Fail-lauri

This weekend, I had the misfortune of watching the newly-released & Anushka Sharma-produced movie Phillauri, which I’d say should be aptly called Fail-lauri instead. To be honest, the trailer of the movie left me more hopeful than even my future prospects ever did. I literally counted days to the release of this intriguing plotline.
And boy, how they botched it! Even Varun Dhawan did a better job in Badrinath ki Dulhaniya than Anushka Sharma in Phillauri. I don’t believe my own words when I say something in favor of Varun Dhawan. If given a choice between Shakti Kapoor & Varun Dhawan, I’d gladly choose the former over the latter. That’s how much I dislike Varun Dhawan.


The movie is painfully slow, with laughs very hard to find and logic gone on a vacation for the 138 mins that the movie runs for. I had more fun watching the guy sitting next to me sleeping away to glory than watching the so-called comedy scenes in the movie. Suraj Sharma does a great job in whatever little capacity he could, given the screen time he got. The female opposite Suraj Sharma, too, delivered a decent performance and oh, how pretty she was to look at! Diljeet Dosanjh didn’t stand out, I anyway don’t understand all the hype around him.


Anushka and her co-producer (also her brother) decided to save big time on songs & musicians’ fee. Except for the “sahiba” song, all other songs were a torture to listen to. The casting directors also failed to exploit the great talents of brilliant artists like Nidhi Bisht & Abhishek Banerjee. Unfortunately, these two were there merely as placeholders. I honestly think Nidhi Bisht could’ve done a better job as the female lead opposite Suraj Sharma. No offense to Mehrene Kaur Pirzada, but I’d have preferred Nidhi Bisht any day...not that anybody gives a hoot for what I prefer. But hell, it’s my blog!
Coming to the plot, I think the writers of the movie left all hopes midway while writing the plot and in their desperation to meet the deadline resorted to age-old cheating tactics back from their college days and took some “inspiration” from SRK’s Chamatkar.


This movie takes a lot of things to the next level - the special effects, for instance. The folks working on the animation (esp for the last part of the movie) were also shown & trained on Chamatkar special-effects as part of their animation project while “studying”. Another thing which stood out for me (spoilers ahead!) in reaching another level was how they plan a wedding, invite guests, get the bride up & ready without even once checking the availability of the groom on the stipulated day. And then they expect us to feel bad when the groom doesn’t show up! I couldn’t help thinking from the groom’s point of view at that moment. How in the world was he supposed to know that he has his wedding to attend back in his village when nobody even cared to inform him!


After all this nonsensical drama, the climax of the movie looks too drawn out. The only time when all my fellow-viewers in the movie-hall laughed unanimously was when somebody from the audience gave a sharp whistle during the movie’s climax. I guess they all took it as an ironical whistle and decided to share a laugh with each other for the first time in the past 138 minutes, (150 including the wretched interval).
With that, l’ll put an end to all that rant. I already feel much better. Let’s move on to the word of the day:
Perfunctory: (of an action or a gesture) carried out with minimum of effort or reflection.

Until next time! :)

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