Pic: Blue; Source: planetbollywood.com

You get foreign technicians to work on your film, give itsy-bitsy bikinis to your leading lady to wear, shoot at some breath-taking locales and spend a bomb on under-water sequences… you definitely get a good looking film (except Sanjay Dutt’s paunch). Directed by Anthony D’Souza, Blue is just a good looking film, that’s about it. Pegged as an underwater treasure-hunt adventure flick, Blue disappoints with its weak script. It lacks the edge-of-the-seat thrills and the mind-games expected of a treasure-hunt film.

The film starts with the one of the cheesiest lines I have heard on-screen this year, it goes something like this, ‘Paisa, samunder ki macchli aur ladki ka dil… in par kisi ka naam nahin likha hota’ (no one’s name is written on money, fish and a woman’s heart). Immediately I knew that I am not to expect anything smart from the film. Leave aside the excitement of National Treasure or Indiana Jones, the film’s screenplay doesn’t even match up to the 1992 treasure-hunt film, Daulat Ki Jung starring Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla.

Akshay Kumar plays Aarav, a rich businessman in Bahamas who wants his friend cum employee Sagar (Sanjay Dutt) to help him find a lost treasure in the sea. Sagar apparently knows the location of the treasure but for some reason is not willing to go and look for it. Zayed Khan plays Sam, Sagar’s brother (poor guy, till when he would have to play kid brother characters) and Lara Dutta plays Mona, Sagar’s love interest. All characters are poorly developed and you hardly relate to any of them. The film has a few twists in the end but all predictable, so the climax is also extremely thanda.

Akshay is quite irritating in the film as he once again reprises his Kambakkht Ishq like Casanova character; honestly, isn’t he tired himself? Sanjay looks quite old and you want to look away from the screen when he appears in his diving gear with his stomach clearly outlined. I pity Lara who has a brief role with two and a half songs and maybe three dialogues, it seems that she wasn’t shown the script (whatever was there); even Katrina’s cameo has more importance attached to it. Regarding Zayed, he was all right in the role he had but a little too enthusiastic.

Another big disappointment in the film is A R Rahman’s music; not that it’s bad but certainly not Rahman standard. The title track ‘Blue’ is shot extremely well with some great under-water footage; while another hyped song, ‘Chiggy Wiggy’ with Kylie Minogue is just not up to the mark. Cinematography by Laxman Utekar is good and so are some of the action sequences.

Overall, Blue has more style than substance and I would recommend Abbas-Mastan’s Race, which had both in true Bollywood masala way. Regarding the film’s USP, its under-water sequences, go watch an infotainment channel instead, you’d get a better deal.

One thing that I could not understand in the film, please explain if you can. A group of angry goons enter Sanjay Dutt’s house in a scene and start shooting at everything in his living room; Sanjay who is having coffee with Lara in the dining room, decides to wear his sunglasses after hearing the sound of the bullets. Any idea why?

My Rating: * * Two stars (on five)

– Shrey Khetarpal