OSO : the Khans’ Criticque of Bollywood

What do you get when you put into a mix a director like Farah Khan and an actor like SrK? A director like Farah who rose in Bollywood against all odds, whose route to the top echelons came the hard way, who had no filmi daddy, mommy, uncle autny .. none.. noone wh was ever anything at anytime in Bollywood.. And then there’s SrK who’s one of kind in his generation. In fact the only one who became a star, a lead hero of a major film, without no prior connections to the movie brethren. Both of them started from all the way at the bottom of the ladder, and climbed it step by step.. one a time, but quick enough to reach the highest of spots within a short span. SrK focurse started off with free theatre work in Delhi, then went on to do some small roles in little TV serials, then them roles got bigger and bigger as the appreciations grew larger and larger. His role in Doosra Keval was supposed to last just a few episodes and that too only for short screen times in the “flashbacks”, but audiences fell in love with his portrayal instantly, and the makers at Doordarshan had to expand his role, so much that he became the central focal point of the TV series. Anyways, the transition from TV to Movies wasn’t easy (as the one from theatre to TV), and has never ever done (before or after) successfully. He was offered his first role in a woman-oriented heroine-flooded film Dil Ashna Hai, by a female director (how ironic eh?) Hema Malini. It was a small role but Srk found his admirers on the sets itself and the word spread fast enough that he got atleast 4-5 other offers within a year and a year from his first release he was offered and he signed a Yash Chopra film.

Farah’s track was even harder, in a sense, that being a female in teh men-dominated film-industry is hard enough to begin with, but unlike SrK who started as an actor, she actually began her career in choreography. Ok, there’ve been female directors, so she wasn’t the first one. But then there aren’t really any female directors who make out-an-out commercial capers. Mira Nair, Aparna Sen, and even Tanjua Chandra… none of them really on the mainstream end of the industry.  What’s funny with Tanuja is that she will write a DTPH but when it comes directions she won’t do much more than a Sur. Atleast there aren’t many females who’ll have top stars do fight scenes in their movies. But anyways, Farah, also like SrK, had no connections. Pooja Bhatt makes a movie.. but would she be given teh chance if daddy Mahesh wasn’t her father.

So what do you get when you allow such two individuals to make a film on the film industry and the film fraternity? You get an OSO, a film that, bsides everything else, makes sure to take a deep breathed dig at all that is wrong about Bollywood and all that folks like Farah And Shahrukh have their grudges against. Yes, on surface, and if one were to beleive every word that comes out Farah’s mouth, one would say they were just celebrating Bollywood and giving it their tribute and hence all the lively fun and the boisterous buffonery, the escapade mood and ofcourse the festive ambience throughout, but OSO was much more than that. OSO was much more intelligent.. and I’ll say that Farah and Shahrukh thought much beyond that and fooled everyone into it. The conscious mind looks at all those “starsons” (there’s a number of them in the movie ..including Om Kapoor himself) and laughs at their inability to act (or jump over a little height of fire), their medicority in everything they do, their lack of talent of any kind and all that, but the unconcious mind goes beyond that.. at the back of mind, as I said perhaps unconsciously,  one is thinking about all those over-privilaged, incompetent, inept, unqualified bunch of unworthy, undeserving stars that we pay to watch every Friday and how many Om Prakash Makhija’s are out there… ? shown the door, slapped aside, looked well over.. for some good-for-nothing Om Kapoor? a star who is simply there, because his daddy or mommy was a star. And the Khans left no stone unturned to portray this species as they are.. that they are untalented is obviously something for all to see on the screen, but they are also very rude, overly proud, egoistic, blunt, brutish, bad-manered and crude all the same off the screen. And yes, they walk around with a liver spoon tucked into their mouth.

And again and again, this little fact about teh industry is stamped over and over by the Khans throughout the film. *SPOILER ALERT*… There’s the mention of Raj Kapoor coming to Chintu Baba’s set in the very first scene of the movie. Then there’s the fire scene. Then, the entire first 4-5 sequences of Om Kapoor’s section. ..including one where he mentions the actress and the director to be in the film because they were his childhood friends. A good example of that we see today in half of Abhishek starrers. They are all either producerd by daddy’s friends or directed buy his own childhood friends… including Mehra and DIlli 6. Or how Farhan Akhtar approaches Hrithik first for every film, coz once again he was a long-time friend…. read “part of the film fraternity”. But perhaps his biggest punch, his trump line, his ace-ka-teenka was teh scene where he, as Om Kapoor, clearly poses the question to his superstar father.  ”Agar main aapka beta nahin hota,  to kya mujhe koi kuch kaam deta?” It’s funny how he not only asks whether he’d have been a big star or no.. but he goes to the fundamental, would he gave got any work at all? Here’s a Srk questioning teh merits of every other major star of today, and asking whether they are actually given a lot more credit for what they do or where they are or not.

Anyways, that’s not the only point he tackled in OSO, but that is the one most convincingly pitched on. And though the Filmfare scene was supposedly a dig at himself, he hasn’t done much of that anymore. In fact he has taken up the case of every other major star (of any time) or any type of cinema that he’s not part of. His initial sene with Keron Kher is easily identifyiable as an exagerated take on thhe angry young man and the over-the top acting (not necessarily from Bachchan but atleast from his co-stars and  in particular the famous Bachchan mom) as well the as the over-the-top execution of such scenes. Then there was a Manoj kumar attacked for having his hand all the time on his face, and still considered a great actor. Then there was, perhaps the funniest scene I seen in a Hindi movie in a long time, the direct inueondo on RajniKanth. Then came Hrithik Roshan andteh superhero absurdity.,.. again done very briliantly.  I loved how they showed how the ridiculous tacky action scenes are executted. All the uses of the rope were exposed.

Damn.. so much more to write.. I’ll add on more later.

 btw.. did anyone else notice, (and I could actually be wrong), that there wasn’t a single starson/stardaughter taken in the film. There were all kinds of star special apperances but none taken for the role of any of the chararcters. Even when I glazed through the list of the technical crew et al, I couldn’t find anyone.