Cheeni Kum's
biggest asset also turns out to be its biggest
liability - Amitabh
Bachchan. Make no mistake. The actor is in
fine form and delivers yet again but writer-director
Balki seems to have forgotten that Bachchan apart,
there are other elements too that make up a film
in totality - a coherent screenplay for one. A
most interesting and intriguing concept of the
romance of a 64year old chef in London's premier
Indian restaurant and a 34 year old software programmer
from India visiting London ultimately fails when
developed as a film failing to go beyond what
is ultimately a great showcase of Bachchan's talent
and not much more.
 The
film's script, as is always the case with our
films, the film's big weakness. Once the romance
is established, it is as if the filmmaker has
suddenly realized he now needs a conflict and
as Amitabh has to ask Paresh Rawal for Tabu's
hand and he naturally opposes the match since
his would-be son-in-law is 6 years younger than
him, the film seems unsure of where to go and
begins to go rapidly downhill. As Rawal goes into
a Satyagraha fast undo death, the film hits rockbottom
as this sequence just comes of as plain idiotic
rather than anything else especially Amitabh's
monologue to him and by the time you reach the
Qutub Minar, you are just plain gob smacked at
the climax there as by now the film has gone totally
haywire. Sequences like the one at the police
station baffle you as to why are they there in
the first place. Logic too goes tumbling out of
the window. How is Zohra Sehgal seated in a parked
car outside the gate of Paresh Rawal's house able
to hear Amitabh so clearly as he admonishes Paresh
Rrawal on the barsati of his house??? Utimately
you cannot help but feel like most filmmakers
who come to feature films from advertising, they
bring style and a definite look (See the film's
great promos or its posters) with them but they
find it difficult to sustain cinematic control
over a story and script longer than a minute or
two at most.
What works and works extremely well in Cheeni
Kum are the meetings of Amitabh and Tabu
and their developing romance, which is handled
with maturity and humour with some smart one liners
and witty repartees thrown in. He is sharp tongued
and sarcastic and she independent and strong minded
not afraid to give it back making you smile all
the time during their interaction with each other.
Both actors create well fleshed out real people
whom you care for and want to get together as
you can see, age differences aside, they are perfectly
matched. Balki creates some wonderful moments
in the developing romance like how she accepts
his offer of a first date or her making him run
to a tree some distance away and back to test
his 'stamina' or his birthday celebrations wherein
he tries hiding his age or even the scenewhere
he proposes to her in his acidic way and the way
she reciprocates. Balki has treated the romance
with subtlety and a minimum of fuss and avoided
all the Bollywood cliches thus giving it a refreshing
new take . This is what the focus of the film
should have been throughout - Amitabh and Tabu
but as mentioned the Paresh Rawal track just does
the film in.
 Another
well handled relationship is the one between Amitabh
and his cranky mother, played deliciously by Zohra
Sehgal at her likeable madcap best. Their constant
bickering with each other, her extolling him to
the miracles his life would take if he went to
the gym, his comments on her cooking work nicely.
The relationship with Sexy however though endearing
in places doesn't work as well especially as her
cancer track is the worst old-school-of-filmmaking
type of emotional manipulation and it is precisely
to get the tear ducts going in the climax for
this track that one is subjected to the absurd
finale around the Ashoka pillar. Another problem
here is that Sexy is made to mouth big, adult
dialogues that seem precocious and irritating
(although admittedly Khara carries them off extremely
well in her deadpan manner) rather then something
a child would naturally speak.
The performances of the lead pair is what makes
the film watchable. Amitabh is in top form, his
sense of timing as razor sharp as ever. See his
change from the acid-tongued stern chef whose
food has to be just right and who just will not
allow a mobile in the kitchen as he falls for
Tabu and starts to 'impress' her and behave like
a young man in love! Tabu is the perfect foil
to Amitabh who is able to give it back to him
and show she is very much an independent person
in her own right. Tabu has been largely absent
from the big screen but both The
Namesake and now Cheeni Kum reiterate
what a fine performer she is and one who needs
to more visible on the screen. The supporting
cast of the chefs at the Restaurant are enthusiastic
and seem to be enjoying themselves on screen though
the teethy jokes are tiresome after a while. Zohra
Sehgal and Swini Khara lend perfect support. However
the big disappointment here as mentioned is Paresh
Rawal. The actor is totall, totally y defeated
by some terrible, inane writing and for once is
unable to rise above the script as he always effortlessly
seems to do unfailingly in film after film. Rawal's
character comes off as a bad caricature in the
worst sense and is in fact responsible for the
film meeting its nadir.
Technically the film is greatly aided by PC Sreeram's
evocative camerawork, barring a couple of clumsy
day-for-night sequences in London and the sequence
in the police station which looks like a bad old
Tamil film of old. For once a film is shot according
to the story's demands, doing away with unnecessary
camera movements, another bane of our films. An
additional asset is Ilaiyaraja's musical score
as far as the songs are concerned with the title
song being particularly well tuned. However the
background score as again the case with a majority
of our films is loud and obvious bringing attention
to itself rather than moving smoothly with the
flow of the film. The length of the film is another
problem as it appears to be little more than an
intriguing premise with some good moments thrown
in and should ideally ahve been no more than 90-100
minutes but it seems never-ending particularly
in the second half and could do with some trimming.
All in all, Cheeni Kum is a film of
lost chances and a big, big disappointment.
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