Review - Partner: Typical David Dhawan-Govinda-Salman fare

An open mind helps. I laughed out loud a few times in the first half - playing along, humoring the makers, taking silliness at face value, generally taking a chill pill. Really, otherwise I wouldn't have "liked" the movie even this much. But, the jokes took a sudden dip in the second half and the last half hour literally wore me out. I will make my peace with being labeled a stuck-up.

I don’t care much for the David Dhawan style of escapism and I certainly don't think we were missing much while Govinda was away pulling faces in the parliament. So, obviously, by transitivity I am certainly not big on the David Dhawan-Govinda combination. (Ok, no need to get all geeky on me and bring up the nitty-gritty of the theory.) The point is that if you fall in any of the above categories, you are at the wrong place.

Having offended 64% of the Hindi cinema-goers, I must reassure the rest of you that I am in no way trying to infuse any intellect into a David Dhawan presentation. Lest my intellect be questioned. Still searching my heart and soul desperately - looking for something more than a few jokes to like the movie.

Unfortunately, I am also not into Salman Khan, his biceps (or his jokes on showing them off), or his very intentional melodramatic dialogue delivery. Oh well...might as well go ahead and say that Katrina Kaif looks more and more like a plastic doll with heavy make-up on. The good thing is the director was smart enough not to give her too many lines. Oops! I just lost another 34 (31 + 3)% of the Hindi cinema goers. Lara Dutta on the other hand, is looking prettier by the day. And somehow that has also improved her acting.

When ideas are copied from some other movies, obviously making a frame-by-frame copy adds no creative value. But, when you see the additions made to Andy Tennant's Hitch in Partner you begin to rethink your unwarranted and utterly ridiculous demands for creativity.

When there were no songs for the first 20 odd minutes, I thought I had dozed off at some point and missed a whole load of fun. Though I must say that they were making up for it with the extra background score and loudly delivered lines. And when calamities come they come in battalions. I was shown song after song with music that you could tap your feet to but was missing the extra something that makes a song memorable. And well, the lyrics lack soul. But, the good thing about Salman and Govinda is that they never disappoint as dancers. Though I could have survived even without their pelvises being thrust here, there and everywhere (sitting in second row from screen did not help!). But, then can't really complain, can I? It is a David Dhawan movie, after all.

I must admit that this is more than the regular slapstick that has people chasing people and throwing stuff at each other. There is the regular slapstick (Govinda with pants down, et al) + a missile chasing Salman in a scuba suit (Oh come on girls, wipe that drool!!) + a choTa Don with the Don theme music in the background + etc. Sounds like fun to you? Go for it! May be the last 2% of us should form a self-help group so we can begin to understand the rest of our race.