London Dreams

It's a bad season for Bollywood with all the big releases with a massive hype surrounding proving to be duds at the box office. London Dreams is no exception to that. Let's dissect it... It's all about chasing your dreams and how far will you go to achieve it. Sounds impressive right? But unfortunately the film is not.

Arjun (Ajay Devgan) is an aspiring musician who wants to make it big someday. His dream is to perform in Wembley stadium in front of a cheering 90,000 audience calling out his name. He is joined by two brothers, Zoheb & Wasim (debutants Aditya Roy & Ranvijay) and a ravishing Priya (Asin). Together they form "London Dreams" their dream band. After impressing the chief of a record company, they become overnight sensations. Arjun is secretly in love with Priya which he doesn't want to reveal till he achieves his goal. Arjun then brings his childhood friend Manjit Khosla aka Mannu (Salman Khan), a carefree flirtatious guy who has got no ambitions in life, to join their band. Mannu is a trained musician and a real talent for whom later Arjun become envious for Mannu's superior skills and his affair with Priya. Arjun with the help of Zoheb plans to blight Mannu. What happens next forms the rest of the movies.

Coming to the technical aspects, we feel only the shadow of Vipul Amritlal Sha whom we have admired in Namaste London. Felt like he simply visualized the screenplay. To cut it short, a glorified cameraman. Screenplay by Suresh Nair dulls even though it has its moments. Defined in a predictable fashion, the screenplay bore you to stiff. Camera work was awesome in capturing the beauty of London. It's the only entertaining part while watching songs.

Few songs are hummable while others are passable noisy fare. Ajay was the one who stole the show with his negative character. Salman is monotonous and he irks you. Asin is forgettable and I don't that she will make it big in Bollywood. Aditya Roy is impressive while Ranvijay is strictly OK. Brinda as the bitch is what we have seen in innumerable movies. Ompuri is ongoing with the proceedings. I don't want to pen down about the flaws as it will be a herculean task.

Finally let me put it simple and straight, London Dreams is a soulless movie which you may better enjoy on DVD.

Whilst the film has an interesting enough premise the execution is pretty much diabolical.

With the film being effectively developed over a ten year period, you would have thought that for a start the screenplay would have been a lot better. It really is weak with some barely creditable plot developments, which at times do chronically insult the viewer. I mean were they really serious about the last twenty minutes of the film? Atrocious!

The film is horribly miscast. Ajay Devgan as a young man trying to get a break in the music business? Okay he tries, but really this needed one of the up and comers or a completely new face. Salman Khan is at his usual overacting worst here and fails to convince at any level. Poor Asin gets stuck with in a "leading" role with basically nothing to do other than being the token shatteringly gorgeous love interest which for all the limited time on screen could have been competently handled by any number of Bollywood supporting actresses.

On a technical level there is not much horrendously wrong here, but it could and should have been so much better. The cinematography is good although the editing could have perhaps been a little tighter. Music was okay but not as good as it needed to be since it was the whole point of the film. Choreography was very average: I am still in two minds as to whether it should have been stripped out of the film completely or whether it needed to be more dazzling to support the music.

Overall London Dreams is a very large disappointment as it could and should have been so much better than what it ended up being. A hugely wasted opportunity.

I have been waiting for London Dreams since the days Rajkumar Santoshi was the director, the movie kept on delaying, and was eventually shelved. Later, Vipul Shah picked it up and the movie started rolling. Because of the name Vipul Shah (Aankhen, Namastey London, Waqt) and the wonderful cast of Salman Khan, Ajay Devgn and Asin was known, I was expecting a spectacular musical.

The movie did give me a satisfying feeling, though it missed out on a few things, unfortunately. The first half is very entertaining and keeps the viewers interested, the climax is also very gripping. Just the ending spoiled it all, it feels like Vipul Shah forced the movie to end, it could have been so much better.

Performance wise Salman Khan stood out once again, Salman carried the whole movie on his shoulders, he was very entertaining and very convincing. Asin looked beautiful and delivered a good performance, though her role was kind of small. Ajay Devgn was wonderful, the intensity of his character was visible in his very expressive eyes during the whole film.

Everyone thinks the music of this film is very weak, I disagree because I feel the movie is good, not great though. Barso, Mann ko ati bhave, Khwab jo, are foot tapping. The Wembley song performance by Ajay could have been a different composition.

The defect of the movie only lies within the last 7 minutes of the movie, which is such a pity, because I really liked the initial 2 and a half hours.

