It was one of those lazy Sundays when I couldn’t sit in my lonely room or walk around London, as it was really cold and raining. So I decided to spend 10 pounds and watch Om Shanti Om at the Empire Cinema at Leicester Square. And had to suffer untranslatable Hindi dialogues and songs murdered in the English subtitles. Try translating “Dard-e- Disco” into English for starters!

Farah Khan’s insipid directorial venture pretends to be a spoof on Bollywood of the 70s and yet you are left wondering whether she even bothered to write the story or accidentally picked up brother Sajid Khan’s stand up comedy scripts on her way to work. So while she ‘shouts from roof tops’ that it is not a remake of Karz, one can’t but wonder if a decent remake would have made of better viewing. The script runs staccato style as if Sajid’s individual spoofs of Bollywood actors of the past have been re-knit casually into a film.

Agreed, Farah is a huge Manmohan Desai fan and had to incorporate all elements of a Desai movie here, but there seems to be no link between the scenes and the songs. Shahrukh is his usual megalomaniac self and assumes that the sight of his six pack will be enough to make the movie run- and even goes ahead to declare it midway through the movie. He hams it all the way through ridiculing all and sundry. The climax is tepid and predictable, the actors over the top and the dialogues too ridiculous. Sometimes it feels like a hangover from one of Koffee with Karan’s rapidfire rounds, where actors try to get the best corny answer for the gift hamper. There is nothing to hold the movie together, and you miss Main Hoon Na’s sauciness with Sushmita Sen’s verve.  Shreyash Talpade is wasted, and Arjun Rampal wooden. Kirron Kher is as melodramatic as her director wanted her to be. Wonder why they give her such roles- Sanjay Leela Bhansali did that in Devdas too- when she is a pretty fine talent.

The only bright spot is debutant Deepika Padukone- whose expressive eyes and enigmatic smile is the stuff legendary actresses in Bollywood are made of. I don’t really know whether her Southie accent towards the end of the movie was deliberate or came from watching too many Hema Malini movies. She has Vidya Balan’s grace and elegance and a little polishing with her diction and the right choice of films should see her do well.

Overall lukewarm fare, and a really silly movie.  Farah has taken her audiences for granted and irrespective of whether the movie does well or not at the box office, this is not one of those movies you will remember even a week after you saw it.