Review of Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (2007) by Sumit B — 18 Apr 2009

Now I do not know why this movie failed to ignite the Indian box office but I can tell you something- it's flipping hilarious, the performances are totally spot on from everyone involved, the music is awesome and the look and feel of the flick is just gorgeously detailed and lavish, without the over the top histrionics of other mainstream Hindi films. Flashbacks are so camp and fantastically overdone without the performances following suit, and the romance has none of the prerequisite cheese evident in all romcoms these days.

So the film starts with Abhishek Bachchan (in arguably his funniest performance) as slightly dodgy 'entrepeneur' Ricky Thukral bypassing his Papa (the great Amitabh Bachchan) at Waterloo train station in London after he has just mimed and danced his way through the first of a host of catchy numbers. Here he meets the stunning Alvira Khan (Preity Zinta), a slightly stroppy Pakistani-born Briton with some messed up ideas about Mr Right. Assuming Ricky is hitting on her, Alvira soon drops it that she is engaged, and Ricky advises that he is too.

From here on in is the psychedelic rollercoaster ride that is Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. Ricky first regales Alvira in how he met his French-Pakistani fiance Anaida (Lara Dutta) on the night Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed were killed in Paris. The outlandish story is played out with uproarious results by AB, who kills it as a hopelessly romantic hustler Ricky. Everything AB does in this sequence is like a classic comedic performance of old, a hysterical mix of incredible restraint to the madness occurring around him and his own mad mannerisms (check out Ricky's phone holding technique for a cack!).

Once that is wound up, we learn Ricky is waiting for Anaida to return from Paris on the train, and so Alvira's equally kooky love story begins.

This is where Alvira narrates her first rendezvous with Steve (Bobby Deol, as potty and fantastic as you've ever seen him, playing two characters with polar opposite personalities) at Madage Tussauds on an outing with her cousin, Alvira is nearly crushed to death by a falling Superman likeness. Steve comes to the rescue, and upon realising that Steve is a bona fide spunk, Alvira fakes an ankle injury and scores a lift home (and up the stairs to her bedroom, shock horror) from the mysterious and tantalising Steve. Forgetting to obtain her hero's phone number however, Alvira chases him down the stairs and into the street, to no avail. Steve is gone.

The following day, Alvira finds herself showered with chocolates and flowers from the elusive Steve. Upon being summoned to his office she finds it is not perhaps to gain her affection but to sue Madame Tussauds for the Superman incident. Alvira goes along with the scheme so that once it reaches its end, the lovers can unite, as Steve is unwilling to consummate their romance when Alvira is a client.

This brings us back to Waterloo, where Alvira and Ricky are advised that the train bringing their respective fiances is delayed, and so prolong their fledgling friendship with a coffee, a dare from Ricky for Alvira run up the escalator the wrong way, and a dare from Alvira for Ricky to get a butterfly tattoo to match her own. Then Ricky dares to ponder what might have been between them should their fiances not be around, so introducing Bol Na Halke Halke and the only non-comedic, yet gorgeously rendered mildly dramatic sequence in the whole film. Alvira sees from this projection that Ricky is an old fashioned romantic, and her affections for Ricky change. Here, the train arrives (bringing, one another thinks, their fiances) and the two part, exchanging phone numbers just in case.

If you think this is just another B-wood love story, think again. The next part of the film involves the two leads obtaining and grooming a prostitute and a handsome eyewear salesman as their fake fiances, given Steve and Anaida never really existed, a totally crazy dance competition, a nod to Dharmendra and AB senior in Sholay via a ride from the two male leads on a motorcycle; and one very catchy song played over one brilliantly elaborate and spectacular dance routine.

In a nutshell, JBJ is a bahut pagal train ride to pyaar, but Man, it is so worth the ticket price!!!