Never has beverage choice been so inextricably linked with matters of the heart – behold, as Beth names it, the “Coke-bottle flirting”. We think the product placement – in particular, the use of Coca-Cola – in this film was GENIUS. Lutgendorf, Carla, Beth…): the product placement. Now onto the main thing that everyone mentions about Taal ( Prof. We know what you’re thinking (“THE PUPPY!”), but you’ll just have to watch the film to see how it all plays out. The Pout #3: dispenses with other formalities and just GIVES US THE PUPPY. The Pout #2: includes older wounds that need to be tended, REAL TEARS COMING ON, but, alas, no puppy. The arrogant yet sweetly insane Vikrant, whose puppy-dog pouts reveal a tender, wounded sensitivity. The Pout #1: includes wounds that need to be tended, puppies that need to be cuddled, and woobieness.Ģ.
The arrogant yet sweetly endearing Manav, whose puppy-dog pouts reveal a tender sensitivity. At least they’ll be able to join him in profiting from their music!Īnd thus, the love triangle square has delineated. Lutgendorf describes as “postmodern” and an older, cynical-er SRK from Dil To Pagal Hai, operates at a mile-a-minute, and he speedily invites Tara Babu and Mansi to join him. They storm out.Īnd who should they run into but – yes, Anil Kapoor! We mean “Vikrant Kapur”, the hugely successful and hugely trashy music producer, who cheerfully rips off Tara Babu’s folk songs according to his personal Seven Commandments of Selling Out and Getting Ahead in Mumbai. Properly humiliated and grumpy, Mansi and her father confront the Evils, and things degenerate into name-calling and bitch-slapping. Unfortunately, they come to the mansion “without an appointment” and on a day when Manav is out – so the evil relatives have a helluva time prolonging the tortures and making Mansi and her father undergo a nine-hour game of musical chairs in the burning sun (this started to feel very Alice in Wonderland after a while). Not long later, Mansi and her father head to Bombay too in hope of setting up the marriage. Eventually, Manav and his wealthy family head down to Bombay – but not before Manav and Mansi exchange tender embraces, an onscreen kiss (!), a scarf embroidered with “Manavsi” (GET IT?! LIKE BRANGELINA!) and promises of eternal commitment. The lovers are smitten, leading some of Manav’s evil relatives to grumble and gripe about gold diggers and poor folk who don’t know their place. Her father is a locally famous folk musician, Tara Babu (Alok Nath), and, when not accompanying her dad on one of his folk songs, she teaches yoga and runs around in the rain.
There, in the gorgeous setting of Himachal Pradesh, Manav spots village girl, Mansi (Aishwarya Rai). London-based rich boy Manav (Akshaye Khanna, in The Hair) accompanies his dad, Jagmohan (Amrish Puri, in gentle paternal mode), to India for the first time. Because Taal was really, really well-told, with an ending that aspired to Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge or Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna in terms of sprinting, sobbing, gargantuan satisfaction. Taal demonstrates again – as Black & White and Ram Lakhan – that director Subhash Ghai has a cunning ability to just crash into genius sometimes. Rahman is, as in Yuvvraaj, leagues beyond the film’s quality – except that Taal is a very decent little story with pitch-perfect narrative form, whereas Yuvvraaj was a car careening around with no driver.
Taal ( Beat) is a flashy, tacky spectacle that is a lot of fun as long as you can cope with Akshaye Khanna’s hideous haircut. For my next number, I will set my backup dancers ON FIRE.