Cocktail Review

 2.5 / 5

From a stark psycho thriller Being Cyrus almost six years ago, filmmaker Homi Adjania is back after a long hiatus with a heady frothy concoction Cocktail. Trying his hands at menage a trios of love and friendship, the filmmaker tries to give a very fresh take to the cliched love triangle. Whether it actually works with the audience or not remains to be seen. 


Based in UK, Veronica (Deepika Padukone) is a brazen, rich-bitch who bails out Meera (Diana Penty) an earthy, coy girl from a hoax marriage and gives refuge in her house. Gautam (Saif Ali Khan) is a flirt who strikes an instant chord with Veronica and ends up living in with her. The three together make for a breezy friendship, sing multiple songs like Daaru Desi, Tumhi Ho Bandhu so on and so forth. However, it all gets messed up with cupid strikes and Gautam falls for Meera while Veronica falls for Gautam. What happens to this cocktail of love and friendship follows through the rest of the plot.
Cocktail has the Imtiaz Ali stamp all over the first half of it. Written by the talented filmmaker and writer, the first half of the film, despite having very random sequence strikes an instant chord with the masses purely for its breezy approach. What works most for the audience is the effortless easy going acting by all the three characters in the film interspersed with some witty one liners, light-heartedness and a very new age approach to love and relationships. One can certainly credit Homi Adjania for bringing in a fresh Vicky Christina Barcelona type appeal to this flim.


However, the moment you get into the groove you are pulled back with the curse of the Hindi film cliches. The same old love triangle melodrama strikes back with lovelorn hero, jilted lover, betrayed friend, sad songs, glum situation etc. However, even at that, Homi Adjania's new approach to handling emotional sequences comes out in spurts where certain scenes are very brilliantly handled; specially, the scene between the three when Gautam opens up about his feelings and the sticky situation. Even the dance sequence where Deepika gives into the insanity around her due to her lonesomeness is beautifully shot.


As far as the acting goes, Saif and Deepika almost nail their parts perfectly. While Saif is perfect as a flirt, slightly over the top and reckless person while Deepika as a wasted, bold, bratty woman is just brilliant. Diana Penty on the other hand needs to work on her acting skills as blame it on her character or just her acting, she appears in just one pitiable expression in most of the scenes. 


What works as a package best to get a huge chunk flowing into the ticket windows is its packaging and music. Cocktail for a rom-com has the music going perfectly well for with with most of Pritam's tracks turning chartbusters. 


To sum it up, Cocktail can make for a decent time-pass watch if you have the capacity to digest the cliched melodrama. 

3 Bachelors Review

 1 / 5

If anybody knows about this film right now it's only because of the controversy it created before its release. Apparently, the producers of the film planned its release immediately after the critical acclaim of Sharman's Ferrari Ki Sawaari and accused the star for not agreeing to promote the film at all. While Sharman on the other hand, apparently accused the filmmakers back stating that they were only milking his recent appreciation and hence didn't want to promote a film stuck in the pipelines for about a decade. However, despite all the controversies, the movie finally sees the light of the day. So will it work or not, let's find out.

Amit (Sharman Joshi) and Jai (Manish Nagpal) migrate to the Maximum City, Mumbai in order to study at a reputed college. However, things don't go as they planned. They get ragged in college, don't get an accommodation as they are two bachelors so on and so forth. Eventually, one of them dresses up as a female to enact as a wife to the other one and the supposed married couple easily find themselves a residence. However, their problems only start from there as they find a pad in the same building where their girlfriends Neha (Raima Sen) and Nisha (Riya Sen) stay. What happens next follows through a series of songs, madcap situations, heartbreats etc.

Filmmaker Ajay Sinha takes up a cliched plot of a love story mixes a Chachi 420 angle to it and fuses some hackneyed one liner jokes and puts together a film. Moreover, with too many sub-plots meandering into the story for no rhyme or reason, the narrative ends up appearing very garbled annoying the audience no end.

On the acting front, most of the actors put up a good show and it is only the writing of the script and the charactersketch to be blamed that their efforts go in vain. Both Sharman Joshi and Manish Nagpal are decent in their parts and also form the source of some light-hearted moments courtesy their comic timing. Even Himani Shivpuri who plays Shalini Devi, who's the landlady and also the principal of the college does a brilliant job. Manoj Pahwa too as the professor and yet another bachelor in the marquee is decent.

But as they say the story forms the backbone of any film and despite the efforts put together by the actors, the film ends up becoming a painful watch courtesy the lacklustre writing. Music by Daboo Malik is passe and easily forgettable, worse still, only adds as a deterrent to the plot.

To sum it up, the film is devoid of reasons for one to watch it. True Sharman Joshi fans can instead opt for Ferrari Ki Sawaari once again than ruin their experience by choosing this film.

If anybody knows about this film right now it's only because of the controversy it created before its release. Apparently, the producers of the film planned its release immediately after the critical acclaim of Sharman's Ferrari Ki Sawaari and accused the star for not agreeing to promote the film at all. While Sharman on the other hand, apparently accused the filmmakers back stating that they were only milking his recent appreciation and hence didn't want to promote a film stuck in the pipelines for about a decade. However, despite all the controversies, the movie finally sees the light of the day. So will it work or not, let's find out.

Amit (Sharman Joshi) and Jai (Manish Nagpal) migrate to the Maximum City, Mumbai in order to study at a reputed college. However, things don't go as they planned. They get ragged in college, don't get an accommodation as they are two bachelors so on and so forth. Eventually, one of them dresses up as a female to enact as a wife to the other one and the supposed married couple easily find themselves a residence. However, their problems only start from there as they find a pad in the same building where their girlfriends Neha (Raima Sen) and Nisha (Riya Sen) stay. What happens next follows through a series of songs, madcap situations, heartbreats etc.

Filmmaker Ajay Sinha takes up a cliched plot of a love story mixes a Chachi 420 angle to it and fuses some hackneyed one liner jokes and puts together a film. Moreover, with too many sub-plots meandering into the story for no rhyme or reason, the narrative ends up appearing very garbled annoying the audience no end.

On the acting front, most of the actors put up a good show and it is only the writing of the script and the charactersketch to be blamed that their efforts go in vain. Both Sharman Joshi and Manish Nagpal are decent in their parts and also form the source of some light-hearted moments courtesy their comic timing. Even Himani Shivpuri who plays Shalini Devi, who's the landlady and also the principal of the college does a brilliant job. Manoj Pahwa too as the professor and yet another bachelor in the marquee is decent.

But as they say the story forms the backbone of any film and despite the efforts put together by the actors, the film ends up becoming a painful watch courtesy the lacklustre writing. Music by Daboo Malik is passe and easily forgettable, worse still, only adds as a deterrent to the plot.

To sum it up, the film is devoid of reasons for one to watch it. True Sharman Joshi fans can instead opt for Ferrari Ki Sawaari once again than ruin their experience by choosing this film.

Anushka Sharma

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