So PK. A strange man from a foreign land comes to a new
place and for some reason, he cannot go back home. Initially, he struggles. He
doesn’t know the language. He learns the language. He speaks it funny, but hey!
He learns it. He finds the new place funny. The workings of the new place are
alien to him, but somehow he figures his way around it. He starts earning and
people start liking him as his ways of working are novel and has a lot of
heart. In the process, he wins the heart of this pretty girl. He doesn’t get
the girl, but that’s okay. Our man has a bigger cause to work for. In the end,
he beats the villain who was making his life hard and goes back to doing his
shit! Nice story. Really sweet. Except it is the entire premise of Steven Spielberg’s
The Terminal!
Yep! This is The Terminal with a few changes! The country of
Krakozhia from The Terminal is a random planet in the universe, The Airport
Terminal of JFK, New York is All of India, The American Dream is replaced by
India Shining! And finally, Tom Hanks with Aamir Khan. But trust Aamir Khan to
make sure that the last change is not so big: His character of PK is nothing
but that of Forrest Gump. They even look the same.
 |
| Haila! |
So, PK is Forrest Gump in The Terminal in India.
Now, here is my problem with the movie. There is nothing
new! It’s a Rajkumar Hirani film. You expect it to really blow your mind off
and be really awesome! Look at his legacy. Munnabhai MBBS started a whole new
side of Indian Cinema. Lage Raho Munnabhai really upped the ante and 3 Idiots-
sure it was a Chetan Bhagat book adaptation- but it made Five Point Someone
something else altogether. It had so much life. But PK is just a social
monologue. It has its moments. Aamir’s ‘inspired’ performance is amazing. It is
funny when it has to be. But this should have been a short film and Vidhu Vinod
Chopra should have used his FTII brains and done exactly that. It would have
been ground breaking for Indian Cinema and who knows, the genre of short films
might have just picked off. But these guys are extremely myopic in nature and fail
to see the bigger picture and in the process we are forced to shell out 200
bucks for a fuck that has a disappointing happy ending.
Someone once said: A new director is as good as his second
film. But shit goes wrong after the third or the fourth movie. They run out of
ideas and eventually, they end up making a movie that is a compilation of their
best work. They become repetitive. This is a problem of all good directors.
Look at Bhansali, Raam-Leela was just a mashup of all his other movies. PK is
a mashup of all Rajkumar Hirani Movies. He picked up themes from all his movies
and made this. In Lage Raho Munnabhai, the ending has the guy playing Tapasvi
playing a very similar role and that got magnified and was turned into this.
Instead of the radio station, we have a TV channel. The crazy, inquisitive
Rancho from 3 Idiots is PK in PK. It’s the same shit sold to us again and
again. Now, guys please! Buck up! Don’t do this to Indian Cinema.
On one end, there are brilliant directors like Vishal
Bharadwaj who very rarely fail to perform and then there are the Hirani’s and
Bhansali’s who just lose plot. This is something that keeps bothering me. Indian
Cinema is just getting disappointing by the day. Hardcore Rajni fans were
disappointed with Lingaa. (You are welcome, Diwakar for that subtle branding). I don’t remember the last Indian movie I thoroughly enjoyed. Sure,
there are people possibly trying to make good movies like Kashyap, but I am not
hopeful. Not anymore. No after PK. Hirani was one guy who could make a movie
entertaining and engaging at the same time. Munnabhai MBBS was not a social
issue based movie. It became one and then Hirani just ended up selling what was
expected of him: Funny movies with a social message.
No, Hirani.. you are
better than that.
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