I went to this movie not knowing anything about it,
except that the director was the assistant director of
Hum Tum.
Salaam Namaste follows the contemporary movie
format--it is very breezy, quite innovative and
original in the first half. The second half is when
the director loses anchor and chooses to be "inspired"
from a Hollywood movie. This movie suffers from this
too, unfortunately.
The first half is very interesting and quite
innovative. A subject like living together doesn't
get much space in a Hindi movie since it is an
emerging trend even in urban and suburban India. This
movie presents quite a unique outlook towards it, when
two youngsters who are scary of any commitments
actually decide to try out living together so that
they can know each other before starting a
relationship. The first half is peppered with nice
comedy from Arshad Warsi and Javed Jafferi. Finally
Arshad Warsi has a role that extends beyond the two
appearances and three jokes. Javed Jafferi in his
shorter role has both his acting prowess and excellent
dialogue writing to thank for.
The second half is not bad, but the movie loses its
originality. I don't mind adaptations of Hollywood
movies, provided they are adaptations and not copies,
and they are nicely Indianized. While this movie
doesn't exactly copy from Nine Months, its second half
is heavily inspired from it enough to spot the
similarities easily. A really inappropriate song
featuring a pregnant lady dancing and running apart,
the second half too is quite digestable.
The movie is a perfect example of the writer, the director or the producer or all of them losing grip over a nice story. It is difficult to understand what compels them to do such things. This movie's first half is so new and fresh, and then the movie chooses to go the Nine Months way. Why? While I don't have another ending for it, the writers could've done better and continued their good work through the second half.
Overall a movie definitely worth one watch. Songs are
few in number (4) and quite hummable. Saif performs
well as usual in a role tailormade for him. DCH, Hum
Tum and now SN, Saif is the perfect cassanova goof.
Preity has suited her role well too. The Australian
setting goes a long way in justifying the skimpy
clothes and the too-modern-for-some approach that the
two main characters have towards life.
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