Chance Pe Dance

I quite liked the film, the best review I read was by subhash jha i recreate below- At one point in this heart warming journey into the life and trials of this Bollywood struggler a kid in the school, where our struggler-hero teaches dancing, wonders how their teacher ji manages to wear such trendy tee-shirts when he lives in a car and has no money for food.

"Arrey , those are duplicates of branded tee-shirts, you can get them at Rs 150 on the pavement," retorts a know-all kid.

That one fleeting moment sums up what Chance Pe Dance strives to squeeze into two-hour of fluid playing-time. The struggle for stardom is done on such a glamorized level of self-actualization so that the audience accepts these liberties for the pleasure of watching good-looking people look presentable in situations where they would otherwise appear unbecoming.

On the credit titles we see our struggler-hero prepare for another day of self selling to an unthinking entertainment industry, when one sees a slightly seamless splendour lurking at the heart of this film about a Dilliwallah's struggle to become a star in the Big Bad Bollywood. Clichéd theme? Yup! But sometime some of the most endearing truths of life emerge from situations that work in a direction opposite to the originality.

The fact that Shahid plays the struggler helps. It really helps. Here's an enormously watchable actor who can take away the 'acting' from a character and just make you look at what is being said and done on screen without the baggage of his personal life being carried forward.

Shahid's character, Samir, in the film is a struggler in all its shades. Samir, has defiantly left for Bollywood while his dad (Parikshat Sahni, endearing) is left wondering why his son needs to be a film hero in the first place (Bollywood).

Shahid goes through the predictable grind, but with such extraordinary sincerity and involvement, you suddenly realize the one truth about life's vagaries. Every struggle no matter how similar on the surface is different underneath.

Shahid brings out all the shades, nuances and layers in the struggler's inner world without bending the rules of commercial herogiri. This is a far better performance than it outwardly seems.

Whether romancing the funny girl-next-door (okay, a few block away)manifesting the disappointments of a struggler who's getting emotionally worn-out waiting for the big moment, or interacting with the kids in school(the director is almost as good with these angels from hell as Shekhar Kapoor in Mr India)Shahid just goes with the flow with a fluidity that goes beyond the dance-floor.

Oh, about Shahid's dancing, is there a better dancer in the film industry today? he slim but confident plot moves smoothly on the surface. This one is a rom-com with a pleasing pungent flavour of Mumbai's sorrowful underbelly hidden, but palpable.

While Shahid struggles for stardom the narrative glides along at its own even pace seeking out the wannabe star's life as homeless road-dweller who sleeps in his car, and smirks at life's cruelties.

There are very few characters in the plot. Satish Shah, Mohnish Behl and Vikas Bhalla who come and go like images seen from a moving train. Director Ken Ghosh keeps the narrative free of complexities beyond the struggler's immediate preoccupations. And that suits the film's moderate temperature just fine.

Some moments especially with the kids, exude the warmth like rays of sunshine peeping through a partially open door. Watch the sequence where the kids share their lunch with their famished teacher. Awwwww!

Though the choreography is uneven and the climactic dance, a bit of a disappointment, Shahid comfortably keeps us watching the predictable but perky progression of this penniless pilgrim from the backseat of a car to the red-carpet.

While giving groovy guru-gyan to his students, our dance teacher, Shahid mentions Michael Jackson , Govinda, Prabhu Deva , Hrithik Roshan and Shiamak Davar among the best dancers.

We can easily add Shahid's name to the list.

It's obvious to have huge expectations from a musical movie, directed by Ken Ghosh, who is known as one of the pioneer directors of music videos in India. And the hopes even rise further if the project has the youthful Shahid Kapoor (post 'Kaminey') and the energetic Genelia D'Souza (after 'Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na') as its lead couple. Hence, everyone was eager to see a spectacular show with probably a novel storyline accompanied by some brilliant dance sequences, melodious songs, amazing picturisations and tender love moments between the young couple on the screen. But surprisingly, Ken comes up with a very poorly written, confused and un-inspiring movie as his third directorial venture after "Fida" & "Ishq Vishq".

Right from the start, "Chance Pe Dance" fails to grab your attention as it straight away opens with a song coming from no-where. Even the titles begin after the song gets over, so there is no explanation why the song was there in the first place. Secondly, just after 15 minutes into the movie, a normal movie-lover can easily guess its complete storyline till the end and that's where the movie loses its main ground of the expected box office success. Based on a routine plot of a struggler coming to Mumbai, with hopes of making it big, "Chance Pe Dance" has got nothing to stand out as its merit, apart from the spirited performance of Shahid Kapoor.

