Ram-Leela- the Gujju Porn! -- Movie Review.

“Gujju Porn hai yeh …ekdum GUJUU PORN”!  “kaun dekhega, chod yaar. Boring picture che . Let’s do something else". Came the usual set of replies when I asked people about the most anticipated bollywood movie release this season- RamLeela. Well there was definitely something amiss admist all this. After all the movie looked to have all the perfect ingredients:-

•  Script adaptation of the evergreen tragedy Romeo-Juliet. Usually one’s first read.  And bollywood’s tried& tested success formula-Love tragedy.
• Sanjay Leela Bhansali, a filmmaker known for treating every frame like a canvas. And this time after making black and blue experiments he was back in multicolour!
•  The songs, sets, their beautiful picturisation and…
• Actress of the year -Deepika Padukone. well she seems to redefine beauty in every movie she acts these days.

So with all these and especially the last point in particular, i made up my mind to give it a shot. It was anyways a lazy Sunday afternoon with nothing much to do. Usually Sunday gets in the complete spectrum of crowd from youngsters to couples to families etc. but this time it seemed different. For every one guy in the movie hall there were 15 girls.  Looked like the Gujju porn publicity had worked big time honn..!

In the theatre there were the usual lovebirds. This time a Jodi perched right behind my seat who kept on talking in Hush Tones right throughout the movie. Or were they ahem..plain noises! The one aunty next to me, who danced her way through most songs and ensured that a couple of chairs in our row including mine shook with unconditional support to her Nagada moves! She even threw glances at her group as the romantic numbers came on screen. Thank god she didn’t look this side!

Well  getting to the point, admist all this was the story of two Lust-crossed lovers Ram and Leela . Yes you read that right! Every love story starts with love and leads to lust , however here that’s the difference. When playboy Ram ( Ranveer singh) meets bindaas Leela (Deepika Padukone) , Lust happens. They kiss in the first scene they meet. He belongs to the clan of Rajadis and she to Sanedas and slowly the lust transforms to love, as the hate that their two clans have for each other increases. This for me was different from the usual start that a love story takes in bollywood. Idar shurawat ekdum point pe hua. But unfortunately there was nothing different after that. Guess the Viagra ran out!

They run away, get married, the families get them back and pit them against each other under the garb of traditions and misunderstandings, in what can happen only in typical bollywood. This is where I felt the script threw even Shakespeare out of the book! Guess the filmmaker just couldn’t handle the idea/concept he set out to create. A strong character like Leela who makes the first unbashed move and kisses Ram the moment she sets eyes on him, is seen developing cold feet and asking for marriage before they can stay together. Did someone give her a crash course of K-serials between the scenes!

Add to this a lot of flaws in the script, as it fails to hold on to the good points and leaves one with mixed reactions. Even the climax appears forced to create a tragedy and get the Romeo-Juliet angle in the story, which by that moment had transformed to a Rakesh bhai meets Julie ben love story.

The movie does have its moments though, in all its songs which are nothing short of visual treats. And in all the scenes where you have the menancing Baa (Supriya pathak), who does not think twice before cutting off her daughter's finger to remove her lover’s ring. She for me had the best dialogues of the lot. Her punches of ‘No more’ and 'many more' stay back even after the movie. The best scene however was the one, where both lovers reinstated as the heads of their respective clans broker a peace deal. Where for every dialogue of Leela,  Ram has an equally good comeback depicting the love gone wrong amidst the spew of hate and violence.

Ranveer does a decent job as Ram but his efforts looks put on and not natural. He was much better on the acting front in his debut movie. Or maybe you feel so because his counterpart Leela just steals the show.

Carrying on the form of her previous two superhits Deepika is in full flow. She emotes, dances and moves like a dream. These are definitely the signs of a star who is well becoming an actress to reckon with every movie that she does. Special mention here for the Lahu muh lag gaya,  Ang laga le and Nagada numbers where you just can’t take your eyes off her. She can definitely add Leela to her portfolio of characters amongst Veronica, Naina and Meenamma.

So on a lazy sunday afternoon, if you are a die-hard fan of either love stories or Deepika, you can watch this once. For the rest janta you can do better things like reading my blog and thank me for saving your money.
But yes all said and done, this is definitely no Gujuu Porn. Are gadhedo… Aem na Hoy!