Thursday, October 18, 2012

Cocktail - Movie Review

I watched this movie by Homi Adjania sometime ago on video. Since the story is by Imtiaz Ali (and Sajid Ali) it added some more interest to the movie. But what I saw fell short of my expectations and 'Cocktail' ended up being another movie that half-tried an interesting theme. Imtiaz Ali did the same with 'Rockstar' and I do wish he'd go all the way with his themes instead of pulling back and playing it safe. The theme for Cocktail - what if 'real' love really happens to those who do not know it? So we have Reggie, Veronica and Betty in a love triangle.

The movie revolves around Gautam (Saif) the flirt, Veronica (Deepika) the good time girl and Meera (Diana Penty) the salwar-kameez, namaste-aunty girl. Considering that I saw this movie only about 2 weeks ago there is no excuse for me to forget why Meera goes to London to meet her abusive fake husband (no love) Randeep Hooda (forget his screen name and don't want to find out either). I also forgot how Gautam and Veronica meet and how Veronica and Meera meet. But this much is for sure - Gautam the flirt who flirts with everyone, meets and flirts with a the fresh-in-London airport Meera too. Another scene - Veronica finds Meera in a ladies loo, all depressed after a break up with her fake husband from a hoax marriage for a visa to UK, and takes her home. Veronica the big-hearted also has pots of money to spend which she spends on booze and having a good time.

Once while walking on the road with V, Meera sees Gautam in a restaurant and tells Veronica of the incident at the airport. Veronica decides to have some fun and in a  totally unimaginative manner walks into a serious business meeting and acts the jilted lover. Anyway to cut a long story short the flirt and the partyg girl end up in bed. But the flirt likes the desi girl. Soon the desi girl likes the flirt. With all this liking going on even the party girl starts liking the flirt. Enter some unnecessary parents who are looking for desi bahus and some corNy twists there and finally Meera decides that she cannot like Gautam because Veronica is sleeping with him. Veronica feels that its ok since she has no real feelings for him. But soon she discovers her feelings and then its a free for everyone's feelings. It's a real cocktail this one.

But no fizz really. I felt that if that mother angle was avoided and if the characters had stayed true to themselves and let the feelings come by more naturally, it would have made a much better story. Somehow it never descended to that level of intensity and everyone works at a superficial level. The one scene where Veronica yells at Meera for taking her boyfriend away shows up like its real. But otherwise Gautam and Meera never worked for me as if they were sharing any serious magic between them. It appeared more like the flirt was looking for another conquest and the poor girl was looking for another shoulder. A marriage of short-term want than one of long-term intensity, of real love, which would have elevated the movie. Anyway, they never claimed much as the title says. Probably works for those who love mushy triangles - but did not work for me.

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