Movie: Shaandaar
Direction: Vikas Bahl
Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Alia Bhatt
Music Director: Amit Trivedi
Cinematography: Anil Mehta
Editor: Sunil Nayak
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Drama
Rating: ∗∗½
What is it about: The movie is set with a backdrop of Big Fat Indian Wedding of Isha (Sanah Kapoor). This could be called the first Bollywood’s destination wedding film. As it focuses entirely on that subject. Being a destination wedding, there is obviously a wedding planner, which marks the entry of Jagjinder Joginder (Shahid Kapoor). If it’s a destination wedding there’s bound to be hot and happening chicks around and that is fulfilled by Alia (Alia Bhatt) sister of the bride. The wedding planner and the bride’s sister have their love story spinning whilst planning the wedding. Among this mushy backdrop, there is an espionage of two families planning to close a huge business deal, which could make them rich and save them from embarrassment of getting bankrupt. What happens next forms the crux of the story.
Why it’s disappointing: Shaandaar was one of the most expected flicks of the year, for the main reason being the director Vikas Bahl who gave us eccentric comedy films like “Chillar Party” and “Queen”. Apart from the director it was the lead cast Shahid & Alia, which made this project hotter than it was.
Despite of having such a good crew, the writing goes sloppy because it does not engage you at any point, except for the songs I can say. The film keeps wandering with no direction, it has inconsistent dialogues which once in a while seems like a funny one, mostly it feels like you’re watching a wedding video where actually there’s no screenplay.
This continues till the last with no hope for an engaging wedding film. It had all the ingredients for a destination wedding, but lacked a perfect planner to organize an interesting one.
What to watch out for: Shaandaar scores on its lead cast “Shaalia” that is Shahid & Alia. Their chemistry is quite electric and they seemed comfortable on screen which made this one a better watch, as they did a decent job. There was not much scope for their performance, as they were playing “Gudda-Guddi” in the film.
One notable character in the film is “Isha” played by Sanah Kapoor. She was great, carried the role with amazing grace and received applause from the audience for her performance in the end. Pankaj Kapur, Sanjay Kapoor, Niki Aneja, Sushma Seth,Shibani Dandekar, Anjan Sukhani did their parts well as supporting cast. Karan Johar appeared in a cameo role playing “Mehendi with Karan” which kind a made the mood little upbeat in the film for a while.
The songs by Amit Trivedi were brilliant, they sounded and looked fabulous. This part of the movie really seemed like a wedding film. Cinematography was brilliant by Anil Mehta who captured everything in “Shaandaar” form, and that was well edited by Sunil Nayak.
Verdict: Vikas Bahl came out with an expensive destination wedding, which is going to cost it makers, as it does not attract the destined guests who came to witness it. Shahid & Alia, manage to take this forward with their charm, which is well supported by Sanah Kapoor. Shaandaar is not as grand as it was presented.
