Jab Harry Met Sejal: Shah Rukh Khan is no longer a heart-throb
Imtiaz Ali has lost the plot, literally.
Sejal (Anushka Sharma) belongs to a wealthy Gujarati family, she is celebrating her engagement in Europe but just as this entire tribe of Gujjus, which includes her fiancé, is about to leave for India, Sejal tears her boarding pass and exits the airport.
As you might have seen in the promo’s Sejal has misplaced her engagement ring and after a squabble with her fiancé she embarks on "mission ring", which is more like mission impossible.
Her family and her fiancé happily leave her behind, no one gives a damn about her, it’s as if she has been abandoned – for losing a ring (ahh, these money-minded Gujjus!).
Sejal then takes out her frustration on tour guide Harrinder Singh Nehra AKA Harry (Shah Rukh Khan): she forces Harry to accompany her on this seriously daft escapade.
Harry refuses, he pleads and finally threatens Sejal by revealing that he is a man of "ganda" character. Dismissing his predator-type personality, Sejal signs a bond of indemnity stating that Harry would not be held responsible in the eventuality of sex between these two cartoon-esque adults.
In many ways Sejal is to Harry what Betaal was to Vikram, she just affixes herself to him.
It seems like Imtiaz Ali developed these two characters and wrote several scenes that hold a certain entertainment quotient in their individual capacity; but rather than writing a proper script, he just banged the scenes together. There is no flow, no direction and absolutely no sense in this hopeless script.
Harry goes from abusing Sejal to being her humble servant in milliseconds, Sejal goes from being bossy to being sad to being jubilant, the film forms an ultra-aggressive sin curve of emotions that you just can’t relate to.
The ring in this film is more important than the one in The Lord of The Rings, the entire film revolves around the hunt for Sejal's ring.
This is not some sort of clichéd script about the would-be bride’s predictable escape where she wants to just live it up; here the bride wants to marry the man who left her stranded at the airport.
But then why does Sejal want her tour guide to tell her that she’s hot? Why is she holding him through the night? What in the world does she want, and how can a grown man known for his "playboyish" misadventures allow someone else’s fiancé to essentially kidnap him?
Perhaps, the most important question we need to ask is why did Anushka sign this film, she is the industry’s "most improved" actress: as Sejal, she unbelievably manages to overpower the shoddy script. Full credit to her for not letting her character become unwatchable.
SRK proves once again that he is indeed the king — of hamming.
It’s high time Shah Rukh Khan accepts reality: he’s no longer the heartthrob lover boy. It was heavy on the eyes watching him smooch Anushka Sharma.
DDLJ happened back in 1995, that's 22 years ago — repeat 22 years ago, this is 2017. If DDLJ was made today, SRK would play "Bauji" not "Raj". The only difference being that the original "Bauji" (Amrish Puri) actually knew how to act.
The actor seems to be stuck in the '90s forever, from the pretentious Dear Zindagi to the formulaic Raees and even the self-absorbed Fan (which I actually enjoyed), SRK has this insatiable desire to play "hero" irrespective of the role or the film.
SRK is undoubtedly the epitome of self belief and that is what made him a superstar, but he is also the epitome of self-obsession and that explains his unwillingness to part with his star image.
The actor is quite visibly struggling to make a smooth transition to playing characters that suit him in this era. One star for Anushka, the background score and the cinematography.
That’s 1 out 5 for Imtiaz Ali’s Jab Harry Met Sejal, a terrible film just like its title.