Singing, dancing and spandex Bollywood style! (Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (DVD))

Member Name: sala4uk

Product:	Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (DVD)
Date:	23/10/09 (25 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: likable characters

Disadvantages: can come across as unrealistic at times

My missus often makes me sit through Bollywood films, in return she doesn't bother me while I watch the footy. So reluctantly, I joined her as Shah Rukh Khan's latest rom-com started. For those who are not overly familiar with Bollywood (you're not missing much!) Shah Rukh Khan (also known as SRK) is the biggest star from from that part of the world. He specialises in rom-coms, you could say he's kind of the Indian equivalent to Hugh Grant as they both pretty much play the same character in most of their movies!

In Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (RNBDJ) , which loosely translates as match made by god, SRK plays the role of Suri, an employee of Punjab Power, who is quiet, shy and unremarkable in every way.

Suri travels to the wedding celebration of his former professors daughter. It's love at first sight for Suri when he meets the beautiful and charismatic Taani, played by newcomer Anushka Sharma. As Suri thinks about how Taani is so far out of his league fate has other ideas. A tragic accident takes the life of Taani's fiance which causes her father to have a heart attack. At his death bed Taani's father asks his daughter to marry Suri (proper Bollywood style!)

So the two mismatched souls marry and return to Suri's home. Suri sleeps alone in the attic while his hot new wife gets the master bedroom where she spends most of her time crying about her recently departed fiance.

Taani, bored at being stuck at home alone, decides to enter a local dance class where the winning couple will be crowned the dance champions. Suri follows her so he can admire her from afar (and probably because she didn't wear tight latex at home very often!). But in order to stay under the radar he decides to go disguised. His disguise basically consists of him shaving his moustache and gelling his hair!

At the dance contest Suri is pretty much standing at the back of the hall perving on his missus (well is it perving if it's his missus?) when one of the instructors clocks him and forces him to join in. As the session draws to a close, the instructor announce that each person will be given a card and whoever their card matches with will be there partner. Guess who gets to be Taani's partner? When Suri realises that his wife does not recognise him in his new avatar, he decides to become Raj, loud, brash, confident, everything Suri isn't.

As the competition progresses, Taani takes a shine to Raj and despite being cocky and arrogant, she finds herself falling for him. Meanwhile Suri sees that he is losing his wife to his alter ego and despite his best efforts he can't stop her.

So does Taani go with her husband the boring but dependable Suri or the crazy and exciting Raj?

The film has a number of good points. Firstly SRK is brilliant as Suri, the no nonsense, no frills everyday guy. There are plenty of laughs where Suri tries to balance his two identities and Suri's best friend Bobby also provides some over the top comedy too. The film bounces along at a decent pace and despite a few scenes that drag it down in the second half generally the film flows nicely.

The bad points are pretty much the fact that some of things are a little unbelievable. The scene where Taani agrees to marry Suri shortly after her fiance was killed seemed unlikely. But probably the biggest thing that got me was the fact that she did not recognise her own husband minus a moustache! I think that was a bit of a stretch!

RNBDJ is an entertaining rom-com and by Bollywood standards it's pretty good. The characters are likable and the plot just about keeps you engaged for the entire 2 hours!

Summary: Bollywood entertainer with a few laughs and lots of dancing!