Movie Review: BODYGUARD by FENIL SETA (2/5)

The festive season brings smile on everyone’s faces, including the filmmakers. Especially if they manage to release their much awaited flick during a major festival! Audiences are bound to come in hordes and the producer is bound to laugh all his way to the bank! Since couple of years, Eid has proved to be lucky for Salman Khan with his Wanted turning out a huge hit and Dabangg a big blockbuster and craze of the nation. Hence, a lot was expected from this year’s Eid release, Bodyguard! And why not…after all, it co-stars popular face Kareena Kapoor alongwith Sallu, music has apparently worked and promos promised paisa-vasool entertainment. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen! Bodyguard is shockingly disappointing! There’s nothing in the film that really impresses a lot, something that you expect from Salman’s Eid release!

The story of the movie: Lovely Singh (Salman Khan) is a bodyguard who’s given the job of protecting Divya (Kareena Kapoor), daughter of business tycoon Sartaj Rana (Raj Babbar). Lovely strongly believes in ‘work is worship’ and hence religiously performs his duties. However, while doing so, he gets over-protective for Divya and she finds it difficult to lead a normal college life. Hence, she comes up with a plan – she calls Lovely and pretends to be her lover. Lovely doesn’t fall for it initially but soon gets smitten by the anonymous caller. Divya was sure that Lovely would get distracted by this mysterious lady and she in turn would regain her freedom. However, things take an unexpected turn.

To put it in simple terms, nothing works exceptionally works in Bodyguard – neither the love story, nor the villain track. Even the comic scenes got irritating after a point. The film begins well with the traditional Salman’s entry followed by the title song. The scenes were interesting till the scene where Salman is asked to leave the classroom. From here, the film went on a downhill with some scenes making the film watchable.

The action scenes got too irrational this time. And yet again, Salman’s shirt flies away in the climax! It was a pleasure to witness it in Wanted and Dabangg but this formula cannot be applied in every film I guess as its losing its charm.

What works are few individualistic scenes that were very well executed notably the beginning scenes and the intermission point. The film has some bravura performances and is shot at stunning locations (all in India)! When you assume that the film will end in a formulaic and clichéd manner, you are in for a surprise. A series of twists occur in the tale towards the finale. And what’s more, it’s all done quickly sans any melodrama. It’s these factors that save Bodyguard from becoming an ultimate disaster!

Salman Khan is the soul of the film. This was an atypical Sallu role but he does it with aplomb. He looks supercool in the bodyguard look and is pleasure to see him bashing up baddies, getting irritated with the anonymous caller and over-protectively being around Kareena everytime! You might not like the film but Salman would surely win your heart!

Kareena Kapoor looks stunning like everytime and yet again delivers an excellent performance. Watch out for her in the song Desi Beat and Teri Meri! Hazel Keech (as Kareena’s friend Maya) has an important role in the film and does a fabulous job. Reema Debnath (as Savitha) lends able support. Rajat Rawail (as Tsunami) irriates! His commencing scenes raised some laughs but later on, he was anything but funny. Asrani was forgettable. Raj Babbar was as usual. The villains – Mahesh Manjrekar, Aditya Pancholi and Chetan Hasnraj – don’t have much to do in the film. Karisma Kapoor’s voiceover (when Kareena calls Salman anonymously) was damn good! In fact, it’s difficult to point that it’s not Kareena’s voice!

Himesh Reshammiya-Pritam’s music was quite alright. Songs seem forced in the narrative, especially Desi Beat and Teri Meri. However, Teri Meri was soulful and the other songs that work are I Love You and the title song. Sandeep Shirodkar’s background thankfully wasn’t loud and was beautifully subtle. Sejal Shah’s cinematography was undoubtedly topnotch. Angelica Monica Bhowmik’s art direction was beautifully especially in the Teri Meri song. Vijayan Master’s action was too over the top this time but nevertheless was a treat to witness.

Siddique, J P Chowksey and Kiran Kotrial’s screenplay could have been a little better. Many of the sequences seemed too unbelievable. The dialogues were fine but one wishes Tsunami, the sole comic character, was given better dialogues.

Siddique, writer-director, comes up with the 4^th version of Bodyguard (the original in Malayalam and remakes in Telegu, Tamil and Hindi). One wonders what’s so special about the plot that 4 films were made on it! The story was interesting but the direction at places was inappropriate. A lot of things happened too fast in the film but then it was better than dragging. Also, it was nice to see how he wrapped up nicely and quickly towards the climax. However, the forced villain track and funny moments seemed out of place in a love story like this and one wished Siddique had neatly blended it in the narrative.

Some good scenes of the film:
1. Salman’s entry
2. Lovely Singh reaches Divya’s house
3. Lovely Singh’s first day in Divya’s college
4. The intermission point
5. Lovely Singh rehearses with Divya in the park
6. The climax

On the whole, Bodyguard fails to impress and engross. The villain track as well as the funny moments gets too over the top unnecessarily while the love story was bit bland. Except few individualistic scenes, performances and the climax, nothing else works in Bodyguard! However there’s no vulgarity or bloodshed which would be appreciated by family audiences. And die-hard Salman fans will like to see their favourite actor in a romantic role after a hiatus!

My rating-** out of 5!

This review first appeared on http://fenilandbollywood.com/2011/09/01/movie-review-bodyguard-by-fenil-seta/