Cocktail: A cock's tale

Last night I watched the Hindi flick by the same name "Cocktail". Starring Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone and Diana Penty I sat down to watch it with a critical eye like I usually do. A Statutory Warning appeared in the beginning that cigarettes and alcohol consumption is injurious to health but the background voice omitted speaking about alcohol [duh! yeah it appears on cigarette packets as well with the images of cancerous lungs on it, as laughed at by smokers who buy it.]

Saif Ali à an overconfident playboy. You will not know what his profession is, except that he’s some successful business associate who’s skill run on his erection…coz he’s also shown flirting with a woman of high stature in office (Chinese maybe and pretty). Well that seems to be his part-time job cause it seems like his full time job is chasing girls and playing lascivious schemes in connivance with his Mamu (Boman Irani, who has a white wife in the movie), who for some strange reason refers to his sister, Saif’s mother (Dimple Kapadia), as “jiji”. I didn’t know Punjabis referred to their sisters as “jiji”!! Well maybe some exceptions do. Dimple Kapadia's acted well with that heavy unnatural Punjabi accent but still she was pretty palatable. You wanna see more of the ol' babe in her prime, watch Bobby. She'd beat the new girls out silly.

Deepika  is Veronica...Veronica? why not Sudha or Pushpa? If she's Veronica, then why is Saif not Archie and Diana not Betty?? Why why why??? Anyway, she is a do-gooder slut. What does she do in London; I don’t know…maybe she’s a prostitute coz she doesn't do anything else in the movie except for making moves. All that’s been told is that her parents don’t give a shit about her and she’s on her own. She goes to clubs, gets piss drunk and catches a random guy, places his hands on her ass and starts doing the grind. Apparently people at the club like her a lot when she jumps up on tables and start moving the booty.

Diana’s a software professional who got married to a conman but doesn't realize it till she come to London to meet him. Heavens know how she lands up in London from India Without telling her husband that she’s coming over (How the hell do these women get visas?). On the plane she’s kinda harassed by a fat Punjabi guy (Manoj Pawha takes these roles to put bread on his table…shucks!). I don’t understand why that scene was made, why, why, why? Anyway as if that wasn’t enough, when she reaches London Airport, she’s spotted by Saif Ali. Who gets enamored by this simple beautiful Indian girl, the kind that he’s probably never taken to bed.

COCKTAIL:

The first half is plain nonsense aimed at the reckless youngsters who wanna watch people having booze, dance on a high, talk about great sex and watch big stars lead their own messed up lives (like they either do or fantasize about doing). LOL! That song in the beginning, with Deepika dancing in the background, has lyrics that actually had a line something like this “…dass tera rate ki aa” (Slut! Sure!) Everybody is having sex and boozing except for Diana Penty, who always keeps her panty on and dutifully bows down to a miniature statue of god.

So Saif and Deepika meet via a prank she plays on him. The club and then end up having  sex, lotsa sex and get into this casual relation. According to her, he’s great in bed…ah! That sure must’ve stirred the plain Jane Diana somewhere deeeep inside eh! heh heh heh! Anyway, they have lotsa casual sex and talk like teeagers and have a good time with popular songs playing in the background (daaru desi and other shit!!) At the same time, this sono fabi tch is also eyeing this simple girl. He’s hell bent on telling her that there’s nothing wrong with her. LOL! I’ve heard so many despos who wanted to take a random sad girl (who’re trying to make sense of their messed up lives) to bed, tell em that.  

Somehow, these two sleazy people, Saif and Diana manage to steal a moment and kiss and claim it is love. I cannot understand how a playboy can fall madly in love with a girl by giving her a peck on her lips. Psychologically (and pathologically) speaking, that fucker just wanted to make-out with her coz he hadn’t made-out with a non-bitch ever.  

Following the Bollywood formula, the second half of this movie was serious and actually got me hooked on after a bit apart from the fact that Saif casually tells Deepika about how cool it was for him to shift focus on her friend coz they were after all just having Casual Sex and that he is actually in love with Diana!

