Dil Bole Hadippa stands as a singular testament to the death of Yash Raj Films. Yet another disaster, in the long string of disasters unleashed by them in recent times, the box office now reacts to such debacles the same way we Indians deal with real crisis- pretend it doesn’t exist.
This film joins the ranks of other crass and similarly mediocre movies that have become the standard fare in a Yash Raj buffet- films like Tashan, New York, Dostana, Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Ta Ra Rum Pum, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, the list is endless. Oh, and if you can’t bring yourself to remember these names, it’s all right.
There was a time, in my younger days when a Yash Raj production would mean big things. We would all be swept up in the nationwide hysteria to channelize Simran and Rahul. They became instant cultural icons. To the masses they were mythic figures, intended to be idolized and revered. All that these characters did, all that they said, their hairstyles, their clothes, all of it was internalized to such an extent- it became a part of our everyday.
We projected our new-age aspirations unto them, revelled in their adventures, took personal pride in their victories and shed copious, melodramatic tears in their losses. We memorized the crisp banter, the light-hearted conversations and used it every chance we got. More than anything else, I have always thought these films possessed a certain charm, a certain personality. To me, they appeared to be grounded in realities, not our immediate realities, just the ones we wanted to adopt. In a way, Yash Raj understood young India, imported its quirks, its lingo and superimposed it against an essentially Indi-Punjabi set of ethos- the sentiments were honest, so we overlooked the ambiguous sermonizing and the overzealous value-spouting. The plots were exactly what we wanted them to be- escapist, sweet-natured fantasies that fit in well with the contemporary zeitgeist, so we smiled indulgently and said to each other, ‘…not implausible, no?’
Ah, those were the days, the days of heady euphoria. Sadly, today is not like those days. Today is the day of Dil Bole Hadippa, the day the memories of an old romance fade completely.
The film occupies a bleak landscaspe, although ironically replete with some of the most gaudy, blindingly colourful costumes and sets ever seen in filmdom. Everybody is a caricature- ready to burst into a song-and-dance sequence, mouthing dialogues that are so flat and uninspired, the only thing that occasionally rescues the lines from drowning is the ‘punjabification’.
Yes, there is a story, and it does look good on paper. We’ll feign ignorance at its similarity to ‘She’s the Man’. Better still, we’ll accept it and imagine how the whole shebang could be bettered due to its relevance, its resonance with the kind of society we live in. And that will leave us to marvel at the physics of how so much potential energy was converted to plain inertia. At its best, the story is like a lost kid, going through the motions of looking for the parents without having any faith or hope.
Shahid Kapur and Rani Mukherjee are good actors but they have nothing to work with here. Shahid Kapoor is patchy. There is no other word for it. He has actually taken bits and pieces of other roles and patched them together. You can spot the ‘Jab We Met’ and the ‘Kaminey’. Heck, you can even spot a little Shah Rukh Khan from ‘Chak De India’. The only saving grace is Rani Mukherjee who imparts some irrepressible freshness into her ‘Babli’. If one smiles at all, it’s because of her valiant refusal to be bogged down by the deadweight of a script.
And then there is the usual self-congratulatory referencing. It’s really becoming tiresome- we get it. You are ‘YRF’, the purveyor of our collective dreams since time immemorial, the true star who enjoys an undisputed monopoly over bollywood.
Yet…Does all this deliberate, almost systematic brow-beating and chest-thumping mean what I think it means?
I am quite sure it does.
Give this one a miss.
Swati Naik.
Can you smell the copy already?
