What’s your Rashee? – Who cares???. Review on What`s Your Raashee Movie

Read Linda Goodman instead. If you are interested in Rashis that is. If you are interested in movies, watch just about any movie of recent times. Anything except WHATS YOUR RASHI that is. All I can say about this movie is it’s a blunder of astronomical proportions.

*My reasons for watching this one.

No, it’s not the lure of 12 Priyanka’s(Excuse me, but I don’t really buy this semi romantic/intellectual idea that all the girls will look the same as your dream woman is just one. Am sure guys won’t mind a Bipasha or a Deepika thrown in to the dream woman debacle. But then, the director had a budget. So fine, Point taken.)

Its also not the song promos(Am sure am not the only one who still wonders its gao na or jao na)

The biggest reason was Ashotosh Gowarikar. The one who gave us Lagaan and Jodha Akbar.

Also some tacit attempts at wit in the promos -

Guy – Jesus! Man!

Girl with some rashi – Is ghar main Krishna kehte hain.

Guy – I mean, Krishna! Man!

And so, I decide to give it a try and trust me it’s not my day.

The story

I can give it away to some extent, right? I am not really recommending it, so.

With the title credits, we are shown this almost promising though somewhat clichéd scene of this desi guy making his mark in the U.S of A. We see a guy who is totally in control of his life – a sincere student / a campus dude in day and a DJ at night. In short he is the confident, getting ahead, fitting in kind of a character who knows what he wants from life. For a moment I feel proud even.

The movie begins and the camera shifts locale. Some more clichéd scene in desh and for an even more clichéd reason this guy is back home. And Lo and behold! The smart go getter of a few minutes earlier is vanished from sight! The guy we see now is completely clueless about his actions, his future plans and his life in general. I tell you why.

To start with - he agrees to marry in 10 days for a reason as lame as a threat from the grand father to bedakhal the family from some big property! And now, all he seems to know is I love my family and can do anything for it.(Mr. Director, please do not give us the ‘family pressure’ angle – nobody seem to understand our guy(if he exists or understands himself that is) The father downright bullies him and the brother can be described simply as A LYING CROOK.(And why don’t I remember anything at all about the womenfolk in the family?))

The movie moves on in painfully slow and predictable ways. 12 rashis, 12 girls and 12 stories.(I am coming to hate number 12 already!) Apart from the 12(!) sub plots, what we are left with is a number of loose ends. In the background we have got infidel uncles, irritatingly hopeless detectives, family astrologers doing what they did in movies 100 years back, gangsters who seem to use nutcrackers on human fingers et al. Trust me they don’t add to the non existent charm of the movie.

And yet, I know I would still be ok with the movie if it moves to a proper end and/or if the music was worth something.

The music

Wow man!(No, wait. This is wow of a different kind.) Just how could you think you can get away with 13 songs in a movie in today’s date? I understand the reason for 12+1 songs in the movie, but to me this also is the reason for the length of the movie to be a whooping 211 minutes! The after effect - even if some of the songs are hummable and interesting, one loses track. The good songs just get drowned among so many other small and big mishaps thus giving the general idea that many of the songs are simply forgettable and non-descript.

The end

Well, the end just reconfirms my earlier thoughts on the go getter-in-videsh-lost-in-desh guy -

1st – For whatever reason he decides to become a slave to some rich rashi and marry her. He goes to meet her and finds out that his best friend has just clinched the deal with the rich rashi.(Great minds think alike, huh!)

So he goes one step further and agrees to marry some rashi without even knowing who she is!

So non acceptable Mr. Director! All well that ends well you say? I disagree strongly. Give me a valid reason why he chose whom he chose. But oh, he did not even choose his own bride - the whole raison d’etre of his coming homeland! Was it not a surprise from the dear uncle now? I mean, is this the same guy you showed us in the beginning? As a common moviegoer I expected HIS choice of the bride to be the theme/climax of the movie. Did I expect too much? You showed us so many nice girls -(I do give credit to some priyanka’s/rashis hands down) some of them with this distinct dream of the America’s in their eyes. If you showed us their dreams, tell us why were they not THE RASHI? I mean according to the title of your movie, should the rashi not be the criteria for choosing the bride?

But wait, who am I asking these questions to?

When I was a child I had this Archie’s peanuts poster on the wall of my room. It showed this peanuts character all tied up in the string of a kite and hanging upside down on the branch of a tree. 2 words were written below. Why me? After spending my precious Saturday evening with this hapless movie I could very well picture myself in the peanuts characters place. I was tied instead with the poster of this movie and it said Mr. Gowarikar, WHY THIS?