In the last few years, cinema has been divided in its most obnoxious way. We have such “young” or “new-age” cinema that talks to 0.5 or less percent of the nation — the yuppie world of hard rock, hip-hop, late night parties, casual physical flings, nuclear human beings rather than families, drugs, easy income-high spends, free sex and self-centered and amoral thought in the name of being open-minded. 

And then we have the so-called “retro” (sic) cinema, anything that respected Indian values and cultures, attempts entertainment with Indian elements, includes melodious music with lyrics of substance and vocals not drowned by mixing levels and emotions that are not plastic or self-centered and so on. 

Quite naturally, the former kind is far easier to make (with so much global material available for rework) for filmmakers of limited intelligence and creativity, people who had an emotional vacuum with only angst, frustration and psychological imbalance making up their emotions. The latter needs ingenuity, huge talent, perceptiveness about how to select scripts, crew and budgets, and above all, passion, humility and honesty. 

And so we got the former cinema in so much quantum that from 2009 onwards, in a huge and well-deserved backlash, even mediocre products like “Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani” and average ones like “Dabangg” and “Bodyguard” began to be taken to the skies.

However, every happening has lessons to learn and some learn the wrong ones simply because they are made that way. Imtiaz Ali is one such filmmaker — his maiden (and best) film, “Socha Na Tha,” flopped and made him realize the value of being more mass-friendly and harnessing music. 

“Jab We Met” thus proved a blockbuster and Imtiaz decided that now he could do no wrong in mixing his slightly offbeat sensibilities with massy manoranjan. His next, “Love Aaj Kal” (2009), managed to make the hit grade largely on the strength of its music, Saif Ali Khan and many sparkling moments in a lop-sided, “intelligent” (sic) narrative. It was a declining graph — but who was there to point this out to Ali?

And ergo, an aberration called “Rockstar” was conceived. With two consecutive hits, Ali had the cream, including Rs. 80 crore, at his disposal. He chose the biggest media-hype of our times — A.R. Rahman — followed up with his third debutante heroine in Nargis Fakhri (after Ayesha Takia and Giselli Monteiro, a declining graph again talent-wise) and decided that “Imtiaz Ali: the brand” could now afford to give Indian values and cinematic basics the miss. 

He needed a strong and young actor who could convey a lot of his personal angst (we mentioned this earlier, right?) and Ranbir Kapoor, the next big thing who was then continually making wonky choices, was easy game.

But then Ranbir Kapoor, at one level, knew what he was doing. The young Kapoor wanted then to be a “fearless actor” first (he now wants to also be the biggest star, which is healthy, for that’s inbuilt in a Kapoor like him!) and despite the film’s script et al, he has delivered — and how!

Except in the last 30 minutes when the film becomes completely unbearable and Ranbir is forced to be repetitious and thus tiresome, the man has given a magnificent performance that leaves you wondering why such a humungous talent is not way ahead than where he is. As we mentioned above, the reasons are clear. The nuances as he “sings” the songs, his initial nerdy turn, those small details at every step and those many lighter moments — here is another world-class actor, like his father. Without him, “Rockstar” would be intolerable, which it almost is anyway.

Now for the story: meet Janardhan, a lower-middle-class Delhi boy who wants to be a rock star. His canteen contractor friend (Kumud Mishra) says that he can never be a musician without suffering pain and heartbreak. A friend tells him that a college hottie, Heer (Nargis Fakhri), is a heartbreaker — and bingo, Janardhan is after her, and tries to clumsily woo her. She snubs him, and the college student and wannabe rock star who adores Jim Morrison tells his cronies that he does not understand her remark “Bugger off” and later pronounces “Prague” as Parag!! Now, if that’s not “intelligent” and wannabe global, what is?

