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Review
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Ta Ra Rum Pum: Predictable fare
indya.com rating: 2.5 out of 5 *
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukherjee and Javed Jaffrey
Director: Siddharth Anand
Synopsis: RV (Saif) graduates from being a pit crew member to an ace car racer in USA's Nascar circuit with friend turned manager Hari's (Jaffrey) help. After a love at first sight and few races later he proposes to Radhika (Rani), gets married and has two children, Champ and Princess. He is leading a happy life when one race changes his life upside down. During the final lap of a crucial race, an opponent purposely bumps RV's car which leads to his near fatal accident. Out of action for a year, RV fights back and comes back on track only to be faced by demons of his accident. He is never the same again and is dumped by his team owner. Jobless and homeless he and his family's never say die attitude brings him back on track, literally. With a son lying on death bed in the hospital with no money for cure, RV decides to give one last shot at racing with Hari's timely help. The end is everyone's guess.
Acting: Saif rocks. He is convincing as the Nascar racer with the right attitude and body language. Watch out for his scenes with the dog and his showdown with his ex boss at the club. Rani compliments him well and they both share a great chemistry. She is suitably restrained during the emotional scenes in the second half and thankfully not made to shed buckets of tears like her two previous films, (KANK and Baabul). Javed Jaffrey's Gujju character has been well etched and is not the typically caricatured funny guy which he is often made to play. The two kids Angelica Idnani and Ali Haji are cute.
indya.com rating: 3 out of 5
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Direction: If in his first film (Salaam Namaste) Sid Anand chose a hatke subject, in his second he has gone for the conventional underdog one. He is technically brilliant (the car races are on par with any top Hollywood production) and an able story teller but being a good scriptwriter himself he should have tried to get a little innovative with the script. He handles a few scenes very well though, like the initial meeting between Saif - Rani, their two kids understanding the value of their lunch money and the Rani's bus scene with her father played by Victor Bannerjee.
indya.com rating: 3 out of 5
Script: The main problem with Habib Faisal's script is that it moves in a predictably linear manner of a typical under dog tale. A small time guy making it to the big league of a competitive sport then has a picture perfect family, everything going good then one incident crashing all his dreams down. Finally he fighting back to win against all odds and emerging a winner. You know what the twists and turns are few minutes into the film. Also the last few situations are a perfect example of convenient writing. Among it's redeemable features are, the good use of the two kids especially in the second half and the character traits of the principal characters leading to certain situations.
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indya.com rating: 2.5 out of 5
Music: The weakest link in the film is it's music. Vishal - Shekhar give us what one calls a typical Yash Raj album where one gets, one of everything - a peppy fusion number (Ab To Forever), a soft romantic song (Hey Shona), a bhangra track (Nachle Ve), a sad song (Saiyyan), a fun filled family number (title track) and a song of hope (Tarararara). The songs look better on screen thanks to some imaginative picturisation and choice of locations. Also thankfully, each number carries the story forward.
indya.com rating: 2.5 out of 5
-- Abhijit Mhamunkar
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