Rock On - Review

Movie - Rock On
Cast - Farhan Akhtar, Arjun Rampal, Purab Kohli, Luke Kenny, Prachi Desai
Directed By - Abhishek Kapoor

I recieved an sms from a friend - an avowed hindi film hater - saying that Rock On is a good movie and I should not miss watching it in the theatre. The promos had been quite encouraging and it looked like Bollywood had something different coming in after a long time. Another friend told me that it was somewhat a cross between Dil Chahta Hai and Jhankar Beats - two movies that I've loved immensely. So I sacrificed a happy day's sleep and went for it today, pulling along two other colleagues of mine. Did I like the movie? Hard to say. Did I hate it? Not in a long shot. Overall, my feeling was that it was well worth the time but definitely not worth paying a hefty two hundred bucks at Inox.

The plot :
Can't resist being cheesily Joharish here....Its all about loving your bandmates. As my friend aptly put it, its somewhat a cross between DCH & JB. So, we have this rock band called Magik consisting of the egoistic and self-centred crooner Adi (Farhan Akhtar); an immensely talented lead guitarist Joe (Arjun Rampal); Kedar aka KD (Killer Drummer), played by Purab Kohli, a misfit in a family of diamond merchants but completely in charge with drums in front and sticks in hand; and the soul of the band Rob (Luke Kenny), the keyboardist. The movie is about the band members going their own ways (sulking and unhappy about it ofcourse, but never game to admit the truth) and Adi's wife Sakshi's (Prachi Desai) efforts to bring them back together. That's the plot of the movie.

What worked for me:
Though credits for the direction have gone to Abhishek Kapoor (who previously directed the Rocky wannabe called Aryan with Sohail Khan), every frame in the film shouts Farhan Akhtar. So, the first thing that works is the understated gloss so typical of DCH and so unlike YRF or Dharma Productions' ventures. The next thing that works is the performances. The four band members have gotten under their character's skin with terrific results. Even the supporting cast of the wives and girlfriends have done their bit well. Arjun Rampal is probably the most improved actor in Bollywood today - a far cry from the stone sculpture in Deewanapan to the vile Mikey in Om Shanti Om to the brooding Joe in Rock On. Farhan Akhtar is a revelation though his singing didn't impress me much. Purab Kohli repeats his My Brother Nikhil act in terms of spontaneity and screen presence. Luke Kenny, the one I was most apprehensive about in the acting arena surprised me by being so natural in the role of Rob. And yes, this is one of the bravest themes (braver than Chak De I'd say) that I've seen a director handling in Bollywood. And he sticks to the theme without veering away from it.

What could've worked better for me:
The director (whether it was AK or FA) should've worked on bringing forth some of the finer points of the plot. For example, the film dwells more on the reunion but the break-up is not very convincing enough. This leaves a lot of questions, unanswered ofcourse, in the viewer's mind. The music was a notch or two below what I would call first rate. Except for Pichle Saat Dino Mein, the other tracks didn't make much of an impression. When its a film on a Rock Band, the focus should've been clearly on Rock based strains, but S-E-L erred a bit by trying to experiment with other styles in a Rock based backdrop.

What just didn't work for me:
This is the first time Bollywood has experimented with a pure rock based theme in a movie. And this was a wonderful opportunity for the team to educate the masses a little bit about rock music. The movie comes across as severely pretentious while attempting to do so. I'd say that it looked more like an attempt at showing off rather than one at educating people on the nuances of rock. For example, you have umpteen dialogues like "I'll join you from the fourth bar." etc. Shows that you've worked hard on researching the subject of your theme. But to what purpose? More than 3/4's of the audience will not get a head or tail of whats being said. Something else that didn't work for me was the complete lack of humour in the movie. Though there are a couple of scenes where Purab Kohli's character tries to do a Saif like in DCH, but those attempts at humour don't look convincing at all. Not for any fault of the actor; just that the scene and the lines didn't quite fit in. And finally, it was a shame that with such a strong potential for a gripping plotline, the final product was a bit tepid. The fault here lies with the poor character development - something which if done well could have changed this from a GOOD movie to a GREAT one.

Overall Verdict:
This truly is one movie that is not to be missed. However, I would still suggest people to wait a couple of weeks for the ticket prices to drop. Its a movie that I would classify as an very good one time watch though it missed that immortal shelf life tag due to reasons mentioned above.

Rating : 3.5/5