11 Reasons Why Dostana is Better Than I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

This post! I've been wanting to do it ever since we started this blog, but I just got inspiration again finally and decided to sit down and knock it all out.

11 Reasons Why Dostana > Hollywood's Version

So, we all know it happens. Bollywood quite frequently and quite shamelessly rips off Hollywood films. Sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's brilliant. Right now, I want to talk about one that is BRILLIANT in all caps.

Dostana (2008), about two men who pretend to be gay to live in a nice apartment and get their immigration papers approved quicker, is a shameless copy of the Adam Sandler-Kevin James flick "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" (2007) about two firefighters who pretend to be gay to keep one's pension benefits.

I watched Dostana first several months ago with trepidation because I really didn't find Chuck & Larry to be that great of a movie. In fact, I found it pretty much downright unfunny. Personally I'm not the biggest fan of Adam Sandler, but the man definitely has his moments; I find Kevin James definitely funnier though he's also not a favorite.

Well let's just say I was more than pleasantly surprised when I watched Dostana. I was in fits of laughter the entire time, and this instantly catapulted itself into my favorites list. I then made sure that Kiwi and Papaya watched it. Papaya never saw Chuck & Larry, but Kiwi agrees that Dostana is a thousand times better. We now bring you some reasons why, then some rambling/expounding below.

1. Abhishek Bachchan is funnier than (professional comedians!) Adam Sandler and Kevin James combined.

2. John Abraham is a million times better-looking than Adam Sandler and Kevin James. And that may be an understatement.

3. Friendship is a more translatable message than the garbled gay-rights-maybe-law-maybe-sacrifice? message of Chuck & Larry.

4. Abhishek and John pull off being a gay couple better than Adam Sandler and Kevin James, even with the horribly fake kiss. I mean, really, this movie gave us AbhiJohn! And what did Chuck & Larry give us? ...more Adam Sandler and Kevin James.

5. Music like Desi Girl! (Which is my ringtone. Irony being that I am not a desi girl except at heart.)

6. Kirron Kher (aka Dimples! as we call her) coming in as Sameer's mother presents the horribly hilarious complication of family entanglements that fails with Larry's kids, who are barely around.

7. Chuck & Larry tries to make a comedy from a serious situation (James's character is losing pension benefits as a widower); Dostana is a comedy with a heartfelt basis.

8. Dostana is young and fun, and Chuck & Larry is... not. Kevin James and Adam Sandler are, well, old. And yes, old people are funny too, even James and Sandler (see: Grown-Ups, Paul Blart: Mall Cop), but the youth of Dostana is a definite appeal.

9. Miami > New York for comedy and sex appeal. Florida girls may be biased, but come on, you have to admit you go to South Beach for fun in the sun, not New York.

10. Jessica Biel's character may have more substance and brains than Priyanka Chopra's, but the love story in Dostana (with Bobby Deol) makes infinitely more sense.

11. Bollywood avoids sex, but even the bed scene was better!

I love Abhishek Bachchan for many reasons. The poor guy is one giant gangly, goofy teenager, though (you probably would be too if you were a 6'3" [195 cm] monstrosity in a country where the average man is 5'5" [165 cm]), and it sometimes makes his "serious" dances in other films... Well, laughable. I'm sorry, but the man is ALL LEGS and no rhythm. Here he just gets to be that wildly hilarious gangly awkward teenager and it's GREAT (again, see Desi Girl). As a matter of fact, I wish Abhi would quit trying to do too many serious roles (taking on drugs and stuff in Dum Maaro Dum) and just have fun more often (or mix them, like in Bunty Aur Babli).

John Abraham is another one that I feel often gets lost in more serious roles. The man is adorable. Like I love it when he makes his goofy-looking laugh face. Let him be adorable. And he's darn hot too. As petty as it sounds, I'm tired of him being in roles where he has horrible long hair and you can't enjoy the beauty that is John Abraham.

And even though the first time I watched it, I thought Abhimanyu (Bobby Deol) was the peepeeman, I have to admit, I became increasingly endeared to Bobby as I watched the film over and over again. And, wonder of all wonders, he doesn't have horrible hair in this one!

