I have a friend who watches most hindi films first day first show or even earlier than that at times if he can help it. After he saw this one he sent me an interesting observation.
Vikram Bhatt - ghulam
Dharmesh Darshan - Raja Hindustani
John Mathew - Sarfarosh
Farhan Akhtar - Dil chahta hai
Ashutosh Govarikar - Lagaan
Rakeyesh Mehera - Rang de basanti
All these films were blockbusters but after these whatever films these directors made did not do too well.
But lets not blame Amir Khan for a film he had nothing to do with, after all in between these blockbusters he also did "mela", "mann" and "mangal pandey".
Delhi 6 shares a similar plight to the above mentioned films. Personally I didn't mind the film at all but I guess that can be attributed to my biases of belonging to the city the film is about. There is a definite attempt to show a certain kind of milieu that is quite typical to a certain part of delhi but it doesn't really do much for an audience which is alien to it. The film ends up being nothing more than a show and tell that blends the real locations and sets reasonably well. There are no bad performances and one really can't point a finger at any of the technicians for doing a bad job but it's just one of those not bad films which has nothing really good about it either.
Frankly I was expecting more from ROMP (Rakeyesh Om Prakash Mehera Productions). This one doesn't ROMP home.
Delhi 6
Re: Delhi 6
No bad performances? Come on, Bakul. Abhishek Bachchan is pathetic. He doesn't look the part, doesn't speak properly and has only one stupid smirk on his face 90 per cent of the time. I think it really drags the film down to have the central character played so listlessly. The script was problematic, though the idea was good. If it had been Aamir Khan (as you suggest) or Hritik Roshan or even someone like Shahid Kapur, I think they may have brought the film alive in spite of all the reasons why we think it didn't work.
Aside: I thought it was edited very well, in terms of the actual cuts which were snappy and clever and kept the pace from sinking totally. But is that the only thing editing is about? What about editing at the level of screenplay? If the film had been half an hour shorter, we wouldn't have minded it so much. For starters, they should have thrown out a couple of really idiotic, laboured scenes with that saffron baba.
Jabeen
Aside: I thought it was edited very well, in terms of the actual cuts which were snappy and clever and kept the pace from sinking totally. But is that the only thing editing is about? What about editing at the level of screenplay? If the film had been half an hour shorter, we wouldn't have minded it so much. For starters, they should have thrown out a couple of really idiotic, laboured scenes with that saffron baba.
Jabeen