Salaam Namaste – a film review

 

I was looking forward to nice time-pass when I went for Salaam Namaste. I thought Preity Zinta and Saif Ali Khan would be nice to watch.

However I didn’t get even that much. Sure, Preity looked cute and Saif has a good body and they both acted well. But if I have to say something else which is nice, I’ll have to scratch my head.

Songs were very average. However during the picturisation I didn’t scream with boredom.

The story? Flawed from the beginning. Difficult to imagine that any radio jockey (Preity/Amber) would badmouth (on radio!) a person who comes late to her show to be interviewed to the extent they show. Anyone who does that is not fit for the job. Or perhaps I’m taking the movie too seriously.

Okay, so Amber meets Nick/Saif and they fall in love.

Next? Well, a few days later they move in together, ostensibly into separate bedrooms. I wonder if they are twelve year olds who think that two people who are madly attracted to each other can stay in the same house all by themselves in a romantic location, share bathrooms and manage not to sleep together? This is India for gods sake. People have sex here too!

The director tries to show the couple adjusting to each other’s very different habits. Strangely, Amber is fanatic about time but extremely messy as a person. I thought these two qualities didn’t go together. Then we have Saif who is never on time, a ‘creative’ chef but who is fanatic about neatness. A guy who likes to sleep late and watch television late into the night but hey…he simply loves to wash the dinner dishes and make sure the kitchen is spotless before he does that. Wierd huh?

There’s more. He’s a chef who loves to come home and cook! I didn’t think chefs liked to come home and cook.

And this is just the first half of the movie. The bad part actually starts in the second half. There is predictability and more predictability, crass comedy and a story which drags on. There are also some distasteful references to women and children…which the director thinks are funny.

Yawn. I simply cannot continue. I wish I had not wasted my time on this one.