But anyway, back to the comparison this post is really about. Really, I think the main problem with Chuck & Larry is that the movie started with an issue and tried to spawn a comedy off of that issue, so it tries to straddle the line between serious ideology-thumping and comic situations and juxtapositions. The two don't really mix. On the other hand, Dostana starts off with a comic situation that gets even worse (when both Sameer and Kunal decide they've fallen in love with Neha), but the whole thing is interwoven (not straddled) with a story of friendship and acceptance (which go hand-in-hand).

Yes, perhaps Chuck & Larry has a more serious and/or tightly written plot, but I'd go to bat with you over the quality of its weaver work. Does Chuck & Larry weave in four love stories (Abhi-Neha, Kunal-Neha, Sameer-Neha, Sameer-Kunal), a kid and a begrudging mom? Nope!

And I will say that on the surface, Jessica Biel's character in Chuck & Larry gets a lot more brains and substance to her (she is a lawyer) than Priyanka Chopra's Neha, who has spunk but ends up mostly being just batted between the three guys that love her. BUT Jessica Biel has to walk around in a bra and underwear and put Adam Sandler's hands on her boobs for sex appeal. All Priyanka has to do is stand up in a shimmering gold one-piece bathing suit.

All the appeal with twice the clothes and none of the sluttiness. Doesn't that = more power?

In case you haven't gotten it yet, I think Dostana puts Chuck & Larry to shame, especially in the laughs department. This film never ceases to make me laugh, no matter how many times I watch it.

Twice the Akki: Action Replayy (2010) & Namastey London (2007)

Again with the long time before updating! Sorry. I just completed the equivalent of 8 a.m. to 2 a.m. eight-straight-day copy-editing boot camp. So for the wait, twice the Akki for the price of one:

Action Replayy

Kishen (Akshay Kumar) and Mala (Aishwarya Rai) had an arranged marriage and hate each other. After they fight at their 30th anniversary party, their son Bunty (Aditya Roy Kapoor), who has been running from marriage after seeing his parents’ attitudes, decides to make them fall in love by going back in time with a time machine built by his girlfriend’s grandpa, Anthony Gonsalves (Randhir Kapoor).

Reasons to watch: Retro-ness! Seriously, who doesn’t enjoy a good ’70s slingback every now and then? Despite the fact that Aish only looks the part half the time, you’ve gotta love the blast from the past.

Akshay Kumar is hilarious, as always, even though HIS HAIR IN THIS FILM IS BEYOND ATROCIOUS. Please, please, dearest Akki, never do this to yourself again. Seek to get further from, not closer to, Bobby Deol’s hair catastrophes stylings.

Does this remind anyone of someone?

Maybe THIS catastrophe?

 

Geeky!Akki. It is hilarious, adorable and endearing all wrapped up in one.

Reasons not to watch: The whole premise is a bad take on Back to the Future, and the explanatory parts are too quick and pretty much don’t make sense. So in effect, the film barely, barely makes sense and it has plot holes the size of Mumbai. Like how did Bunty persuade Gonsalves to fix the time machine? How the heck did the guy figure out in weeks how to fix something it took him a lifetime to create before?

Bunty is kinda obnoxious and more than kinda annoying. I feel like a lot of the things he did were unnecessary and too obviously screwed things up more, dragging things out unnecessarily.

Hilarious Akki + annoying kid (Aditya Kapoor).

HOWEVER, Akki is so completely ADORKABLE (yes, that is dorky adorable) in the flashback sections of the film that it makes up for the annoyingness of other persons!

ADORKABLE!

Long story short, probably not worth your time unless you just watch some of the central flashback part for Akki and leave the rest alone.

Namastey London

British Indian brat Jasmeet “Jazz” Malhotra (Katrina Kaif) gives her parents hell by being a British party girl and rejecting all of the nice Indian husbands her father (Rishi Kapoor) tries to pick for her. So daddy and mummy haul her off to India for a visit and while there, get her married to Punjabi farmer Arjun Singh (Akshay Kumar). Jazz pulls a fast one by demanding that they come back to England immediately for the reception, not giving the Indian marriage enough time to be legalized in the U.K. Instead, she announces her engagement to her British boss, Charlie Brown (yes, Charlie Brown – intentionally or ignorantly absurd?). Arjun, in love with bratty Jazz since first sight, is less than willing to give her up.

