Rock on. Sad let down

After watching this movie yesterday night, I came back and checked up a few reviews on the web.Quite a few bloggers have reviews praising this movie as a signal achievement. There is a site called crazyengineers.com which has a forum thread on it. All the forum members have only this to say:
"Great/Awesome/Mind-blowing movie. Read my review here"
I am sure they have far more to say in their respective reviews but I really have'nt checked.

Now why am I adding my feeble voice to this chorus?

Because I beg to differ.

Frankly Mr. Akhtar. You are losing your touch. Dil Chahta Hai was an epic. One reviewer said, "Its not whether you have watched this movie or not (You have) but its more how many times you have watched it". I agree. Lakshya was a sensitive take on the growing up of an individual. Don was a sad let-down and only today I realized that you also had made this movie called "Honeymoon Travels". But we are talking about "Rock On"

The music is simply awesome. Its a given that for the Indian audience, something on the lines of hard-core rock music would not do. The compromise between saleability in the Bollywood context and loyalty to the rock-music genre is well done. There was something both for me (an ACDC fiend and a head-banging moron in Purple Haze) and my Dad who relaxes after a hard day's work to Classic Hindi film music. When the movie ended I was left wishing for a few more songs.

But on the other hand, I found the movie remarkably superficial.

Aditya (Farhan Akhtar) has everything in life I dreamed of while I burnt my midnight oil preparing for JEE. He has a cool job as an investment banker, a lavish apartment, a BMW, a beautiful wife, six-pack abs, and some history as the lead singer in a rock band. He also manages to have this angry/distant/reserved attitude in life which makes the society women swoon over their collective gins wondering what is behind the facade. Unfortunately behind the facade is nothing.

This is a guy who had a great band going. Then in one of the creative arguments that band-members have, he gets punched and walks out. While he does that, he also obligingly ditches a girl-friend (who all the while was only good for sundry kisses during breaks in rehersals anyway) and just vanishes.

Ok buddy.
One punch and you ditch your friends. You ditch your girl-friend after a hastily scribbled note. And thereafter you maintain this air of a man done grievous wrong for the next ten years.

Hello???
I would pick up the phone the next morning and try to set things right. Fine you had a problem with your lead guitarist but what of the other two in you band? What of the girl on your arm? Did you care for those three at all as people or were they only fillers to populate the scene?

After watching this scene, I wistfully recalled a similar scene in Dil Chahta Hai. It was great! Beautifully done! There was just the right amount of depth in its treatment. Sure every-time I watched that movie again, I fast-forwarded through that scene but without it your story does not stand!

There are some great scenes in the movie. Like the one in which Aditya's wife is cajoled into singing by his band-mates. When she protests that she only knows Hindi songs, everyone goes quiet in derision. Then Joe, KD and Rob come together and accompany her on their instruments while she sings in an uncertain voice. That was a great scene in which Sakshi is accepted in their clan even though she is very different.

But over all I found the movie a bit list-less. Frankly when the intermission was signalled, I was wondering if it was a mistake because so little had happened in the first half!

It is indeed refreshing to see Hindi movies moving away from the usual boy-meet-girl genre that had become the staple of Bollywood till a few years ago but otherwise this movie is not up to what I expect from Farhan Akhtar.