Review – London Dreams(2009)

Cast – Ajay Devgn, Salman Khan, Asin, Om Puri

Direction – Vipul Amrutlal Shah

Vipul Shah’s latest film London Dreams like his previous films (Waqt, Namastey London) has a predictable story with a treatment that has all ingredients of a masala film in it. Except the fight sequences .

London Dreams is very similar to Abhimaan (1973) directed by the one of the greatest director of all time – Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Ego problems, jealousy on seeing a person close to your heart rise up after an opportunity given by your to him/her, and music as a background, basically sums up both the films. And in all departments, be it music, acting, directing – Abhimaan wins.

The movie sees Ajay Devgn playing the character of Arjun, a firm believer in God, going against his family to fulfill his childhood dream of performing at the Wembley, London.
He learns music while his best friend, Mannu (Salman Khan) has inborn talent. To strengthen his band he calls Mannu, who has innate talent at music, to join his band in London. Predictably the band is called ‘London Dreams’. But in a parallel to Abhimaan, when Mannu starts getting all the applauses, Arjun gets jealous seeing the rise of his friend. So he starts planning Mannu’s downfall. One thing that bothers me is why Ranvijay is jealous to see Mannu getting all the applauses instead of Arjun. Doesn’t Ranvijay have some dream of his own!!!! Didn’t he and his brother feel that they mean nothing to the band? Or is it loyalty to Arjun that makes this happen? Vipul Shah, by making the audience focus on Ajay and Salman, sacrificed a lot of details that should have been there in the film.

The chemistry between Ajay Devgn and Salman Khan is superb. The film has some good moments like the first scene where Ajay Devgn is narrating the story, the airplane and airport scene was funny. But the scene just before the interval i.e when they perform the Barso Yaaro song, where Salman Khan takes over the stage from Ajay Devgn and starts singing Hanuman Chaalisa has to be The Moment of Bollywood of this year. The dialogs too were very well written.

Though I think Vipul Shah knows the business of direction, he fails to see some minor mistakes. Like when Ajay Devgn was performing his first song in the street in front of the audience, two new band members (Ranvijay and ???) join in with two new instruments. But there was no change in the music before and after the addition of those two new members. Also the lip sync of Salman Khan was terrible in the scene just after the interval where Salman Khan was singing the same line in different styles.

The screenplay on the surface was good but had a big problem of timeline. We see Ajay Devgn narrating his story when there was 1 minute left for his band to perform. But he took almost 2 film hours to narrate the story. How is that possible that you start narrating the story when you have a minute left for a performance and get back to the stage after narrating the story for 2 hours!!!

The ending dragged a bit and the song in the end wasn’t needed at all. It made Wembley look like a joke where you can enter as many times as you want. It spoiled the dream like feeling Ajay Devgn was giving to Wembley throughout the film.

Ajay Devgn was completely miscast in the role of a rockstar and yet he proved himself with his intense performance. While I say he was a misfit as he doesn’t look like a rockstar, I also say it’s hard to imagine any one carrying off the role as brilliantly he did. So I can imagine how difficult it was for the casting team to choose an actor for Ajay’s character.

Salman Khan was funny in a few scenes and acted like a dumb drunk fool in emotional scenes very similar to what he did in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. The only thing in London Dreams is that his character actually was drunk in half of the film. Still he was somewhat irritating to me. Why does he speak with that weird accent? But given the fact that he has the biggest hit of this year under his belt (Wanted), and his performance in London Dreams too is getting appreciation, I would be surprised if he doesn’t win the best supporting actor this year for London Dreams, if at all they consider him as a supporting actor.

Rest of the band members Asin, Ranvijay and one more guy were useless and were only filling in places as the band can’t consist of 2 members, and a masala Bollywood film by Vipul Shah and many others is incomplete without an actress.

The music of the film was very good with Barson Yaaron easily the best of the lot. Rest of the music – Tapkey Masti, Mann Ko Atti Bhavey, Yaari Bina, Khanabadosh too are good to hear.

The film is good in some parts and has moments but overall it is strictly ok. The film could have been a lot better. Salman Khan fans might enjoy it.

5/10. Apart from a few comic scenes, Ajay-Salman chemistry, music and the interval point, the film failed to engage me.