And Ho-Hum-Whaddayaknow, the nymphet’s engaged to be married but soon gets friendly with the man and even wants him to accompany him to B-grade skin-flicks and later insists he come to Kashmir for her wedding banns to someone from Prague. For this, Janardhan even skips a career opportunity in music and antagonizes his long-suffering family. At a point, Heer asks him to hug her and suggest that they elope. Janardhan asks, “I hope you are not falling in love with me.” He wants to be heartbroken, see?

Nevertheless, these are, believe me, the sole likeable parts of the film. Within 40 minutes of the two-and-a-half-hour marathon, the slide begins with subtle hints that a film is going nowhere, and we wish we will be wrong — for Ranbir, for the film industry and for the poor ticket-paying audience. 

Janardhan gets a break, becomes big, gets his first foreign tour, and goes to Prague (a market for Indian rockstars?!) just to connect with Heer, who is now in depression because she is in love with him (“Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam” in reverse, with values and music to match). 

They rekindle their love and go all the way, and Heer has bouts of conscience. Janardhan (now Jordan) gets in trouble with the law; comes back to India; becomes brash, moody, rude and needlessly angry; and loses his focus and career — but retains his fans. 

What is he angry about? Why is he taking out his anger on everyone? The director wants an intelligent audience to understand. But Silly Ali does not know that whether a film is made in 80 crore or 50 lakhs, the Indian audience will not accept a loser for a hero. We simply do not sympathize with Jordan’s consistent stupidity.

Shortly, Heer gets bone-marrow aplasia and is on her death-bed. For a while, Jordan makes her get better with just his love. And after that, Ali’s narration, bereft of pith and a focus itself, gets totally incoherent. With jerky intercuts and montages and endless flashbacks within flashbacks, the film finally ends 40 minutes later than it should have. In the second half, only one sequence stands out — the one where Jordan tears up a loathsome music executive’s contract.

This is a film that, to start with, goes wrong in the basics. First, Ali dares to be offensive to India and its culture. And falls flat. Who, for example, will accept or empathize with a man who sleeps with another’s wife when he could have married her earlier? And goes all the way to a foreign land just to do that? And if Ali feels that her fatal illness and the tragic end to their romance is “justifying” the good-vs.-evil funda, he is terribly, terribly wrong.

Second, the hero even insults Indian classical music with no redemption in the end. He asks a Padma Bhushan Ustad (played by Shammi Kapoor, whose music is unmatched in Hindi cinema), “Why do you keep repeating the same notes and phrases in classical music? Why do you not get on to what you are saying?” 

Ninety minutes later, in the most cacophonous of manners, he repeats “Saadda Haq” some 28 times, out-Reshammiya-ing Himesh, so to speak, in one of the most noisy and raucous compositions you will ever hope to hear in any Hindi film. 

The less said about New York-born Nargis’s (despite her presentable looks) performance the better. Piyush Mishra, as is his wont, hams. Shernaz Patel refuses to go beyond her stereotyped style. Kumud Mishra is decent but with Ranbir towering he is unable to make an impact. Shammi Kapoor, frankly, is criminally wasted. 

I have second thoughts now on it being a good thing that this film became Shammi’s swan song and not the delayed 2006 “Sandwich.” Though that film was mediocre, Shammi had a better role in it.

As for Rahman’s music, after multiple hearings I am unable to digest most of it — “Rock On!!” was a classic example of how even this genre could have been presented to the audience, with a basic core of melody, all the needs of rock, lyrics that had substance as well as trendy words and faithfulness to the genre. To go that extra mile in case I was not being fair, I read up the lyrics (Irshad Kamil) booklet with the audio CD and reaffirmed that the words were vacuous and gimmicky. 

Still, “Nadaan Parinde” and “Kun Faya Kun” linger for a while, but a modest two out of eight is a disaster for a music-based subject.

Technically upbeat, the film is a waste of resources. And it will never recover its Rs. 80 crore investment just because of flashy packaging and a music score that is a hit with people who love the brand more than the product. I am sure that in a hypothetical situation where the same music was marketed with some other composer’s name it would have received objective and massive flak from the same worthies who are raving about it now!