pk

A school friend of mine, Paul Simon, preempted my review with his two bits, “Saw PK now.  Alright movie. No harm skipping. Too much of satyameva jayate style message”.  To Paul and the rest of you reading this I say, “I could not have summarized it better”. I have the same feeling for most movies from Rajkumar Hirani.  This was no different.

There is always a message in a Hirani movie.  That is the good part.  But the packaging is very “goody two shoes” or “nice” and never hard hitting to make any difference to the general public.  Most people will come over to the screens, have a laugh at some cheesy humour without understanding the message and go back home poorer by a few hours of their life.

I am sure Shri Hirani wants the message to percolate down to the masses and to effect some visible change.  I doubt it has happened ever and I doubt even more whether it will ever happen.  Hirani ensures that the cast has some big names.  Based on the release date, it had to be Aamir Khan (the year end release slot is always reserved for him) – or I guess it happens the other way round.  Not sure.

The story has to be a simple and feel good one.  Something that has a bitter sweet ending and with an easy narration.  We have an alien who lands somewhere in Rajasthan in his birthday suit with the exception of a green pendant that is actually his ticket back home.  A thief runs away with the pendant and the rest of the story is about our hero trying to get it back.

Cut to somewhere 5000 odd kms away in Bruges, Belgium.  A tall lanky chick is en route to a recital of Harivanshrai Bachchan poems by none other than Big B himself.  She is there for the poetry.  The meet cute happens with a young man who there to see the Big B.  They don’t get tickets but land up falling for each other in fast forward.

The girl is called Jaggu – short for Jagat Janani (Anushka Sharma) and is from Dally vich. The boy is Sarfaraz (Sushant Singh Rajput) from Lahore.  Yet another message of louv and harmony that begins to seem like it is force fitted because other than a few minutes at the beginning and the end there is absolutely no reference to it.

The core message from PK would be one of a single god – the person who created us not the one who was created by us.  Hirani uses different ideas such as a “wrong number” but doesn’t create the impact that is required.  As such there is very little one can do in this country where religion is the top selling commodity.

Talent is wasted all over with Boman Irani getting bit parts and Sushant Rajput getting 2 scenes and a song.  Anushka hasn’t even begun to scratch the surface of what she is capable of doing and pk does little to help her out.  Aamir Khan has to maintain a single silly expression throughout the movie whether he is happy or sad or angry.  A job that he doesn’t carry off with aplomb at all.

In all, Paul (refer to paragraph 1) summarized it beautifully.  pk can at best be rated as a one time watch.  On TV if you would like to when it airs shortly I am sure.  It will cross a 100 crores thanks to star value.  But will it leave an impact on people’s lives? Nah!!!  5 on 10.

Watch the trailer on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82ZEDGPCkT8