Dilly-Dallying Dilettantes. Review on Dilwale (2015)

“Excess colors blind the eye,

loud sounds deafen the ear,

Surfeit flavors numb the taste,

Capricious thoughts weaken the mind, and

Gluttonous desires wither the heart.”

The reputation of the movie and its protagonists precedes it, unfortunately, and the expectations skyrocket, only to fall with a dull thud, and go out in a weak whimper.

Scions of two rival Indian gangsters in Bulgaria fall in love, and because of a silly misunderstanding involving truckloads of blood and gore, stolen gold bars, and overturned cars, become estranged. Years later, fifteen to be precise, their paths cross again in Goa, this time when love brews between their younger siblings. Torn between mutual animosities – which they discover are only a charade for lurking, unrequited affections – and the love for their doting siblings, it takes the grotesque gangster-person of Bomen Irani to unite the warring lovers and bring about a happy conclusion to the affairs of the parties concerned.

The movie chugs along at the slow, languorous pace of an Indian goods train overloaded with bauxite, rambling through the rolling Indian wasteland: it’s about as difficult to predict as rain in the monsoons when dark clouds lurk overhead menacingly.

Tell me, when you bung Sharukh and Kajol together and give them a lover’s tiff, what do you expect when they meet again after 15 years? Will they, or won’t they?  And why can’t Indian gangsters slug it out in India, floors me totally! And why must both the lovers settle down in Goa, and why, of all the people, must their similarly aged, inclined, and twitterpated siblings fall in love?

Suspension of disbelief and poetic justice may be a thing of the occident; in the orient, we settle for nothing less than a complete surrender of sanity, and a happenstance of heaven-sent provenance.

And just because there are 1.6 million colors on your computer, it doesn’t mean you will use every single crayon in the box. That’s what Rohit Shetty has done – splashed his sets with a riot of colors that bedazzle and bewilder you. Why, even the clothes worn by the actors are color-coordinated with the landscape. The sets look exactly what they are – sets – phony, pretentious and blinding backdrops of a high school fairytale play-out, where the eager, nervous, unsure tutor doesn’t want to miss out a single color from the palette, out of fear that the thing may not work.

So, here is hedonist exaggeration of everything – fairytale serenading, car chases, costumes, make up, overacting; a mirabilia of careful innuendos that make a set theoretically and pictorially perfect – jugglers in umbrella hats, balloons, candy floss machines, twinkly light-showers hanging from gabled roofs, sparkly fountains in white lamplights, floating Chinese lanterns, origami, string musicians, horse buggies, colored hoops, pounding waves on lambent beaches – and I’m just starting here.

Careful not to miss any ingredient that has worked in Indian cinema in the past, Shetty takes no chances of lapsing into creativity, and instead bungs into the mix every mithridatum, every magic potion, every bailout, and every little trick that he knows of, giving you a giddy sense of severe déjà vu.

After Interval, a marked comic track takes over the reigns of the lackluster romance; and the rogue’s gallery of Indian clowns are marshaled and sneaked into the ring to rescue the faltering Matador being impaled at the ends of the audience’s upturned horns, and thundering hooves. Brought in are a burlesque soiree of Bomen Iranis, Johnny Levers, and others that stand on their heads, jump through hoops, and utter berserk double-entendres to induce the audience to stifle their yawns, cease their itches, and surrender their cellphones, and give one last chance to the producer to save himself from utter ruin.  I do believe they managed to retrieve the situation somewhat – for the Indian public is both forgiving and forgetful, and the smiles at the buffoonery made them wink at the dull starters and main course they’d been served till now.

I believe Shetty’s gamble to recreate the magic of Kajol-Sharukh by pairing them off again didn’t pay off – Sharukh seems afraid to touch another man’s faded wife, and she, another’s jaded man. Gone are the days when we swooned over them cuddly-laced dolls, or butch thingamajigs; it’s high time we gave space to fresh-faced romancing youth, and edged out the daddies and mommies of yore.

At least this movie made a jittery Sharukh quickly change his mind about ‘intolerance’ in this country, and he came out during the promos in complete denial of his previous, public, pulpiteering pontifications.

Watchable, in black and white: less the clichés, the sourpuss jokes, and the contrived labors of the elderly to be cute and cuddly again, is the movie.

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