Fizzes, Then Fizzles

Cocktail

DIRECTOR: Homi Adajania

CAST: Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Diana Penty, Boman Irani, Dimple Kapadia, Randeep Hooda

Rating: **1/2

There's this guy, he's too cool, ya. Lives and works in London, chases girls, gets 'em, beds 'em, moves on. There's this girl, she's wild. Has this nice pad in a tony part of London, which she uses as a stopover to change clothes in between all the partying. And, of course, there's this other girl, who's the 'seedhi-saadhi' type, you know, covered from top to toe, sweet, shy.

Place these characters in a shiny glass jar, shake with a swizzle stick, and you get Cocktail. Which is just another name to call a one guy-two girls shtick, which is, as you and I know, one of the oldest in the book. Cocktail starts off headily enough, and bubbles along till half time; post that, the sips get diluted, and the swallows take much longer.

Gautam (Khan) is the sort of guy who sees anything female as a challenge, and they seem to fall like nine pins. In the real world, he'd get called desperate, in Cocktail's sleekly appointed confines, he is the lucky sod who gets all the action he wants. He tries his luck with the just arrived-in-London-and-dealing- with-abandonment-issues Meera (Penty), who is not interested . But Meera's newfound friend and flatmate Veronica (Padukone), the very same insane party chick, is in. So here's our trio: cue smart lines about 'threesomes', and lots of fun stuff. Quick trip, just like that, no money woes for pretty people, to South Africa, which leads to beaches, bikinis, oiled flesh. Only problem: Gautam's mummyji (Kapadia) and mamaji (Irani), who are busy match-making, and ruining the party.

There's some good stuff in Cocktail. Adajania, who's made Being Cyrus with Khan, is a director with style. Here, he joins hands with Imtiaz Ali's nifty dialogues, and we are made to feel good by seeing these lovely looking people do the stuff that people do when sex is in the air, and love is around the corner. The trouble begins when the L word gets centre-stage: to be any good, a romcom needs heartache and tears, but needs to be careful of sogginess. Cocktail sparkles when the fun and games are on (even though it has some scenes which have been bunged in just for laughs), and gives us a couple of splendid moments when there is silence. No loud background music, no motor mouth lines, just blessed quiet, the way sometimes you want to know what you are feeling without ruining it with chatter. But it can't handle the being emo half as deftly.

... contd.

ALSO READ

The Storytellers’ Tales

Review Shootout At Wadala: Gives us a bunch of gangsters and cops

Movie Review: Celluloid Man is a true labour of love

Movie Review: Bombay Talkies fills one with hope