Review: Happy New Year

Cast: Shah Rukh Khan (Chandramohan Sharma aka Charlie), Deepika Padukone (Mohini Joshi), Abhishek Bachchan (Nandu Bhide and Vicky Grover), Boman Irani (Temhton Irani aka Tammy), Sonu Sood (Jagmohan Prakash aka Jag), Vivaan Shah (Rohan), Jackie Shroff (Charan Grover). Emotional Appearance: Anupam Kher (Manohar Sharma, Charlie’s father). Special Appearances: Dino Morea (host of World Dance Competition), Prabhu Deva (Dance Instructor), Sarah-Jane Dias (Laila), Malaika Arora Khan (an actress), Anurag Kahsyap (himself- Judge), Visha Dadlani (Himself, judge), Sajid Khan (Director), Geeta Kapoor (Judge of World Dance Competition)

Genre: Action, Comedy-Drama

Direction: Farah Khan

Production: Gauri Khan, Red Chillies Entertainment

Written By: Farah Khan, Althea Kaushal, Mayur Puri (Dialogues)

Cinematographer: Manush Nandan

Editor: Anand Subaya

Music: Vishal Shekhar, Background Score – John Stewart Sduri

Distributed by: Yash Raj Films

Release Date: 24^th October, 2014

Language: Hindi

Duration: 2 hours 59 minutes

Happy New Year, a typical Farah Khan film with her lucky mascot Shah Rukh Khan. Although the movie has nothing new to offer, not to be seen with logics in place, very very predictable plot, and a few SRK dialogues rewritten, still, you may like to watch the movie for its light-heartedness.

The stage is set for the World Dance Championship at Dubai and the movie begins with the narration of Shahrukh Khan: there are only two types of people in the world- Winners and Losers. And he takes us through the flash back about the story of six losers coming together for a mission.

Charlie (Shahrukh Khan), Boston University topper, wants to take revenge with diamond merchant Charan Grover (Jackie Shroff) for betraying his father Manohar (Anupam Kher), implicating him, spoiling his business and framing him in a fake robbery. Charlie had been following Charan for the last eight years to keep a close watch on his every step. And then comes an opportunity to avenge Charan when he announced to the world in regard to 9 precious diamonds being brought and kept at his world famous locker – Shalimar Vault (which was originally made by Manohar). And the same day at the same venue, World Dance Competition’s opening ceremony was also there. Charlie plans to skillfully set up a heist plot against the international dance competition scenario.

Charlie gets his team ready for the mission of stealing these diamonds with Jagmohan Prakash aka Jag, an ex-army bomb squad expert (Sonu Sood), Temhton Irani aka Tammy, a 50-year stud and an expert to open any coded lock  (Boman Irani), a hacker Rohan (Vivaan Shah), Nandu Bhide (Abhishek Bachchan) and Mohini Joshi, a bar dancer (Deepika Padukone). Everybody had a reason to be part of Charlie’s mission. Rest of the story is all about how this team of six losers plan the whole mission. How do they execute the whole plan? Are they able to fetch victory in their mission? How do they breach the security?

Yes, indeed the movie is funny in parts. Certain dialogues from SRK’s movies (DDLJ, Chak De, Devadas, Don, Main Hoon Na etc.) are rewritten. Boman has done complete justice to his stud act. Sonu, SRK have lavishly flaunted their six/eight pack abs. Abhishek is good as Nandu Bhide though his vomit is unbearable. Deepika is definitely ravishing with her athlete figure. Vivaan Shah is promising.

Movie in the second half drags. Three-hour long movie seemed to be pretty long. Emotions / pain don’t generate any empathy, don’t touch the hearts. Humour at places goes overboard. Farah has tried to evoke sense of patriotism through ‘India Wale…’ number and a shayari by SRK towards the end of the movie which conveyed that let India be a country of scams / poor people, still everybody’s heart has ‘Tiranga’; but it does not seem to fit completely. Music by Vishal-Shekhar does not do great wonders except ‘Manwa Laage…’.

The best scene in the movie: AbRam Khan’s debut at the credit segment with SRK.

Watch the movie for just the starry element in it (minus logic).

Rating: 2.75 /5