Dil Bole Hadippa!

It takes courage and bravery for an actress to portray a man. Only an actress who is dedicated to the profession and a depth and range to the acting can take on a role,which other actresses would shun or purely not capable of playing. This movie is all about Rani Mukhejee. This is an actress born to act and born to entertain-period. It's a good story but this Bhai-Bhai stuff is repetitive,overdone,nauseating and repulsive.How about Bhai-Bye Bye. These idiot scripwriters cannot come up with anything original.Enough of this crap.For the male lead someone like Akshay Kumar would have been good for this role but Shahid Kapoor is maturing as an actor but he works below his potential for the most part. The music was lilting and the Punjab scenery is colorful. As far Rakhi Sawant, only wish could see more of this bombshell.

I was at the premiere of 'Dil Bole Hadippa!' at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film is a story about a girl going after her dreams to play in a big league men's cricket team. The film portrays a lot of Indian Punjabi culture and is very patriotic. Fabulous acting by Rani Mukherji playing double roles in the movie. Shahid Kapoor also delivered a brilliant role as the head coach of the cricket team. The film was well directed and produced. I personally did not like the music that much except for a couple of tracks. It is a relatively decent movie for family viewing. Overall, this was a well-made movie accompanied by a good story.

Yashraj turns up with another sugar-coated melodrama but I watched it for only one reason. That is Rani Mukherjee. When I see her in films like this (and everything she's done in the last 7 years) I can't help but feel sorry for the actress who is incredibly talented and who wastes her gift in such pathetic movies. The basic concept is borrowed from the Amanda Bynes movie 'She's The Man' (which was another ridiculous film) and there was the extra addition of overdone patriotism, culture clash and gender equality and whatever that is done in a preachy, melodramatic and amateurish manner. A lot of the themes have been rushed while some weren't even necessary (like the Sherlyn Chopra track). The songs are downright forgettable even though I liked some of them mostly for Sunidhi Chauhan's energy. Mukherjee is excellent and for me she made the film watchable. She is very convincing as the girl-pretending-to-be-a-young-sardar and vivacious as the streetsmart village belle. The actress proves once again that she has a natural flair for comedy. Shahid Kapur is formulaic as is Anupam Kher. Rakhi Sawant is alright in what she's given. Sherlyn Chopra seems to have been promoted from B grade movies to, uh, more expensive films but her acting is horrendous and her dialogue delivery makes her sound like she's heavily stoned. I guess Amisha Patel wasn't available to play the bimbo this time. Overall, it's one of those films that you can watch with the family (if they like this kind of movie) and then just forget about it.

DBH is not a bad movie, per say, it just isn't a very good one. A typical Yashraj film which evokes memories of DDLJ, Mohabattein, K3G etc, which is not necessarily a good thing. In an age where one should be striving to be original and innovative this movie sinks into the depths of yesteryear and tries to emulate the success of past Yashraj films in the hopes of scoring another victory. It's clear that someone was still hung up on the past and my guess is that it's the film studio rather than the director. The musical beats, the "heroic" and super main lead, the independent and lovable lead actress, the styles and moods...this could just be called DDLJ part 2.

The two biggest flaws which undoubtedly leads to the undoing of the movie is the second half of the movie and Shaid Kapoor.

The second half became overly melodramatic, the ending was clichéd, contrived and silly. The cricket game itself becomes a sham with the supposed twist and turn as the Indian team go from invincible to amateur in the blink of any eye, and all because the skipper decides to sulk at the "betrayal" Shaid Kapoor, the other weak link, takes himself WAY too seriously in this movie. Someone forgot to tell him that this is meant to be a light hearted fantastical comedy i.e. in other words a typical masala movie. I mean you've got Rani running around dressed as a young Punjabi boy, grinning inanely and playing cricket and there's Shahid emoting away as if his life depended on it, going all husky and dopey eyed whenever possible. I don't know if he watched every single Shah rukh khan movie before taking on this role but he clearly tried to his best imitation of an over the top SRK, which failed. What also failed was the parody of other big hits, a scene that should have been funny but fell quite flat.

The start of the movie was good- it was light, it was a bit funny and the intro song "Hadippa" was catchy and set the mood. Rani was great as Veer, slightly annoying as Veera but the contrast was decent and it was interesting to see her switch between the two roles. And then came Shahid, the anchor that weighed everything down.

Had this movie remained on a light hearted track it would have worked and been worth watching again. Also if the cricket match could have involved the rest of the team collectively it would have made for a better ending rather than the two main characters slogging it out.

This movie was supposed to be about cricket but after Shahid enters it virtually disappears and is just used for the climax of the movie and even then it was poorly executed. Despite the ease of the way Shaid and Rani hit fours and sixes having watched the recent IPL T20 games it does not work that way.

Sure, there was a message about women's rights and equality in the world. If they're every bit as equal on the sports field then they should play for the men's team. But that was a message that needed to be handled with a better, and preferably strong and original, director and a more serious setting. Instead the message was: if you can copy the past which deviate from the path? A real pity, for this movie could have been very good. It's worth watching for Rani, who looks really lovely, and for the soundtrack which is nice to listen to. For a better cricket movie watch Victory, which is by default the best cricket movie, which is not saying much as it has its own faults.

This movie is basically the Bollywood version of She's the Man with Channing Tatum and Amanda Bynes. Your counterparts in those roles are Shahid Kapoor and Rani Murkherji respectively.

The movie is pretty funny - the cheesy slapstick comedy that is trademarked Bollywood. I really enjoyed all the past movie references that occur throughout the film in both the dialogue and background movie choices, it really gave the impression that the movie wasn't a movie but actually a real life situation - which it is - but while never getting too serious. There were some sub plots that felt neglected and incomplete. But since this movie is almost 3 hours long you can get over that and just make your own endings for them. Overall a very enjoyable Bollywood style film.