Achilles

MSN

Harman Baweja is the actor of the week for all the wrong reasons. He takes the crown for failing to live up to the hype despite a phenomenal multi-crore launch pad.

He takes the bow for trying to emulate Hrithik Roshan and failing.

He takes the high-five for proving, time and again, that in Bollywood, there is no room for copy-cats.

He takes the ovation for reminding all up-start actors and their ambitious dads that – at the very least – they should do their homework… and do it properly.

Dad Baweja cried foul when Aamir Khan announced the release of ‘Jaane Tu Jaane Na’ on the same day as ‘Love Story 2050.’ If only he had taken the effort to market his film better.

On the overseas theatre circuit, much like ‘Taare Zameen Par,’ the promos of ‘Jaane Tu…’ were up and running at least 45 days ahead of its release. The posters, let alone promos, of ‘Love Story 2050′ were hardly to be seen.

Mistake 2: If you need a launch pad for your beta, refrain from casting established stars as heroines. Much before we knew how Harman Baweja even looked like, we had heard of his fling with Priyanka.

Trust us, how many of the young girls are going to waste their breath over someone who is already been taken, and taken by a former Miss World no less?

Mistake 3: Build PR – good PR, that is. Don’t ride on someone else’s PR vehicle for building your image, as the Bawejas did at IIFA. Come on folks, you are presenting your star-son to the world; couldn’t it be a bit more original?

Well, we could go ad nauseum on what all have gone wrong with the launch of ‘Love Story 2050′ and the next-Hrithik in the making, Harman, but we are not going to score any points.

For the simple reason that even with a tactically correct launch, ‘Love Story 2050′ had all the trappings of a loser. And doom-dom does not start with the limited extend to which Harman’s histrionic capabilities have been explored.

Let’s give all newcomers a fair chance – after all, even Hrithik Roshan wouldn’t want to remember his ‘Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon’ fiasco, which also declared how rankling bad an actor Hrithik can be if he is in the wrong hands.

So, let’s say Harman just couldn’t be moulded by his dad – who is no Mani Ratnam to bring out an actor’s flourish as he did with Abhishek Bachchan (and thus established the otherwise losing actor as winning material).

Where is the audience relief in this otherwise bleak scenario, where the hero isn’t exciting enough?

Not Priyanka Chopra who brings in a new definition to hamming; definitely not the music, which is oh-so-plain, and not the ‘too futuristic’ 2050 that we get to see.

Come on, we are only some 40 years away to this ‘future of love’ and you expect us to be naïve enough to accept flying cars, when in 60 years of independence we couldn’t get our roads right!

‘Love Story 2050′ is a sad reminder to Bollywood to get their acts straight. Several crores have been sunken for this ‘director-kid’ launch – if only half of that had gone into paying proper script writers, and even less, in spotting a potential heroine!

Harman doesn’t have to be disappointed.

Bollywood gives several lifelines to those who stick around – one of them could get you closer to stardom. Take it from Abhishek!