What I still irritating, yet amusing, was Saif constantly telling Deepika that their's was just a casual screwing around so it’s OK for him to fall in love with her friend. Saif's always telling Diana how much he loves her and constantly telling her that she's in love him too. Deepika's constantly crying that she loves Saif and that he loves her too. Who loves who?…who cares?…just have threesome (like Deepika suggests in the movie) and move on and cut the crap.

Then slowly towards the latter half of the second half the story starts to become a little less nonsensical.  Realizing how intensely she hurt her friend by sharing a private moment with her boyfriend, Diana goes back to her husband and confides in him. Deepika gets run over by a big car when she’s drunk and trying to tell Saif how much she loves him, all the while the other two are in denial about different things. One of the stupidest part of the movie was when a white girl approaches Saif with interest and he start to blab in Hindi about strange stuff about love coz he's so hopelessly in love with Diana. In doing that he's actually making fun of her and that scene is in bad-taste. 

Saif starts to take care of Deepika as she recovers and there seems like there’s something going on between Diana and her estranged husband. For the first time sitting through the torture, I thought I’ll forgive them if even now they give me a good story.  I just loved that song JUGNI, it is just awesome and well picturized in the movie, for me the rest of them nothing short of emetic despite the fact that they're popular. The movie started to take a mature turn and I liked it. So what if a thirty-two year old guy is being an ass all the while, when you see him start to understand the situation and respond in a mature way, you say, alright, they all make it work now. It seemed like Saif, while taking care of Deepika, will realize what true love is, will realize how much she loves him in return and let Diana be with her husband as they try and work on their new beginning.

………BUT THEN…..CRASH BOOM BANG…suddenly near then end you find out that they’re all the same A ssh oles and bi tc hes. The situation is still the same. Deepika, once she recovers from her injuries, still in love with Saif, now want to play goody goody and get Saif and Diana together, all the while expressing her love for Saif. Saif the so nofa bi tch, gives a shit about Deepika's feelings, is still seeing Diana in Deepika and chasing her with his shlong dangling in sadness. And last but not least, the placid Diana turns out to be the biggest psycho when her estranged husband (what an as sho le he was anyway) expresses his interest in giving it a shot in a polite way, she leaves for India saying that it can’t happen anymore because she has Saif on her mind-- c’mon you sissy psycho, the guy’s changed and what the f uck are you going to India for? To become a nun?

Meanwhile Saif and his new agony aunt Deepika, rush to Diana’s husband’s place only to find out that she’s not there. For some strange reason her husband (who has a li’l bandage on his nose…and we’ll never know why coz it had nothing to do with the story) wouldn’t clearly tell them where she is, he keeps saying stupid stuff like “yeah go ahead, check the bathroom too, she’s not there either.” Then the inevitable happens, the all-muscle no-brain Saif goes berserk and pounces on him and…dhishum dhishum dhishum…after all you’ve gotta give it to the guy, at his age, he’s playing the role of a 32 year old. He is so well maintained, yeah we do like to see him banging a guy on the couch…OH! I’m talking about punches. Well after the good beating, the guy finally tells them that she's left for India.

It ends like this, Diana reaches India and is greeted there by Saif who’s reciting his trite playboy dialogues in a pensive mood. SURPRISE! Deepika is also there teasing him and bucking him up! How shameless is this man and how stupid is this woman. How crazy is this trio!! They just suck!!

Much of the movie was shot in London; I feel sad for London. There's not relevance of London or Londoners in this movie. Deepika's character hasn't even put a mild effort to sound like a Londoner and that would be too much to expect from Saif Ali Khan anyway. I neither understand why he keeps talking to everybody in London in Hindi, even at his workplace when he's flirting with the Chinese woman he talks in Hindi and asks a guy to translate it; all that is mystery to me. 

The movie neither talks about reality, not is it palatable fiction. It has trite and stupid jokes interspersed throughout. Cheap talk between Boman Irani and Saif sure is funny but generally out of context (well! where's the context part anyway). Saif may pass for Playboy material till the time he shuts his mouth and opens his shirt (that's the only time he appeals when he resembles Rahul Dev a bit). Deepika acted well, Diana character didn't have much to prove in the movie cept remain shut with a pout. This movie had the potential to be made into something great but it ended up being just the opposite; what a shame.

Here’s my verdict: there’s no cocktail, it’s a Cock’s Tale, if you know what I mean.