Bodyguard review
When a muscular Salman Khan pumps and moves his biceps to the latest tunes and has the stunning Katrina Kaif singing out to him, a film does well? Maybe. And when you have good locations, a beautiful actress and veteran actors like Raj Babbar and Asrani? The answer may remain the same. But when you have a plot like that, dialogues that have no newness and characters whose roles are not defined well, then the film falls flat on its face. The fact is that due to an intelligent opening time, (the Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi holidays) the film could make in so much moolah which it otherwise never would have been able to.
The film is a rather loose love story between Divya Rana (kareena Kapoor) and Lovely Singh (Salman Khan). Lovely Singh is indebted to Sartaj Rana (Raj Babbar) for saving his parents life and hence, his devotion towards him is unmatched. Which even sometimes means jumping out of the train and walking on its rooftops for him. So when he is asked to be his daughter Divya’s bodyguard there is no looking back. Divya along with her friend Maya (Hazel Keech)calls Lovely from a private number and introduces herself as Chaya to annoy him initially but eventually falls in love with him. Lovely on the other hand, is unaware that Chaya is actually his boss’s own daughter till almost the end of the film.
Bodyguard directed by Siddique, is a remake of his own Malayalam film released in 2010 by the same name. Both the story and screenplay of the film is written by Siddique himself. Although the Malayalam version was a big hit, its Hindi version with superstars like Salman and Kareena is unimpressive. Marketed at a close footing with Salman Khan’s other films like Ready and Dabangg, Bodyguard’s slack storyline and an equally bad screenplay make for a time waste. The one good thing about this film is its Rajnikanth inspired action sequences which though do not amuse Salman Khan fans but atleast let the already bored audiences to relieve his super hits vis a vis Wanted and Dabangg. Visual effects have been used to the maximum during these fight sequences but as they say, excess of anything is bad; although special effects along with impressive stunts by action director, Vijayan Master do add an impact, but after a point one just waits for them to end.
Editor Sanjay Sankla, gives this film the much missing spunk with fast cuts and clever use of the editing table. Cinematographer Sejal Shah’s appropriate use of the lens is appreciated while Himesh Reshamiya’s music touches the right chord with a very few. A dragging end, the film after a point feels streched. Although, the 1996 Karan Johar directed Kuch Kuch Hota Hai might rush past your memories as the film is nearing its close, it fails to relieve that magic.
A motley of stars but a mediocre storyline do not make this Bodyguard a hit!
By Swati Deogire