Marigold Movie Reviews

Somehow one could see this coming.

After all there aren't too many Salman Khan films that come to theaters without making any noise. Also, there are some movies which come with a positive air around them. Then there are some movies that come with all around negativity being in the air around the film's release. Thirdly there are some which are not talked about it all. In nutshell, no one just seems to be interested in such a film.

Sadly, strictly for an audience though, MARIGOLD belongs to the third kind!

First of all one wishes to ask Salman that what was so exciting about the film which saw him signing on the dotted line? Was he lured by the Hollywood tag? Cannot be the case since he has never been known as an actor who has run after the banner. Also the production houses have hardly made a difference to his good professional career of close to couple of decades.

It cannot be the choice of leading lady too because though Ali Larter is good looking for sure, she is not a Jennifer Lopez or a Jennifer Aniston who are known all over India. Was it director Willard Carroll? Negative again.

So what was it? By any remote chance, was it the script? Well, for that one wishes to find out if there was any? That's because first and foremost one fails to understand the blooming romance (if there was any) between Ali and Salman. Now it cannot be as simple as Ali meeting Salman in a pub, sharing a few sweet nothings, getting drunk on a beach and waking up in the morning to see a tent over her head. If Salman's setting up a tent to save her from heat and rain was the reason for Ali falling in love then, well, even traditional Bollywood films have much better clichés in their backlog to be used!

Ditto for Salman Khan who, after meeting Ali just twice, confesses to his friend [Suchitra Pillai] that he has fallen for her and is turning serious. In fact just a couple of scenes later, he also goes ahead and offers Ali the gift that his grand mother [Helen] had asked to pass it on to her 'hone-waali-bahu'! And guess what, 'I Love You' is exchanged pronto and the two singles are ready to mingle.

But then where could be a love story without a 'pyaar-mein-daraar'? Someone mean out there must have convinced Willard Carroll that even today audience accept Bollywood films where children bow down to the wishes of their family's 'sanskaar', 'sabhyata' and 'parampara' when it comes to marriage!

Salman's parents [Vijayendra Ghatage, Kiran Juneja Sippy] resist, misunderstandings follow, some 'rona dhona' coupled with a full-on 'dard-e-judaai' song picturised on Ali follows, all with an auto rickshaw driving away 'kahin door' over a road decorated with, what else, but 'marigold' flowers. Ooops!

The film is stuffed with some other priceless gems that director Carroll could have, in all his intelligence, deemed to be clichéd enough to make you smile along as he gets his understanding of Bollywood cinema on camera. Sadly, the film turns out to be neither emotional nor spoofy. It in fact doesn't even hang somewhere in between. It simply goes off on a different tangent with no signs of coming back to normalcy at any moment.

Any redeeming factors in the film? A few, though they again do not compensate for the crime that has been committed in the form of making 'Marigold'. Ali Larter does quite well throughout the film and it is funny to see her at her cocky best in the first half. There are some genuinely funny scenes featuring her as someone who is trying to get adjusted to the ways of Bollywood.

Rakesh Bedi, who plays the director of a film being shot, gets a few chuckles too as he laughs around his 'two-years-in-the-making' film to be full of clichés like a 'devi's' character coming into hero's life, she turning blind, then coming back to normalcy, then dying and eventually turning out to be nothing but hero's fantasy than being real. Suchitra Pillai is natural though Vikas Bhalla and Simone Singh have hardly a part to play.

Let's not even talk about Salman Khan here. The way he acts in the film truly reflects his disinterest in the project the moment director may have said 'cut' for the first time. Even sleepwalking would be a compliment for this performance which is easily his most uninspired ever.

When you enter a plush multiplex and see exactly 14 people around you; mind you, all this happens at the primetime show; you know that you are in for a disaster. A disaster it is, and unfortunately it will go down as some kind of cinema. The cinema, which sees Salman Khan making his Hollywood debut and setting an example for others on 'what not to do' while making a crossover!