Rock On!!

Watched ‘Rock On!!’

On the recommendation of a friend who thought the movie was “deeply moving & emotionally satisfying”, and was accompanied by another who had seen it just the night before & couldn’t wait to watch it again!!

After having watched the movie I was completely clueless as to why either of them loved it so much. ‘Deeply moving & emotionally satisfying” it definitely wasn’t, and unlike ‘Jaane Tu…’ it didn’t make me want to go back to the theater to watch it again. So I have concluded that both those friends of mine are W-E-I-R-D.

So, on to the movie….

The story flowed easily. It was simple & something that HAS been told before but the strength lied in the execution.

I thought the casting was perfect. Farhan, Luke, Purab, Arjun, Shabana Goswami (Debbie) – all fitted their roles to the T. They sunk their teeth into their roles. Must have taken someone capable of out-of-the-box thinking to conjure up images of Farhan Akhtar, Purab Kohli & Luke Kenny in their respective roles!! Hats off to the casting director (IS there something called a ‘Casting Director’ in Bollywood?)

Farhan Akhtar did a great job. His acting was restrained yet impactful; his body language never betrayed his voice or his character. He sang amazingly well for a non-professional singer, his raspy voice adding to the appeal of the songs. Farhan Akhtar, in short, was a revelation for me. One more tiny observation that might be of small interest to women & inspiration to men….he has an amazing body!! Lean is so much more in for men than body-builder type bodies.Arjun Rampal did well as a loser. The character was required to be thick, and his acting didn’t betray his intelligence even once.

Luke Kenny was a surprise and quite likeable. Must say he looks much better with long hair than short.

My favorite character in the entire movie was that of Purab Kohli, a.k.a. Killer Drummer (KD). Not because he played a Gujju & Gujju character are of late being used as a comic relief in many movies, ‘Jaane Tu…’ being a brilliant case in point. But because his character was the most happy-go-lucky of them all, took life as it came, hardly ever cribbed, didn’t make a big issue of things, and always had a smile on his face. The only time he lost his cool was towards the end of the movie when Joe fails to show up for their performance.

Shabana Goswami did a good job too. There were quite a few times in the movie when I went “What is this woman’s problem in life?”, “Why is she so bitter?”, “She’s got issues!” I guess that is a compliment for Shabana, the actor.

I did not like Prachi Desai’s character OR her in the movie. Her much hyped-make over didn’t suit her at all. The lipstick was too loud. You can’t have stylish, straightened hair like that, dress like a Page 3 woman, live in a house with such tasteful, classy interiors & say “Who aaj nahin aa payenge, unko kuch kaam hai” (while referring to your husband) or say “Mujhe English gaane nahin aate, main sirf Hindi gaane gaati hoon”. I mean, nothing wrong with not knowing English songs, just that your actions should be compatible with your personality. What I also didn’t understand was why she wasn’t happy or excited at even one point in the movie. Surely, the fact that she had finally started to get her husband back (after the band re-unites) must have been enough to bring some joy to her life!!

The other crib I had with the movie was the use of language. The bull-headedness with which the director stuck to Hindi was jarring at places. Sometimes it just didn’t suit the characters. Luke Kenny & Arjun Rampal were both playing Catholic characters, and having lived in Bombay for years I know for a fact that Catholics don’t communicate in Hindi at home. In fact, most of them can hardly speak a sentence in Hindi without grammatical errors! Farhan Akhtar too said some things that, in the context of his character, would’ve sounded much better & more believable had they been said in English. I understand the “you-can-reach-more-people-through-Hindi” theory, but there lies the dissonance – Rock On!! wasn’t meant to be a mass movie. Rock music isn’t everyone’s cup o’ tea yet in India.

Finally, the music. If it’s a movie based on rock music, you’ve got to talk about the music. I find Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy to be immensely talented, apart from Vishal-Shekhar. Connoisseurs of rock music would be better qualified to rate the music on the scale of “rock” but I personally found the music to be OK. Not something that would want to make me buy the CD, though I did like ‘Meri laundry ka ek bill’, the title song & ‘Sindbad the Sailor’ (out-of-box thinking again!!).

Overall, the movie was good for a one-time watch, but if you find it to be “deeply moving or emotionally satisfying”, you’re W-E-I-R-D. ‘Coz it’s got none of that shit.