Umrao Jaan released this weekend. B.Rangan isn’t impressed but feels “there’s something to be said for a beautifully mounted period piece that gives us an all-too-rare peek into a now-gone culture“.
She looks lovely, she dances like a dream, and she even does creditably with those pesky Urdu dialogues… What she can’t manage to do is dislodge Rekha from our minds as the definitive Umrao Jaan, but then no one quite manages to rise above their counterparts in the earlier version. Anu Malik’s score… can’t hold a candle to Khayyam’s tunes, just as Alka Yagnik … can’t measure up to Asha Bhosle. But then I didn’t really expect that this Umrao Jaan would accomplish all of that, so I wasn’t altogether disappointed with what it did end
Neha takes a stronger stance, and likens Umrao Jaan to an “amateur high-school production”.
But it gets worse – not only do you have horrible music, painful sidekicks, bad dialogue delivery, poor camerawork, inadequate editing – you also have Sunil Shetty. The man can barely manage Hindi… To hear him speak some form of Urdu is to bang your head on a wall. At some point in time he also wore shoes that looked like they were from a Reebok store.
Comments
4 comments. Leave your comment »
Movie Maniac
Nov 14th, 2006 at 4:06 am | #
Whole of this period, dance and drama is nothing short of causing nausea. Total lack of chemistry between Ms Rai and Pathan Ka Bachha (Mr Bachhan of course), unsoulful lyrics and shrilling voice of Alka yagnik make this film a total disaster. As this was not enough Aishwarya’s plastic emotins added with the entirely failed attempt at Urdu can cause Mirza Muhammad Hadi to commit suicide.
Rizwan
Nov 14th, 2006 at 8:15 am | #
The Film was made in hurry, sets were comparatively small and unglamorous, even the dialogues were said in hurry.
It didn’t portrait the actual Lakhnow of the time and everything looked fake even the backgrounds.
Ash’s dialogues delivery was rubbish.
I believe the whole cast was wrong, I would have been better if…
Madhuri….. in place of….. Ash
Rekha ….. in place of …..Shabana
Sanjay Dutt ….. in place of ….. Abhi
Jackie Sharoof ….. in place of ….. Sunil
There was no maturity in the movie.
ritz
Nov 14th, 2006 at 5:58 pm | #
The movie was long and there were too many songs. I think Ash looked great but she could not uplift the movie from being boring….Sunil Shetty was horrific and Puru could not deliver. We got to see a lot of Ash and she looked good but the movie failed to deliver and one cannot forget the 198 version that was simply splendid and so tasteful. The big difference is that this was not a sophisticated version of the novel – the role of a tawiaf was very crudely portrayed and that was what ruined the story.
sunju
Nov 15th, 2006 at 4:22 am | #
I thought the movie was very good. Aishwarya was very convincing as the doomed courtesan and she is definitely not plastic. Pple have this idea that becoz she’s beautiful, she can’t act. And if Madhuri acts as Umrao, it will be such a laugh, as she lks incredibly old and out of shape. Btw, I think Rekha’s incredibly overrated.