How would you describe a movie watching experience when during the course of the film your mind starts to think about comparing it with probably the worst movie you have ever watched in your lifetime? Imtiaz Ali's latest endeavor 'Rockstar' had the very same effect on my thought processing, though to give the film its due - at least it does have some good merits to not top my worst film list.
Rockstar apparently presents the story of Delhi's St. Stephan college boy, played by Ranbir Kapoor, who loves music and would do anything to have the soul in his writing that talent scouting people and the regular college crowd could relate to. He is advised by the college's cafeteria owner, someone who is apparently the only one who understands his dreams, that he can't write good unless he falls in true love, something that gives pain and problem like nothing else in this world. He then goes for this girl Heer, played by Nargis Fakhri, in his own college as his friends call his Tota aka Hot. From initial rejections, the two embark on doing crazy stuffs which leads to the supposed crux of the film.
The basic problem with 'Rockstar' lies with its incoherent script. There is just about nothing in it, making it like a regressive episodic thought-processing without any explanation. The characters are shallow, and have change of emotions and heart after every few minutes. Janardhan a.k.a. Jordan leaving his passionate chase for Platinum records to bring his music album to chase Love that will bring pain in his music, even when the records label itself is after him. Also Heer who first is irritated by Jordan's idiotic loves proposal has a sudden change of heart and is hanging out with him doing crazy stuffs. Characters are brought in at one moment and bumped off like piece of cardboards in another and again brought into later from almost nowhere. Case in point Heer's husband, her family, Jordan's family. Even the ridiculously absurd sequence in Prague where a super Rockstar like Jordan is being mugged on streets by goons who don't know him and the next moment he escapes them to his own concert in the city's Colloseum like place to millions of city people and that too in Hindi.
Like I said, there is nothing about Music in this film. The writers apparently wanted to write a doomed love story with music aspirations of the lead as a sub-story, but clearly did not know how to start or to end. What comes across on screen in a confusing and irritating half-hazard sequencing of a thought for story, which apparently was never bound and had additions and subtractions to it on the sets during the film shoot. The events in the films comes across as episodes and just when you think the film is over, there is another episode up on play without any reason of common sense.
Imtiaz Ali has been known for his writing skills with his previous films, but clearly he is overwhelmingly overconfident from his adulation. The writing is pretentious and carried out with the only thought of making it something that will make the audience cry like they have never did. Ranbir displays a great character graph in his body language, but his dialogue delivery is either straight lift of his work in Wake Up Sid or irritatingly bad version of Koi Mil Gaya's Rohit Mehra's mentally challenged person. Nargis is as manly as an actress can ever be, with a dialogue delivery of a dreamy but dull spoilt daughter of a rich dad. No emotional connect is there for a character which Imtiaz Ali seemingly wanted to be just like the lovable Geet from his own 'Jab We Met', but fails badly with his own writing and his choice of Nargis.
For a movie which was promoted as a film based on Music, it's all noise for the songs as well as the background score. A.R.Rahman comes up with his weakest compositions ever, which are nothing new in instrumentation and relies heavily on screeching and repetitive tunes. He does indeed comes with Kun Fayakun which brought tears in my eyes during it play in the film, not for the visuals along but for the beautiful words from Holy Quran. But then again, a Quawali by Rahman has always been great, so nothing new to write. Maybe to an extent the song Naadan Parindey is good, but by the time it is played in end, one is so exhausted with the headache from the film that one just wants to leave. Once again, Rahman fails from being burdened with carrying the film on his shoulder when there is no script in first place, forget about a musical story that was promoted in his name.
The editor(s) of the film must be celebrated for at least trying to make sense from the crap the director handed them to work on. I am sure the screenplay of the film, which is not experimental but screenplay of convenience, was come up with on the editing table itself. At least the film moves at fast pace, except for the last 20 something minutes, where the film drag like hell and mostly substituted with scenes played before also. As for the costumes for Jordan, they are worse than my used Night clothes and no Rockstar wears such clothes which will have even the poor slum dwellers to cheer.
If the meaning of becoming a Rockstar is to must have a doomed true-love story, then sorry to say the writers know nothing about the music world. Music by itself is true love for the one who practice it. Music aspirations, just like Love, can never be forced. And if Luck or Destiny is what the makers wanted to reason with, then they should have gone for an animated story of cartoon characters where they could do anything with Luck and Destiny.
The movie is a complete failure for the art of cinema and I can not think of giving it more than 1/2 stars out of 5, that too being generous for not giving me migraine attack.
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