PK — A tongue in cheek review

The Aamir Khan movie PK granted me a dubious distinction. By virtue of some overzealous planning and creative elbowing, I managed to be the first person in the large empty movie hall, 15 minutes ahead of the waiting crowd. Imagine my sheer delight at having the pick of the lot from the array of seats laying seductively empty, to be chosen by me for my complete viewing comfort! Beats the typical chore of shaming my audacious co-viewers of Hindi movies who think nothing of seat-jacking good seats with winter jackets. Whats more, Regal cinemas regally serves Chai and Samosa combo, albeit with a degree of sticker shock.

What possible subject could Raju Hirani tackle after a string of successful movies? Love story? Check. Corruption? Check. Education? Check. The team put their thinking caps on and came up with their next subject — Religion. While the writers perfected the script, a relatively unknown production stole their thunder and tackled the subject of religion in a movie called OMG!, with moderate success. Rewriting would have been expensive and there was no guarantee that the subject would even stay relevant if India actually bought the idea of development over pseudo-secularism. Someone had the brainwave to add aliens to the mix. And we got PK.

Spoiler Alert — read after you have watched the movie

PK is an alien who finds the religious mores of the Earth strange and fraudulent. No surprise there. On many days, I find myself PKing over the strange things we do on this earth in the name of religion. Although religion is a low hanging fruit, easy to poke fun at, the PK team does it with aplomb.

PK encounters thieves, good Sams, lovelorn journalists, and conniving godmen during his stay on earth. It is an enjoyable movie, which lampoons idiosyncrasies of every religion although many have objected to its special emphasis on Hinduism. I did not find it especially objectionable because you can substitute any religion in place of Hinduism with roughly the same effect. Along the way we get to laugh, cry and cheer for PK as he navigates a confusing world around him.

Raju Hirani movies are such entertainers that its hard to find quibbles with them. In the spirit of questioning encouraged in the movie, I decided to go PK on PK and question a few things myself.

Even on an alien planet, with a purportedly more evolved life, as evidenced by their abandonment of frivolities such as clothing, and need for verbal communications, why is that the male members of the species get to be the first to go on field research and space exploration? To add insult to injury, the second batch of aliens are younger, handsomer and more male than the first. I mean even in a fictional world, there is no hope for women, is there?

How unfair it is to stop the movie when the really cute, naked aliens arrive on earth? I am sure a huge two-in-one that PK luckily acquires during his naked foray in the desert are no longer manufactured anywhere in the world. Of course and IPod or IPad would not grant the same censorship demanded by the movie censors of India. Funnily, some suggested women would need more than one two-in-one, perhaps the reason women weren’t sent to exlore the Earth.

Who pays to send their children for a college degree in TV production in Bruges, Belgium? Have the London school of Economics and University of Illinios’s of the world stopped accepting rich graduate students from India and China? Why is the Pakistani embassy in Bruges? I get the inside joke “in Bruges”, but given the target demography of this movie, the joke must have been an expensive one. After all that effort, Bruges ends up looking a lot like Venice to the uninitiated.

Are there an awfully lot of dancing cars in India? In my days, the only dancing cars were Dad’s white relic of an Ambassador because its carburetor had not been cleaned in months by the delinquent driver. Worse, people in dancing cars seem to have really bad wardrobes. Poor PK never quite figures out the fashion sensibilities of mere earthlings.

When PK downloads the language files from the brain of a sex worker, how does he end up with a squeaky clean vocabulary? Oddly missing were the lewd and juicy vocabulary of a sex worker. Adding some choice words to the rustic charm of Bhojpuri would have turned PK’s mundane conversations into hilarious exchanges?

Email culture has killed the art of writing letters. It really sucks when people don’t know anymore how to write them using real stationery — pen and paper. A good styled letter writing must clearly indicate the addressee, a subject, and finish with the name of the writer. It would have saved Jaggu and Sarfaraz a whole lot of heart ache and trouble.

Raju Hirani recycles most of the cast from his previous ventures. Jaggu’s mother kept reminding me of the poor Roti making lady of 3 Idiots. Batook Maharaj of Lage Raho gets a pasty Godman’s role. Boman Irani is thoroughly underutilized and miscast as a paradox — a TV head honcho with a heart of gold. Parikshit Sahni reprises his adamant foolish father post.

Anushka Sharma plasters her uber bee-stung lips on camera in every shot, making it very difficult to focus on anything else about her. Her herculean effort at passing off as a serious journalist in that ridiculous wig was unnecessary. She should have stayed true to her native style because it suits her just fine. To her credit, she does not distract from her role with overacting, at the same time, she does not prove to be indispensable.

Aamir Khan is redeemed from dhoom, I mean doom, with his lovable alien act. For once, his short stature lends well to the awkwardness expected from an alien. Lets hope his crusade of quality over kitsch ends the need for footstools by Bollywood Khans to create larger than life portrayals on screen and look taller than their heroines.

Sushant Singh Rajput does what he is supposed to do. Sanjay Dutt as Bhairon manages to bag a few extra bucks during his frequent parole from jail but I would have loved to see more of him. Ranbir Kapoors cameo was delicious and begs for a PK2.

PK is that guy who does not understand the artificial boundaries of human interactions. He will not hesitate to pull that piece of spinach stuck to your front teeth. He will not think twice to wipe that booger hanging off your nose. He will remind you that having faith is not the same as blind faith. He will do that but he will not judge you. I wish everyone did a little PKing in their lives.