Rock On

Fresh. Just like Eau De Cologne.

Those of you who still smile to yourself watching Dil Chahta Hai and like the non Punjabi hurling subtlety of Lakshya, you would probably want to watch this movie.

The script though loose at places has an over all nice and pleasant feels throughout and the execution is superb.

I have always rued at the lousy sets we put up for performing artists in our country. Any of you remember that ghastly set they put up when Michel Jackson performed in Bombay? I was embarrassed. And then there were the sets at the rock shows in this movie. I enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed the music and the rest of the movie.

The ‘rock star’ do was’nt over done – just perfect it was. In their bid to touch on realism, the background of all the characters was very well depicted. My personal favorite was “When have the Mascarenhas ever done anything of substance?! This sure did clear a lot of my doubts on Anglo’s :) Farhan plays an investment banker and can be seen advising his clients to invest into infrastructure. Clearly, the scriptwriter was clued on in the mid 2007 rally. So what if my ICICI Infra fund is down 20% now? Of course, the scene where he switches on the NSE screen ‘just like that’ was a bit too much. The attention to detail was again missing when the ‘long lost’ music notes are found. It looked as though it was just torn from a new matrix note book. But come on.. these things don’t matter.

The sets are wonderfully designed, and Farhans apartment was wow! I notice the Buddha statues quite often in the movie and am wondering if I missed a clue. Like the ones Google leave here and there. This has to be one of the better designed rock show sets I’ve seen in India. Very aesthetic and the sets were clued on to the signature of the entire movie. The lighting was good, very nicely capturing the intensity of the scenes and you can see all the work that’s gone behind this.

Farhan - Farhan’s rock star do would make you smile just like DCH did. I notice though, the dramatic and intense scenes had the camera cutting away from his face. They focused on him in short bursts and had several back to camera portions. But otherwise, his do was great. Remember, its not the easiest of things to capture the energy one associates with a live performances and look natural at that. It was superbly captured and could easily pass over as a real professional rock concert. And Farhan the singer? He was awesome and you have to hear him croon!

Purab Kohli – Without doubt the film’s stand out actor. Most of the time it looked like he was doing his usual Channel V stuff. Super screen presence.

Arjun Rampal, probably it was his toned down character that didn’t quite add to his screen presence. But nice stuff as the lead guitarist. Except that I didn’t notice his fingers strum.

Luke Kenny – This dude was awesome! Very subtle and marvelously held his own against the other three.

Prachi and Shahana the lady leads were very good.

On a microscopic view, maybe the sum of the parts didn’t quite convincingly add up, however the parts in toto very brilliantly executed.

The entire rock concert scenes were very will shot. Not only did they bring out the naturally contagious energy a rock concern usually serves up but used the different zoom in tone they use at the real rock concerts to capture the crowd enthusiasm.

The last cheer among the audience was when the movie ended rolling - “Don’t download the music, buy the CD”