In other words, Shahid is the only "Chance" for the movie to impress its viewers and I sincerely doubt he alone would be able to save it. The flick has several serious issues in its execution, which forcibly restrict it to be called as a below average project. Here they are for your consideration:

1. The moment a song starts in the movie, it shifts to a music video mold, which is no doubt the forte of its director Ken Ghosh. Though the songs are indeed a treat to watch, but it seems Ken worked more hard on the songs and less on his story.

2. The movie has a completely avoidable track of a school and its students winning a dance competition due to their dance teacher Shahid. The sequence, which is highly inspired from "The School of Rock" (2003), is not scripted well, gets hurriedly finished and looks like a misfit in the movie.

3. A director who can be called as the Master of Music Videos, ideally must have a good ear and incredible music sense. But Ken simply disappoints in this department as he is not able to get any good songs from the otherwise talented singer Adnan Sami. The music of "Chance Pe Dance" is a big let-down, especially with a weak finale song at the reality show in the climax.

4. It seems that both the writer and director are pretty confused regarding what their lead characters have to do on the screen. Shahid, who is supposed to be an aspiring talented actor, is more interested in showing his dancing skills than the acting. On the other hand, Genelia, who plays a choreographer in the movie, is given no detailed sequence of teaching the dancing steps to anyone. In fact she seems to be more interested in acting, with all her cute mannerisms and doesn't even talk about dance in the movie. Mohnish Behl, is the most confused one, who at first selects Shahid for his movie and then suddenly rejects him, without any reason.

5. The most irritating one comes towards the climax, when Shahid is participating in a big channel' reality show in which we are simply not shown any of his competitors. The viewers only get to see Shahid's performance on the stage (that's too a dancing one) and he easily goes on to win the acting contest and becomes a star.

In the acting department, Shahid is the only savior in the movie who gives a sincere and spirited performance which shows more of his sensitive and emotional persona. He might be counting a lot on this movie but may not get the desired results at the box office. Genelia as his lover, performs much better than her previous movies. But the cool and pretty girl doesn't get a well written role and thus cannot be blamed for anything. Parikshit Sahni repeats his fatherly act of "3 Idiots", but still manages to impress & Vikas Bhalla is a bit loud in his few scenes.

In the end, looking at the track record of the talented director Ken Ghosh, one wonders, why he chose this kind of completely predictable subject for his third important movie which also had the most sellable stars at his disposal. Was this the story he was working on, in this long gap of almost 5 years? Or the movie was a victim of an uncontrolled delay without his fault.

To sum up, "Chance Pe Dance", which was more publicized as a dancing musical, has only few dancing sequences to watch out and no particular song to rave about. The choreography and song picturisation does entertain you at times, but in the absence of some equally good tracks and a novel script, they fail to create a lasting impact.

the movie was not hyped to start with so we can say its no big deal that it will not be a blockbuster as all the genres don't want to watch it well after seeing the movie one would be satisfied if hes a dancelike because the dance steps and the choreography is top notch although the songs are not as good as one would have liked them to be

As far as the acting are concerned shah id was great and genial la was so-so but was looking cute\

now other characters of the movie settled in their respective role not perfectly but to an extent of watching them till a point

my verdict 6/10

To cut it straight as everyone knows the movie didn't get good reviews but take my word the movie is not as bad as people think.. Loads of struggler movies have been made and you have heard the same story over and over again but where lies the difference?? The answer is the moments!! Yes watch for its moments and the passion which Shahid injects into the role...

Ken Ghosh who set the box office on fire with his Ishq Vishq this time slips due to his not-so-new script.. The only thing which earned the movie some respect was Shahid's unmatched performance! His dance sequences are superb and choreographed by Marty Kudelka who has choreographed stars like Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson.. The irony is that despite having four music directors in the movie the music is not so great and you don't even remember the count of the songs after you watch the movie!!

Genelia as usual is OK! Parikshat Sahni is the new Dad of Bollywood and Mohnish Behl was satisfactory and the children of his dance class were surprisingly charming!! But the standout performance was from Shahid whose struggling act and honest expressions make you smile!!

If you wondering what to extract from this review then watch the movie for its fun moments and of course Shahid and his dance.. It will make you smile!!

Well, the storyline is a little cliché, but they made it quite entertaining. To me, it seems to tell the story of anyone who wants to be an actor whether it is in India or in Los Angeles. It has cute girls and boys. And the dance is good, the music is pumped up with energy.

Too bad, not many people have seen it. If this movie was made by Hollywood, it could have been very popular, because it has all the elements.

Shahid Kapur doesn't look like those Indians I typically see, he looks like a mix, he could easily be mistaken as Italian, Hispanic, etc. His dance moves are good, he has a nice body. No wonder he is so popular in India.

I won't mind watching it again just to see those dance sequences.