A capital capitulation!

 

 

R akeysh Omprakash Mehra’s “Delhi 6” looks much like a pedestrian travelogue on Delhi as the cinematography navigates the nooks and crannies of Chandni Chowk or Dilli 6. It could have been a Doordarshan worthy documentary but filmmaker Mehra’s stratospheric standards take a big dive. Actually, they totally evaporate! Besides, with a Ramleela allegory running amok and that ludicrous heavenly rendezvous, what is shocking is that the involvement of multiple brains including that of Prasoon Joshi resulted in such a pseudo-intellectual mismatch. The story of a non-resident young Indian brought up in NY returning to Chandni Chowk perhaps held promise, but fails spectacularly and embarrassingly.

Abhishek Bachchan is Roshan, the kid who’s come in from New York with his dadi (Waheeda Rehman) and all the attention is showered on him, but his presence melts into the ordinary. So much so that his speech of sorts at the climax (presumably a high point of the film) ends up looking pathetically lame. Sonam Kapoor looks good, gets itsy bitsy screen time and acts... well actually, she doesn’t. And then there is the rest of the stuffed cast and crisscrossing story lines which meander towards nowhere. “Delhi 6” is part love story, part social commentary, part farce and part dark comedy as it stumbles towards a melodramatic, chaotic, confusing and ultimately laughable climax. The last nail is the totally ridiculous Kala Bandar story (remember Monkey Man?) which from a cheeky joke turns into a character, plot device and metaphor all rolled into one. The cocktail that finally results is difficult to swallow; if there was a message in this movie, I’m afraid it was lost somewhere in the maze of mediocrity that “Delhi 6” is. “Rang De Basanti” suggested that Mehra can be a good storyteller as long as he does not give into his penchant for an orgy of kitschy-arty metaphors (remember “Aks”?).