Cast: Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Waheeda Rehman, Rishi Kapoor, Om Puri, Pawan Malhotra, Surpiya Pathak, Sheeba Chaddha, Vijay Raaz, Divya Dutta, Aditi Rao

Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

Pincode, Zero Six. Rakeysh Omraprakash Mehra sets his coming-back-to-roots story in Old Delhi: the never-empty narrow ‘galis', the ‘havelis' within, the connected rooftops, the ‘patang-baazi', the cows and the cars, the rickshaws and the hand carts, the `jalebis' and the ‘golgappas', the mandir and the masjid, the skull caps and the saffron `gamchas' .

And the people, people, people: seldom has Chandni Chowk, currently Bollywood's flavour du jour, been recreated on screen with such verve and fidelity.

The film opens with New York-based Roshan (Abhishek), flying in with his dying grandmom (Waheeda), straight into the bosom of her large, extended family and neighbours.

They—estranged brothers (Om and Pawan), trying-to-keep-the-peace ‘bhabhis' (Supriya and Sheeba), spinster ‘bua' (Aditi), and the free-spirited Bittu (Sonam) who wants to be the next Indian Idol—envelope the new arrivals in the warmth and the bustle, old affections and new rivalries of Purani Delhi.

The trouble with ‘Delhi 6' is just this: Mehra is so focused on getting the setting right that he forgets to move his movie along. It's one thing to translate the slow, old-world quality of the place; it's quite another for your story to have to struggle to come up for air.

Roshan spends a lot of his time sitting, listening, talking, only once in a while breaking out into a jog. Which is fine when he starts out doing it—it's all new to him, as it is for us—but the repetitive loops start getting in the way all too soon.

... contd.