Sep 19, 2007 02:36 PM
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David Dhawan movie with Govinda and Salman in main starcast, the promise is big. The movie itself however, fails to deliver completely on this promise.
In the first 5 minutes as I heard Salman use the word "Love guru" for the first time I guessed, correctly, that this was a remake/adaptation/steal/copy of Hollywood blockbuster Will Smith starrer Hitch. David Dhawan himself has directed such movies before which have been complete copy of Hollywood movies, and he has done a great job in making an entertaining copy, sometimes better that the original. Well, not this time.
The screenplay is mixture of scenes picked up from the original, Indianized scenes from the original and new scenes or sequences added. Of course, there are no songs in Hitch and an Indian movie must be 3 hours long so a lot has been added, all of it having less value than the garbage you throw out. The only difference is that the movie stinks more than the garbage.
The scenes which have been picked up as-it-is from Hitch's screenplay have been translated line by line. Each and everyone of the actors have failed miserably to deliver those lines with any degree of conviction. The picked up scenes have of course been adapted to Indian locale but nevertheless are nothing compared to the original.
The added sequences are completely useless from a story point of view and they not add anything in terms of entertainment value either.
Overacting is the keyword for this movie, every body, even the great Govinda who has a tremendous screen presence has been overacting throughout. A child has been added to the story, and you can clearly see that the director is trying to exploit the emotional appeal that a child can add to an Indian film. He is the best actor in the movie, even though he overacts about 50% of the time. Make that 70%
The movie is full of cliches and formulas which have not been added skilfully and feels like an insult of the Indian audience.
I have watched Hitch 4 times so far and I carry the DVD with me, even now, to UK. I can watch it now, right after this movie and still be more entertained than "Partner". Plus, when I came out after watching Hitch, I knew I had learnt something new, something more about girls and relationships. Useful, insightful stuff. In Partner, Salman makes up his own facts and principles, misquotes, misguides and misdirects. Harmful to learning.
The situations and dialogs are absurd and do not ring true to common sense. Actually it is advisable to leave common sense alone when watching a typical Govinda movie, but this much is too much.
In a couple of scenes, the dialog has been copied and translated, and delivered even though the event that it refers to didn't happen. Pathetic!
Addition of Rajpal Yadav to the script is another attempt at exploiting an established actor's appeal and fails miserably. His story is completely unrelated to the main story and is left dangling without much care. Poor Rajpal has been given a silly role which adds nothing to the movie and does not present any challange to a talented actor like him.
My main motivation in watching Partner was cheesecake. Both Katrina and Lara look beautiful but both have the same role of looking pretty in songs, just like any other heroine in an Indian movie. And not enough footage. I can easily throw this DVD in the garbage without a second look.
Songs. Music is the new age beating-the-trash-can type of loud crap which will become popular no matter how much I hate it. Lyrics are so generic and useless as to be almost non-existent. "Dupatta tera nau rang da" is the least despicable song.
There were many situations where I could laugh - at the director. Think of this, people trying to convince a girl's father to break her marriage in the mandap and marry her to the status-less, useless hero. Everybody tries, not much convincing power in the dialog, and then suddenly a child says the same thing, one sentence, and the father laughs out loud and agrees! Allah!
To be fair though, Hindi is a very funny languages, those little nuances, the phrasing and the style of speaking can be very funny. And Govinda knows how to speak that funny Hindi, he does a good job and despite huge overacting and unconvincing dialog, there are a couple of places where he manages to get a smile.
There is no justification for the name Partner. Or not enough.
Oh my god, the climax! The climax has been dragged on so long that even I was beginning to feel that there was a twist expected. There wasn't. Must be the most useless climax in ages, it should win an award.
On the whole, if you still want to go watch it, I have 3 advices:
Don't watch Hitch before, not even one scene.
Take a book with you.
Take a penlight with you.
Enjoy the book.
