Dostana:Enjaoy weeked with dostana

Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham, Priyanka Chopra
Direction: Tarun Manshukhani
Producer: Karan Johar , Manoj Mittra , Prashant Shah
Music: Vishal Dadlani , Shekhar Ravjiani
Rating: ***

The Movie:Happily, good taste, pop colour Miami locations, high-end costumes, make-up styling and the A-grade Dharma Productions values add up to a zingy entertainer. Sure, you do have trouble with the second-half of this cross-gender romcom because the script runs helter-skelter as if trying to find a bomb shelter. Yet in sum, the effort is remarkable for extending the limits of sexual permissiveness and for touching upon a subject that has remained largely in the studio closets. Gay gay gay re saiba really.

Besides its welcome political incorrectness, this Miami mambo is inhabited by two 21st century guys. One’s eeps, a hospital nurse (Abhishek Bachchan) and the other’s a photographer (John Abraham), both chasing bikinis on the beach and waking up every morning with brunettes and blondes. Both need a room on rent which shouldn’t be an issue, but the script insists that it is.
The finale isn’t exactly as bold and larkish as the rest of this fairy tale (with shades of I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry), and several scenes seem either expendable or déjà whew like the one set in a football stadium with the crowds cheering for love, love, love. No goal this.

On the bouncy-‘and-buoyant side, count Shilpa Shetty’s kick-off beachside boogie, the sensitively written-and-directed scene in which the mother being told to accept her son the way he is, the Vishal-Shekhar music score and Ayananka Bose’s cinematography of candy colours. Cool.

Of the cast, Boman Irani in a cameo is terrific. Priyanka Chopra is in form, pretty convincing as a working woman (she even announces her age as 27), who’s trying to deal with professional pressures. John Abraham is sheer eye-toffee and correctly restrained, without ever overdoing what passes off in the movies as gay gestures. Abhishek Bachchan is first-rate. In fact, he’s the most inspired of the lot, displaying a gift for dramatic and comic timing. Way to go Dostana! Enjoy the difference.