I came into this one with higher expectations and was sorely, sorely disappointed.

I really and honestly do adore the Akki and Katrina jodi – they’re both the right degree of spazzy and adorable to work! (Even though Akki’s closer to Rishi Kapoor’s age than KK’s.) Also, I love Rishi Kapoor. So much. He should be shown off more in films like this, not kept down to a minimum.

But as much as I love the people in this one, I really didn’t like it. I was pretty OK with it until two-thirds of the way through.

We work so well together.

I felt like it would be interesting to see the marriage of cultures, and the beginning promises to be that. By the end, the film is going out of its way to have all douchey white people. Like to the point of being absurd.

Oh, Akki. How I love thee sometimes.

And the only culturally-mixing couple that actually gets to exist in this film are Jazz’s friend Imran Khan (Upen Patel) (name irony, yes?) and his English girlfriend Susan, and even they don’t really mix cultures but stick to one family. When Imran tells his parents he and Susan are moving in together, Imran’s parents cast him off. When they tell Susan’s parents they want to get married, Susan’s parents demand that Imran renounce Islam and change his name, and from there Imran and Susan leave Susan’s parents and flee back to Imran’s, who magically take him back. (It’s kind of an interesting paradox: Susan’s parents accept Imran in theory and not in practice; Imran’s parents accept Susan in practice and not in theory.)

Then there’s also the fact that after Arjun gives her away Jazz runs out of her wedding with Charlie to catch Arjun and tell him she wants to stay married to him, and she runs out of the church… Scene cut to Jazz and Arjun riding a scooter in Punjab. ?!?!?!??!?! What??! We don’t deserve an explanation of what happens? We don’t get to know if they had an English wedding and another Indian one or what they decide on where to live, work, etc., after the film has tried to be ABOUT this subject.

Somebody has a split-second revelation about being a brat.

Akki also has unexplained dyed hair...?

 

So, in effect: This film about marrying/merging cultures basically doesn’t. Ignoring the failed attempt at that, I suppose it’s a pretty decent Akki/Katrina romance, but nothing more.

Thank You (2011)

  Okay, so me, Mango, and Papaya went to see Thank You in the theaters tonight. Which Mango probably is writing about or in the middle of writing about as I type this, lol. I know there have been A LOT of bad reviews for this movie. But I so happen to love this movie.

  A funny note for this movie though... I think Akshay Kumar doesn't seem to like pants in this movie, lol. He wears a lot of robes as do others in this movie. And when the first part where Akshay jumps up and you see sensor blocks, I thought I was just seeing things, lol. I was completely startled. I didn't really enjoy that part; I just don't see why they couldn't have covered it up a little more... cleverly? lol. Not that there was really anything to see, I think he had shorts under... I... please don't tell me I opened a can of worms? lol.

  Oh! but him wearing a pink sari? That was priceless! Even though you did see it in the trailer, it still kind of shocked me and was like 'oh my gosh', lol. He played it off well, with no indicator he felt embarrassed or shameful. Kind of cute if you ask me ;P

  I liked the directing and producing though. It was different... the camera shakes and such (sorry I'm not a pro, I don't have big words to use for it). As Papaya had quoted me before, please don't think I'm out of line:

"lexiburpsalot Elysa: (discussing #ThankYou & what we did/didn't like about it) "I liked it. It was spazzy and it was like you're on acid but you aren't." "  -- lol, I thought it was funny.

  As for those who said it wasn't funny, I found it freaking hilarious. Laughed throughout the whole movie. There wasn't really a time I wasn't at least smiling.

  Oh I'm going to end my little tidbit with the fact that Bobby Deol's hair bothered me in this movie. I know we're going "retro" with the 80's... but that hair is not the way to go... and there was one scene where his hair was cut decently, but it was just a tease! The next scene it went back and you never saw it that way again.  What a tragedy. You can't see it too terribly well here, but trust me. If only he would've cut the back bottom of it, it would have been much, much better.

   However, I will give this movie a 4 out of 5 stars. I will probably buy this movie, and add it to my growing collection of movies I love : ]

   Oh! And (in response to those who say he should retire) I don't care what they say, keep Akshay! He can't retire yet! lol : ]