Okay, first up I suppose I best say that this is the best film Akshay Kumar has done for a long time. Whilst he will never be a great actor, at least here he does an excellent job with a character that could have been a disaster. No over the top performance, this is a measured effort that conveys the character's inner turmoils very well.
The rest of the cast also do a fine job. Rishi Kapoor is always excellent and does a very creditable job as the head of the house. Dimple Kapadia plays his wife with sensitivity and purpose, although she is under utilised and perhaps underwritten and subservient in the screenplay. Anushka Sharma also does an excellent job in a role that could quite easily have devolved into a mess. I quite fancy that, on the evidence of her first four films, we may potentially be seeing the emergence of a new Queen of Bollywood.
The film itself is a very interesting look at the family in an Indian household in Southall, London, where traditional values are being undermined somewhat by the younger generation being more influenced by the cosmopolitan opportunities of a more accepting London than that which their parents faced.
The only real complaint I have with the film is that too many characters were brought to the fore and it results in a bit of confusion as to who is who. However, that aside, the screenplay is good, the film has a sense of purpose and moves forward at a nice pace. There is no unnecessary sentimentality brought into play and the end result is a film that does not scale great heights of classic cinema but is an eminently watchable film that deals with its subject matter very well.
