Film review: Happy New Year

Despite having all the ingredients for a smash Bollywood hit, Farah Khan's Happy New Year ends up being just average.

The cast of Happy New Year, from left to right: Vivaan Shah, Sonu Sood, Abhishek Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone and Boman Irani (Courtesy: Red Chillies Entertainments)

Director: Farah Khan

Starring: Deepika Padukone, Shah Rukh Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Jackie Shroff, Boman Irani, Sonu Sood

With Dubai's Atlantis, The Palm in a starring role and director Farah Khan and actor Shah Rukh Khan together again, Happy New Year was always going to get a lot of attention.

Too bad, then, despite some fun, bright moments, the film rarely rises above average.

Sure, Farah succeeds in what she does best: brilliant dance sequences that spare no expense or detail on sets, elaborate choreography and catchy tunes. And the film offers a lot to delight the average movie-goer, including a familiar, highly implausible Ocean's Eleven-esque heist plot.

Local cinema-goers will also be thrilled to see that Dubai features prominently. The opening minutes are set against a brilliantly lit-up Atlantis, while an elaborate fight sequence takes place atop a helipad in the marina. There was some driving shots around the Palm Jumeirah, and fan mobbing sequences shot at Dubai Mall.

The film’s highly implausible story - a Farah hallmark - unfolds around an elaborate diamond heist to avenge the death of Charlie’s (Shah Rukh) father (Anupam Kher) by a cheating bad man, Charan Grover (Jackie Shroff).

Derivative scenes unfold in which Charlie collects his team of experts: Tammy (Boman Irani), an expert in cracking safes; Jag (Sonu Sood), who knows everything about bombs; Rohan (Vivaan Shah), a hacking genius; and Nandu (Abhishek Bachan), a drunkard and body double. The UAE comes into the picture when it is revealed the diamonds in question have to be nabbed in Dubai, and this is where the plot twists to the director’s trademark affinity for the absurd. The team must access a room at Atlantis, The Palm, but that is possible only by participating in a dance championship. Deepika Padukone plays a bar dancer who prepares the unlikely crew for the competition; hilarity ensues.

Part of the problem with three-hour film is that the exciting and unexpected plot twists are mostly crammed into the last third. Yet although she isn’t breaking any new ground, the director has succeeded in bringing about a film that has doses of everything that works to sell out Indian cinema: the usual formula of a larger-than-life lead, an outsized cast, danceable songs - including a crowd-pleasing and patriotic final number - and acts of heroism.

The film is also peppered with entertaining references to popular movies from both India and the West, for example fighting sequences borrowed from 2000's Charlie's Angels.

A solid performance by Sonu Sood battled SRK’s abs for screen time in the film, although in the end - sadly or not, depending on the cinema-goer - the abs appeared to win out.

No matter how you feel about the film when it’s over, try to remember to hang around for Farah’s fun, trademark credits, where Shah Rukh’s youngest son, AbRam, and every single person involved with the movie have a cameo.