stadium – did they come to see such a crap – in response they throw empty bottles at Ajay – your temper would be really tested at this moment – mark my words – this scene would walk away with all the awards of most pathetic climax of the decade.
At this point in his career, additional efforts are expected from Ajay Devgan. Though he does justice to his character, he is not seen going extra mile to make his role more believable. His fans wont be much impressed by his performance.
Om Puri is simply wasted.
Asin
Priya(Asin) joins Ajay’s band - London Dreams (VJ Ranvijay and Aditya Kapoor inclusive) but she does nothing for the band apart from being a part of the dance troupe, she even succeeds to convince her father that the girl on the posters of LD might be her lookalike, unbelievable. Though her character was not well defined, Asin scores full marks in acting. She impresses in the emotional scenes.
Rockstar Sallu!
Wait, there’s a pinch of good offering from London Dreams – if something that prevents the movie from getting buried – its Salman’s wonderful lively performance – he plays Manjeet, a bandwala from Punjab. Though his character is a typical happy go lucky, irresponsible playboy kind of, Salman pours magic into it – his portrayal of a clean hearted Punjabi, the funny but clever one liners that he maintains throughout the movie helps you sit through the movie. There is no instance where he goes on top of his character or overacts.
Music
Special mention of the scene just before the interval – the song 'Barson Yaaron'- a mindblowing composition by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, sung superbly by Vishal Dadlani and Roop Kumar Rathod. The energy that this song emits transforms the hall into a live performance at a stadium. The Hanuman Chaalisa rendered mesmerizingly by Roop Kumar will blow you like a pleasant storm. And at the end of the song , the scene when Salman throws himself into the crowd is shot exceptionally well – it’s easily one of the best picturised scenes of 2009.
Feroze Khan’s voice seems very similar to Sukhvinder Singh’s in the song Tapke Masti – a very lively composition which has the loveable Salman enjoying the celebrations in the huge fields – giving the real flavor of Punjabi folk. Shola Shola by Zubeen Garg is melodious. Rest of the songs are average, a couple are absolutely unbearable which effectively contribute in pushing the movie into the valley of boredom. Prasoon Joshi’s lyrics are fresh and meaningful- he means what he says, much appreciated.
Sejal Shah stands as odd man out among all the technicians – her cinematography is wonderful – especially the night scene where Ajay and Salman chat in the field, the concert scenes had superb light effects. Sejal did a fantastic job in projecting the London and Punjab parallely.
In London Dreams, most of the things come at you in a much exaggerated manner – it’s irritatingly filmy! If it had been put across in a simple way the product would have been altogether different – remember RockON – it was its simplicity that worked its way. Amitabh Shukla’s editing could not have made any difference to help such a poor story line and bad screenplay.
On the whole London Dreams, I am afraid, would not be even able to recover its production cost as the weekend collections were mediocre – I think this motion picture would be a surprise flop of the year – what a pity.
RATING : 2 / 5
Reviewed by Ashish Gharde
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