You should go for this movie if you want to see gripping performances, great cinematography and emotions. Don't watch the movie if you hate movies which have very bad endings!

Overall I would rate this movie 8 out of 10, because of superb Salman Khan, Ajay Devgn, Asin, the direction to a certain extent, and the great locales.

This movie is awful- it really is. And so unrealistic. How does a guy go from being a street performer to suddenly creating a sudden rock concert in Trafalgar Square and then getting a multi city tour with no exposure or experience and getting a swanky apartment.

If the story is unbelievable the acting is even worse. Ajay Devgan doesn't look like a rock star- he can barely dance and yet he's supposed to be a music God. And then you have Salman Khan- a man with so much natural musical talent which he ignores in order to womanize his way through life. His acting is supremely bad- the scene where he goes through the metal detector screeching like a retarded hyena was so annoying that I can't understand how it could pass for comedy.

This is a terrible movie that has only one conclusion: don't watch and if you're given a copy throw it away...or burn it.

I've got to admit though my interest in the film is none other than to follow up on Asin's phenomenal Hindi movie debut with the blockbuster hit movie Ghajini last year, and while it took almost 12 months for the release of her latest Bollywood movie (her first real one since she starred in an earlier, original version of the same role), she's one of the many stars I'm following as my introduction to the current wave of Hindi films, from Deepika Padukone to Ranbir Kapoor, and of course the established ones, which includes Salman Khan in this same film.

While one may not see Asin being featured too much on the promotions and the trailers, I suppose there's a valid reason for that. In fact, she probably got relegated, in my opinion, from leading lady in Ghajini, to supporting role in London Dreams, so much so that her character Priya becomes just one of the many background dancers in the Indian pop group band of the titular name, which is naturally a pity as the camera doesn't even linger too long to show us some of the moves learnt.

However, the good thing here was that she's the token love interest in a triangle between the two leading male characters, and in pure Asin style, took advantage of whatever limited time she has to flesh out Priya as best as she could, a woman caught in between fulfilling her traditional roles in her father's household, yet caught up by the bright lights that the city has to offer, together with a totally different, perhaps more attractive pop culture to want to become a dancer. And fate would lead her to Ajay Devgn's Arjun busking at Trafalgar Square with a makeshift band made up of two brothers of Pakistani descent.

If I could read this on another level going by how the plot developed, it's akin to a warning of sorts against consorting with foreign elements to harm one's own countryman, which should be an absolute no-no at any costs, because it will only open up such bonds to utter destruction. Surely the greed and jealousy of man may frustrate from time to time, but to lead to betrayal would be asking for a downfall.

London Dreams plays out like a classical Cain and Abel type story, where two brothers, one jealous of the other for his talent and recognition, plots the downfall against the other behind his back in betrayal most foul. Arjun has a dream, and that is to take his music to London, and play at the renowned Wembley stadium, where his grandfather had failed in his time and returned to India a broken man. He spends his early teenage life honing his musical skills, and ever ready to sniff out any opportunity to scale the music ladder until his goal is reached. His is a singular mind obsessed with the single goal, so much so that he's willing to self-flagellate (!) himself when his mind gets swayed by Priya and the chance for romance, or any other distractions that crosses his path that day actually.

Ajay Devgn plays Arjun with enough menace and envy to make him believable as a man who would go to great lengths and at any costs to ensure his road to glory is not jeopardized. Salman Khan's Mannu on the other hand, is blessed with great musical talent without even trying, and while Arjun sees this as an advantage to be gained should he bring Mannu back to London and join his band, little did he realize that Mannu's country boy demeanour would start to win the fans over, as well as Priya. There are plenty of scenes which set up this innocent usurping of another's thunder, and the decisions that come to spark off the entire turn of events just after the intermission.

As a musical film, somehow the songs and dance sequences didn't really stand out, although in general they weren't that bad, but not too memorable as well, other than the pulsating number first performed at Trafalgar Square. Salman Khan proves why he's one of the three King Khans of Bollywood through his rendition of a simple boy with simple pleasures, with plenty of cheekiness combined with great comic timing to bring in some laughs. That airplane scene was a classic light hearted touch in what was a dark tale about bringing down a best friend using the cruelest of methods and exploiting the weakness of another for no good benefit.

The ending too was too clean and too quick, where a pep talk magically puts one into empathy mode with perfect hindsight. I had expected a lot more from London Dreams with its premise and its cast, but what came across was something still palatable and won't get you all riled up like the audience in the film, but with potential as a successful box office dream likely going unfulfilled.