This is as sanitized, and as puerile as a rock star movie can get.Rock On!!, the most celebrated, was antiseptic enough, although more sophisticated. London Dreams makes a joke out of the rock star movie. Director Vipul Amrutlal Shah is obviously clueless in this area.The story goes: Arjun (Ajay Devgan) and Manjit or Mannu are childhood friends who hang out in Bhatinda’s mustard fields. Mannu’s father is a musician, but Mannu is not interested in learning the art himself. He, it turns out later, is an untrained, natural singer. Arjun, on the other hand, is passionate about music, but his father doesn’t allow him to learn because Arjun’s grandfather, who was a Sufi musician, once went to perform in London’s Wembley stadium and was tongue-tied when he saw the huge crowd. Arjun runs away to London when he gets an opportunity. He plays the flute on the road and earns money to train as a musician, forms a band, London Dreams, with two Pakistani boys and Priya, a Tamilian (Asin). Mannu joins the band later, and predictably enough, steals Arjun’s thunder and his secret love Priya, who Mannu calls “Chennai Express”.
It’s an expensive film, made with around Rs80 crore, and the money shows in the sweeping sets. As in his earlier films, Shah has made yet another big film—big, in the literal sense.
The script and performances fall woefully short. There are some genuinely funny moments when Mannu is up to his son-of-the-soil antics, but unfortunately, most of the funny moments arise because of the ludicrous situations in the plot. For example, Arjun whips himself until he bleeds when Priya distracts him from his music, and when he plots against his friend to grab the limelight. Everyone in the audience laughed aloud when that happened.
The two rock stars are too old to be true and laughable too; if you’re can’t be like Mick Jagger, you can’t pull off the sex-on-stage in your 40s.
Devgan is a fine actor trapped by his persona—the dark, brooding hero, as we know him. In this film, he’s a caricature of that persona. His intensity is exaggerated and unconvincing. Asin has little to do except dance in the background when Mannu and Arjun take centre stage. Khan plays up to his real-life image—that of a generous, impetuous, comical star. If London Dreams works at the box office, it would largely be because of Khan’s star appeal.
The music, by Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy, has variety as well as depth—one of the best this year. But it’s difficult to survive all 160 minutes of London Dreams just because of its music
