Movie Reviews: Rock On…

Pls note: I assume most of you reading this would have watched the movie. It is a spoiler review so do not blame me if you were planning to watch it soon.

Rock On: Cliches Galore

The moment you have Farhan Akhtar’s name linked to a movie, you have expectations. None of the other people in the movie are serious mainstream artistes (yes, including the always flattering & always deceiving Arjun Ramphal) and in a sense, Farhan becomes the “Star of the Show”.

The movie is about a rock music band comprising of members in their college days (Cliche 1) who play for a huge crowd at Flora Fountain (with so less traffic in the background that I think it was shot during a curfew period!!), practise in a dinghy warehouse (Cliche 2), have a joker (Purab Kohli) in the pack (Cliche 3), have 2 brooding & super-smart musicians (Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Ramphal) (Cliche 4), have a silent-type musician in the band (Luke Kenny) (Cliche 5) write silly lyrics and win competitions even while making enemies of other bands (Cliche 6). Of course, there has to be a dumb-ass music album producer (Cliche 7) who makes some some super-dumb-ass statements on “Market main kya bikhtha hai” (Cliche 8′) and ego clashes within the band members (Cliche 9) so that the band finally dismembers and each member starts on his own path.

Enough cliches? Oh wait, there are more!!

Yes, we have the grossly neglected, young, rich & pretty girl (Prachi Desai) who is the wife of the now successful Investment Banker (once again, Farhan!!) and she does have the ultra talkative girlie friend (Koel Purie). Yes, we also have the rockstar turned investment banker wearing bluetooth headsets and saying things like “Aap nishchint rahiye patelji – FIIs ka saara paisa hum hee India main laate hai” while looking at 4 monitors in front of him. Of course we have his super-boss (Dalip Tahil) who utters the super-unbelievable lines “How do you like this cabin?” & “Then you can have this cabin – the management is proud of your performance and you are promoted!”

And then we have the Gujju drummer selling diamond necklaces in his father’s jewellery stores who also gets an earful from his father on what a loser he is. Yes, we have the make-ends-meet, keyboard dude (Luke Kenny) who works for a filmy music director (Annu Malik – can you imagine? Annu actually talks about original tunes!!!). And yes – the staunch principled guitarist (Arjun) who won’t play unless the audience is discerning, even if he is not making a single penny for months together. And that’s right – he has an hysteric (Shahana Goswami) wifey (who was also his sweetheart), a sweet kid whose pet name is “Champ” & geriatric mom.

Any guesses for what is next? No prizes of course.

The lonely wife of the investment banker finds pics of his yippie days and makes the right decision – uniting the band is the only way to get the banker his “Khoya hua Zindagi” back.

The hysteria character does not want Arjun to unite – she thinks they’ll use like before.

Overcoming all odds, the group reunites and have jam sessions at the I Banker’s super decorated house. And then they plan to participate in a competition and win it “just for old times sake”. Of course Old Enemies resurface, along with ex-flames married to enemies, one band member gets a job (the final chance to earn some money and dignity) on a cruise ship (Guitarist) and another gets cancer (or tumor – whatever).

Now the band must unite for one final show – overcome all obstacles and play in the middle of nowhere, blocking all traffic. Of course the concert must be on the way to the port (Sea or air, I didn’t observe) so that the guitarist can ditch his sweetheart and champ to come and play in the concert.

As for acting Farhan surprised me (in a very positive way), Arjun’s was a cake-walk and others were ignorable. Oh, Luke was OK.

Music was passable – Aasmaan Kyun Neela Hai, Paani Kyun Geela Hai isn’t rock – it is pop. Javed Akhtar is the biggest let down in this movie – he seems to be trying to impersonate the maverick Prasoon Joshi and fails miserably. Only if Farhan forgets the “Charity begins at Home” policy and outsources some work!!

You can read some more reviews here (1, 2, 3) but my take is this: Rock On is a stupid movie, that is so predictable because it has used every cliche that is available on the Hindi Movie Horizon. Yippies will like it, but I am sure mature audience can see through it. And as for ratings on popular reviews, I think they betray their quality the moment they rate Mumbai Meri Jaan lower than Rock On – I am sorry to say, most of them are pure PR Trash.