Review of Happy New Year

Release date - 24'th October 2014

One Word which describes the film - Over-the-top

Best Dialogue -Duniya mein do tarah ke log hote hai,winners and losers...
Lekin zindagi har loser ko vo ek mauka zaroor deti hai jisme wo winner ban sakta hai.

Genre- Heist/Musical/Dance/Drama/Patriotic

/Comedy

Music - Vishal Shekhar

Producer - Gauri Khan

Story & Direction -Farah Khan

Cast -Shahrukh Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Deepika Padukone, Sonu Sood, Boman Irani, Vivaan Shah

Budget- 80 crores + P&A

Film making which was earlier considered an art has now been reduced to strategic planning and marketing. 

Shahrukh Khan the king of romance has now turned into SRK the business man whose main focus is to recover the money put into the film by his production company. Before the film's release Happy New Year had already made profits through the film's promotional tour SLAM.

The film was released in almost 4500 screens in India and 500 screens abroad which in itself is a record. The timing of the film was perfect. Because of Diwali holidays and competition from no other film Happy New Year had a grand opening of 45 crores on Friday. In 6 days the film has collected close to 150 crores. 

Happy New Year is Farha Khan's magnum opus. After the super failure of Tees Mar Khan Farha realised that only SRK ,the king of marketing can project her superfluous films as entertainers and help her recover her lost money.

I would like to mention that Farha Khan is not a bad director, her vision is good, it's just that while turning the vision into reality she has a tendency of going over the top. Her films are too colorful, the sets are unnecessarily huge, even the bar where the heroine dances looks more like a Broadway theater. She turns even a 50 year old bald guy with a beer belly into a stud who is pursued by a line of women which is too hard to digest. She doesn't spare even her brother and project him as a stupid director. The story is predictable from the start still she takes 2 hours 59 minutes & 50 seconds to unfold the events in a TV serial kind of way which make people doze during some scenes.  

We know that she is talented as every time she comes up with a new idea to list the end credits, the problem is we have to bear the full film to see that 5 minutes of pure fun.

The film is a visual delight for Shah Rukh fans. In the first half he finds ample opportunities to show his eight packs. In the second half he goes clean shave and we get glimpses of the young Raj /Rahul who stole hearts of women of all ages. 

Deepika Padukone looks pretty and does justice to the small role given to her. 

Abhishek Bachchan 's acting is being appreciated by the critics and audiences. There is one scene where we get to see Farha's sense of humor. 

Nandu-  Charlie bhai , Mere se nahi hoga, mereko wapas bhejo

Charlie: Nandu , Tum akele nahin ho, Johnny Bhai bhi tumhare saath hain ,apni left pocket main dekho ( The camera focuses on a small Johnny Walker bottle).

Sonu Sood gets equal opportunity to show his abs . Boman Irani and Vivaan Shah have  acted well . 

The team in all is good and their reaching till the semi finals of the World Dance Competition as a wild card entry was OK but what happened afterwards is just Farha's exaggerated way of making everything end happily as she strongly believes that

' Hamari zindagi mein bhi end tak sab kuch theek hi ho jata hain, happies ending, aur agar theek na ho to woh 'the end' nahin, picture abhi baki hain mere dost.'

In a line even though the film is too long ,too dramatic,too full of songs but still there is something for everyone and is entertaining in parts.

One time watch.