Prem Ratan Dhan Payo marks a Diwali reunion between long-lost friends Sooraj Barjatya and Bajrangi Bhaijan, after their previous happy outings in Maine Pyar Kiya, Hum Apke Hain Kaun and Hum Saath Saath Hain.
Himesh Reshamiya, whom luckily we didn’t see in any cameo role, composed the soundtrack. Other than the title Prem Ratan Dhan Payo, rest of the tracks is passable. Given the propensity of Prem to break into song and dance at the slightest provocation, I think half the budget of the movie was given to Himesh, and the other half to the twin Salmans.
The film was released in India and Pakistan on 12 November 2015 to rotten reviews from critics and audience across the border; but to everyone’s great amazement it emerged as a commercial success with a gross turnover of US$ 55 MN in 11 days worldwide. So whatever I say here don’t listen to it but trust the ring of the cash registers. The film was also released in other languages as well, since people didn’t know any better.
I watched this movie only to write a nasty review. When I started, I was confused if the combined judgment of a 300-crores box-office collection could go wrong, but as the hall lights dimmed, it grew better, and I knew I was going to write a whippersnapper review.
Let me fetch the plot first here for you before I start meandering in the narrow by-lanes of Prempur and the saga of Prem Dilwala, who tries very hard to be the charming, endearing rustic, prone to lapsing into surprising good English now and then. A lazy writer, who decides to toss everything that worked in the past into one large earthen pot, resulting in an unpalatable olio of mawkish mirabilia, has penned this movie. The writer believes in unending artistic license, in unlimited divine coincidence, to align the wayward stars of divers characters so that in the end their destinies are made to entwine. This story is so implausible, so ridiculous, that it becomes impossible for you to shed your disbelief even though you’ve spent a couple of thousands on the tickets. It’s supposed to be a period romance, but of which period, which world, nobody knows. You have the usual trick manservants in livery and cummerbunds, horse buggies, vintage cars, havelis decorated with butterflies and blossoms, bus stands with sweetmeat shops without flies and insects, and lastly iPhone wielding royals to convey an uncanny mood of ethereal, other-world bliss.
Prem Dilwala is a Bhand, a street actor, mesmerized with the eleemosynary activities of tall and birthing-hipped Sonam, the heir apparent to the Uphaar brand; he jumps at the chance to meet her when she gets affianced to a neighborhood Prince. As per the writer’s scheme of things, the prince and bhand are look-alike. Now, how to consummate the love between a street performer and a regal scion of the Uphaar family? First, remove the desiccated original prince and sneak in the quixotian bhand. Who removes the prince – obviously rival palace intriguers.
The princess-designate finds the newfound burbling version of an atrabilious prince with a mournful countenance quite a relief, and merrily sky-falls in love with him. Now once the bhand is in, he must be extricated as well. Who will do that? – A diabetic palace faithful in the turbaned person of Anupam Kher, who inserts the genuine prince at the propitious moment of the Raj Tilak ceremony.
What happens to royal intrigue and sibling rivalry and the hordes of stepchildren who lay claim to the estate? Chop down the rogues with the combined muscle of Salman and Salman, and sweet talk the step kids into relinquishing all rights to the royal fortune. This then is what happens, and now the critique – let me sharpen my quill with languorous relish while I pandiculate with a low ape-howl.
The coincidence bit doesn’t end with the double role – it persists like a series of unfortunate events. Salman, and his sexually confused minion do not just get jostled in the crowds to witness the royal engagement – they get noticed by the palace security chief as soon as they get down at the bus stand and are looking for the nearest buffalo to give them a ride home. He brings them home straight to Kher who decides to prop Prem up as a replacement prince while the original man recovers from a violent attempt on his life. The royals have obvious quirks – Prem has a weak digestion, while Sonam drinks her soup in sunglasses. As the story progresses, we are taken on a guided tour around all the places our crown prince has been to in his unremarkable journey through life – including the pond in which he used to bathe with the buffalos.
The movie is six hours long – or at least it appears so. After the first hour I was on my knees begging the cinema projectionist for an interval, and if not an interval, then an ad break, for even the American Tourister ad was much more fun to watch. Little kids, with nothing working for them on the screen, merrily clambered to the stage and chucked popcorn and mustard sauce at each other, while tired moms envied the opulent dresses of the royals.
Everything is on a grand scale in the movie, including the grandness of its failure. In fact, the actors appear like flies sitting on your favorite fat jalebi and you wonder why they were put there in the first place – we could have been just taken through the narrative of lavish marriage festivities, fabulously lit up palaces, and shimmering lakes.
A generous Salman has rewarded many Big Boss contenders with a role in the movie – Armaan Kohli, the villain with a horrible shooting aim, for example.(Wasn’t that guy faffing around with a certain Mukherjee sister – the wrong sister – a Tanisha Mukherjee on the sets of BB?) The sulking brother, Neil Nitin Mukesh, looks like a pet poodle that isn’t allowed to have his name scratched on his feeding bowl. Once all the bit-role players have risen in revolt at the end for not having been given any lines to speak, the director, scared of the unions, gives them something to do, thereby prolonging the movie, just when you switched off your texting and got ready to leave, by another couple of hours.
Sooraj I think wanted to make an epic saga of monumental proportions; all we got is an excruciating narrative of ennui and pain in the butt for eternity.
The movie is in your face advertisement of Uphaar, Croma, Haldiram, and many others I didn’t notice.
Salman, what came over you when you signed up for this movie – fond remembrance of the good old days? Well, the new generation has moved on, and the old one has been there and done it all.
