Running out of luck

Another weekend, another trashy Bollywood blockbuster and another 250 bucks and three hours down the drain.

Another weekend, another trashy Bollywood blockbuster and another 250 bucks and three hours down the drain.u00a0 Chandni Chowk to China, Billu, Kambakht Ishq and now Luck. Is there really no end to the number of high-budget over-publicised disasters?

First, there is the build-up PR where you have months of news leaks from the sets of these films. Since real storytelling and real acting seem to have disappeared for good from Hindi cinema, actors make up for it by 'rigorously preparing' for each role by either doing some hooey martial arts or having their designers fly in 70 pairs of shoes from across the world to match their clothes!

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u00a0Watch it at your own peril: A still from Sanjay Dutt-starrer Luck

While on the topic of clothes, there is of course an entire chapter devoted to the bikini and the near-reverential tone used to describe the people wearing it. Whatever, happened to actors like Sharmila Tagore who wore the bikini with as much u00e9lan as a septuagenarian's grey wig and cotton sari and was a consummate performer above all else?

The PR and the bikini combined render smaller things like good script and sensible dialogue pointless. And romance is reduced tou00a0 narcissistic seduction numbers!

The final icing on the cake is when the film releases and word of mouth viewer response reveals the film is trashy. Out come the indignant stars claiming that that critics' panning doesn't count because the masses love the film. Pray tell, who are these faceless masses? If I am paying big bucks at the multiplex to see the movie, then my opinion counts. As for Akshay Kumar lamenting that we tolerate leaps of faith in Hollywood movies like Hangover but diss it in Hindi masala flicks, I have news for him. Hangover is set in Vegas where anything can happen and usually does as well. And more importantly, the film was bloody funny! So a Mike Tyson's tiger in a Las Vegas hotel suite does not cancel out a beeping watch in your stomach Mr Kumar!