Barsaat

Barsaat -- Rain

MAIN CAST:
Bobby Deol -- Arav
Bipasha Basu -- Anna
Priyanka Chopra -- Kajal

BRIEF PLOT OVERVIEW:
Plot? This movie has a plot? Did I miss something?

FILM -- 0/5
It's never a good sign when you have to force yourself to sit through a movie. I wanted to give up on this flick after about 5 minutes, but I nailed myself to my seat. "Maybe it'll end on a high note," I thought, "maybe the music will rock," etcetera. After the first song, however, I realized that--while some of the music would be pretty good--the movie as a whole was a total mess. There's neither Bollywood brightness nor Hollywood realness to attract the eye, and the script makes the film barely watchable. What's worse, the picturizing has next to no effort behind it, so it often looks choppy and stupid.

CHARACTERS -- .5/5
I understand that this is Bobby Deol's first film, but come on! This man has two of the most beautiful women in Indian cinema fighting over him?! I think not! He has a total of two facial expressions, delivers in lines in an almost monotone voice, and completely lacks on-screen charisma. While most Bollywood actors look sexy or sweet while they dance, Deol just looks awkward and broken, like somebody threw him in to the middle of a Bolly film with no practice. Bipasha and Priyanka manage to lift the film a bit with their infinite hotness, but there's only so much a pretty face can do. Any acting ability these two women have is overshadowed by the horrible dialogue coming out of their mouths.

MUSIC -- 2/5
The bad part about Barsaat's music is that, like its spoken dialogue, most of the lyrics are really cheesy or don't fit right, in English or in Hindi. The good part is that a lot of the songs sound fresh and modern, including rappers and dance beats, and it works for this film. "Shaadi Jo Kiya" is the only impeccable song on the soundtrack; while most of the other songs are good, they aren't great, and they certainly don't match up to the unique flavor of SJK.

OVERALL -- 0/5
Movies are meant to be enjoyable, not torturous. It's a bad sign if you have to force yourself to sit through a film, and it's especially bad if you think a $2 rental was a complete waste of money. Barsaat has some redeemable qualities in the forms of Priyanka Chopra and Bipasha Bashu, as well as a few danceable tunes, but for the most part it's a total mess, with no replay value whatsoever. In fact, this film hardly has any "first viewing" value. If I were you, I'd skip Barsaat and use those three extra hours of your life to do something FUN.

TOTAL SCORE -- 2.5/20 (a complete disaster)