Sorry Bhai

I feel sorry for Sanjay Suri, poor guy - three movies in a row he has been shafted by Onir. Yet he doesn’t mind working with him :D !! Incase you don’t know what I am talking about, Onir is the director of My Brother Nikhil, Bas Ek Pal & now Sorry Bhai. If you recall, Sanjay Suri is the loser character in both My Brother Nikhil & Bas Ek Pal (ok, in the first one he was dying with AIDS but still the sad, loser kind)

So no surprise when he is the guy who loses the girl in this one also. Sorry Bhai is set in beautiful Mauritius – and opens with Harsh (Sanjay Suri) giving a sudden call to his parents (Boman Irani and Shabana Azmi) that he is getting married by the end of the month and that they should come down to Mauritius to attend the wedding. And knowing mom’s temper, he entreats younger brother Siddharth (Sharman Joshi) to make sure that they come. Siddharth is a slightly forgetful scientist, who is his mama’s boy, plays the saxophone – and is striving to make a wooden dog fly !

The trio – parents and Siddharth - fly down to Mauritius to attend the wedding and well, the fun begins. Harsh is busy trying to set up an office in New York – so he makes Aaliya (Chitrangada Singh) show them around the island. And somewhere in those 3 days, Siddharth and Aaliya get attracted to each other. What happens next – well you don’t expect me to give the full story, do you ?

Even though I admire Onir for making a story on this controversial topic (and there were enough snide comments from the audience about it), I cant recommend the movie.

Here’s why –
In this movie, the linchpin should be the romance between Siddharth and Aaliya – how they both cant help getting attracted to each other even though they know its forbidden. The chemistry between them should be smoking – the audience should have no doubts that they are made for each other. Unfortunately, that just isn’t the case !

Aaliya is a little unhappy because Harsh has been too-busy with work lately. Siddharth is this goody goody (kinda cute) boy who loves sliding down staircase railings, loves jazz - and has idealist notions of making everything fly with his ‘Everything-Alive’ theory. And that’s it – no intelligent romance, nothing. Spend three days doing stuff around Mauritius and you are ready to challenge a 5-year-old relationship and society itself ??? C’mon !! Maybe you wouldn’t understand my disappointment just by reading this review – but believe me there are just no sparks in their romance.

However, if you do decide to watch the movie, do it for Shabana Azmi and Boman Irani – especially Shabana. She is the central figure in the movie, specially at the latter part. Her character is a very written one – she doesnt like Aaliya at the beginning (like any mother in law), but accepts her whole-heartedly later - confessing that she always liked Harsh more and she wouldn’t have minded Siddharth leaving her and going off to work somewhere. And her chemistry with Boman is rocking – that’s where the actual sparks fly !! They make a superb couple – seeming to carry on from where they left off in Honeymoon Travels. Boman Irani is the source of the laughs in the movie – and is a hoot as usual.

The ending is a little weird I think – and they could have completely bypassed that angle and done with just an emotional scene – but its not a major negative.
However Chitrangada’s tummy is :) !! She looks very beautiful and attractive – but only as far as her face in concerned. Her belly pokes out markedly from all her dresses (don’t know if the costume designer was sleeping) – and it makes her look pretty bad. And even more disappointing is her acting - her Hazaron Khwaishein performance was really good but here she is just bad. And more personally, she appeared to be a beauty with brains when she first came on the movie scene - in this movie, she just comes across as dumb ! Majorly disappointed !!

So that’s it I guess – Sorry Onir Bhai but only