★Cocktail★ Review

Cocktail: Deepika, Saif, Diana

Three friends... Sex, fun, laughter, companionship, betrayal, heartbreak, intoxication, life and (almost) death: quite a cocktail.

I would like to start off by talking about the trailer. It was the work of genius. It was the perfect teaser - which was demonstrated by the bumper opening the film has received worldwide and the crossing of 1 million views on YouTube in record time for a Hindi film trailer. With that much hype, the expectations were high.

Personally I find Imtiaz Ali films to have great storylines but (excluding Jab We Met) they are executed with numerous flaws, to which unfortunately Cocktail is no exception. But the good thing is that these mishaps occur in the latter part of the film and one is so immersed in the story that forgiveness comes quite easily.

Each of the lead characters fit a particular stereotype. Saif Ali Khan's Gautam is the typical NRI which we've seen a hundred times in Karan Johar movies over the last 15 years. Deepika Padukone's Veronica is the typical beer-drinking, short "pant" wearing, falling-out-of-taxi wild child British brat. And Meera, portrayed by newcomer Diana Penty is a salwar kameez clad, bindi-wearing, namaste-greeting seedhi saadi ladki from Hindustaaan. So the scene is set. Boy goes for sexy chick, but falls for desi kudi in the end.

And so ensues the ride - which is very enjoyable, not least  thanks to the incredibly talented and star of the show Dimple Kapadia who plays Kavita Kapoor - mother of Gautam. I had to put aside my outrage at the fact that Dimple, who is as beautiful as ever, at only 13 years older than Saif, is playing his mother. His own former wife in real life Amrita Singh was after all only 8 months younger than Dimple. But anyway, there have been bigger sexist crimes in Bollywood. (Remember Dabangg? Guess who played the role of Salman's mother...?).

Moving on, without giving away too much of the story, Cocktail does it's job of serving up entertainment. Great performances by the cast, tuneful music, great locations etc However it is, predictably, the screen-play that is the biggest let-down, which seems to me to be the road-block in terms of greatness in Hindi cinema today: weak scene-to-scene storytelling.

The climax, although slightly unusual and sweet, comes at a point where the story has dragged on a little too long, so loses some of the potential magic it could have embodied.

The other major flaw for me is the accents! If Lara Dutta can do it (in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, 2007) than why not Deepika (the worst offender), and others? C'mon at least Said should have made an effort, didn't he once study in the U.K.? And of course the thing that is done so often, people often are accustomed to it: the talking in Hindi to non-Indians. Why the heck was Saif speaking in Hindi at work to his colleagues?

I do recommend the film as it is light hearted yet has emotional moments with fantastic music and lots of great scenes. The showstopper for me is Dimple, although Diana and Deepika were equally as impressive.

3.5 Stars