Same old, but with Ranbir

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ROCKSTAR HAS lots of things going for it: Ranbir Kapoor puts his best foot forward for the title role that obviously had great physical and emotional demands; A.R. Rahman’s music is sensational; director Imtiaz Ali has an impressive line-up of supporting cast, especially the two Mishras; and the film is beauteous – locations are stunning and Nargis Fakhri, despite and because of her moulded pout, is breathtaking. But all these things, even singly, are greater than the film.

Rockstar is trite and it often drags, and that’s mainly because of the uninspired story by Imtiaz Ali and Muazzam Beg.
We begin in Italy. There’s a mela outside the Arena di Verona where Jordan’s Wings on Fire concert is scheduled. Delirious, white fans are buying up every bit of memorabilia that’s being hawked. Given the mood and clamour, it doesn’t seem cool to ask, “But isn’t he, you know, Jordanji, from India, and doesn’t he sing in Hindi?” It’s the director’s conceit and we go along, rather enthusiastically, in fact, when we see Jordan (Ranbir Kapoor), brazen and unkempt, fight with local cops, break through a barricade, grab a guitar and stomp on to the stage with a snarl and a frown.
Cut to flashback. Via a montage of Jordan singing at all sorts of places – at jagratas, dargahs, with prostitutes, and at a bus stop – we learn that Jordan was Janardhan Jhakar, or JJ. The boy who idolised Jim Morrison was once told at an audition that he needed some attitude, dude.
He was also told, by college canteen-walla Khatara bhai (Kumud Mishra), that he didn’t have that thing inside him that makes great musicians: pain. Hysterical dialogue follow as JJ talks about how banal his life is -- how he has never been molested, is not adopted, et cetera. Convinced that “tute hue dil se hi sangeet nilakta hai”, the simple Jat boy decides to seek pain.
The exquisite, classy and uppity Heer Kaul (Nargis Fakhri), a Kashmiri college-mate at St. Stephen’s, was really not his type. But when all his friends sat down to ogle while she seriously performed some very serious contemporary dance, and one of them remarked, “Dil todne ki machine hai yeh,” JJ crashed into her posh gang and said, I love you. She told him to bugger off. He did, and later told her that she’s too neat, clean and hi-fi for him. Heer took umbrage and told him that she was going to watch Junglee Jawani. Haw, hai, sachchi? JJ was tickled, and off they went, on his bike, soon getting drunk on desi daru and she drawing up a list of all the tuchchi things she wanted to do before getting married and moving to Prague.
She goes to Kashmir to get married, and JJ joins the marriage party. Heer christens him Jordan and they slip out in the mornings for long bike rides, hot tea, shikara rides. During the day Jordan helps around with the shaadi arrangements. We see where this is going, and so does Heer when, on her mehndi night, she asks him to hug her tight.
We hop from a rockstar’s biopic to a love story, from the past to the present, from Kashmir to Prague to Delhi. By way of a TV reporter piecing together Jordan’s life, we jump to Jordan’s music career, which began with a family fight, paused at Hazrat Nizamuddin where Ustad Jameel Khan (Shammi Kapoor) spotted Jordan and got Platinum Records’ Dhighra (Piyush Mishra) to sign him on. A trip to Prague follows where there’s again a list, more bike rides, an extramarital affair, jail and deportation.
Jordan becomes a singing sensation, but he skips more concerts than he attends, fights with organisers, cops and media. All he wants is to be with Heer. But she is married, and now dying...

KARAN JOHAR weaves sentimental, designer family sagas on the screen. Sanjay Leela Bhansali tells operatic tales about man and love set in a dream world choking with gorgeous, velvety women and things. Anurag Kashyap goes down the gutters to look at aching, churning underbellies. Imtiaz Ali tells the same story over and over again.
Imtiaz has a thing for soul mates, and in his world they are assigned a very specific circuit: boy meets girl, they do fun buddy-giri, part, have epiphany and then rush to reclaim the love of their life. These lovers come in different combos, but, almost always, either the girl is to be married, or one of them mistakenly thinks that he/she is in love with someone else. In the end, however, they dance to a happy song.
Rockstar’s lovers are star crossed and while they don’t unite on dharti, they promise to meet, in the words of Rumi, “yahan se bahut door, galat aur sahi ke paar, ek maidan hai, main waha milunga tujhe”. Rest is same old same old, as in Socha Na Tha, Jab We Met and Love Aaj Kal.
Rockstar starts off well. Janardhan is an adorable fellow. Homespun and innocent, he is waiting to be violated, to be hurt. But Imtiaz and Muazzam’s constricted imaginations can only regurgitate old stuff.
Though some scenes (especially the ones with the two Mishras), are rather nice, Imtiaz is at his best when love is demand, haq se, thwarted, or there's reunion. The balle-balle buddy romance is now almost his signature. But the rest of the film seems out of his league. Imtiaz's skill is so limited that he even manages to ruin the Sadda Haq moment, a song we are sold on. Sadda Haq just arrives, apropos of nothing, fists raised and everybody screaming, demanding freedom here and there. As if this disembodied angst was not enough, he makes Jordan break the song to talk of trees and buildings before proceeding to the line “O eco-friendly nature ke rakshak...” Yikes!
What’s really annoying is that Imtiaz hardly gave any thought to sweet Janardhan’s transition to angry Jordan. Janardhan is a wannabe rebel, and Jordan is that rebel. The love that Jordan yearns and aches for lacks history and passion. Did it strike him with that one kiss? Or did it hit him when he was returning from Kashmir? Dunno.
And then there’s Jordan's music of which a great deal is made out. But Jordan hardly talks about music, and doesn’t really seem into it. That’s why he is unable to make Rahman’s music, or Mohit Chauhan’s voice, his own. We remain cold to this singing sensation.
Yet, take away Ranbir’s brilliant performance and Rockstar is flat. Imtiaz’s direction and story don’t even try to play catch-up with him.
Ranbir, with his body language and expressions, though exaggerated, gives us two distinct and believable characters -- Janardhan and Jordan. Janardhan, in hand-knitted sweaters, is stiff, silly and smiling. Jordan, wearing a weary-of-this-hullaballoo expression and Aki Narula’s costumes that seem borrowed from the wardrobes of Col. Muammar Gaddafi and his sexy Amazonians, strikes the perfect poses and pukes and behaves like a rockstar.
Ranbir controls the emotional tap, making us sad one second, angry the next, and yearning along with him for the girl he desires. With a little help from the writer-director, Rockstar could have been Ranbir’s Zanjeer.
Nargis is bloody gorgeous but an insanely bad actress. Her pout is very distracting and her speech is like that of a slow learner -- she speaks haltingly, with effort, her expressions forever out of sync with what she’s saying.