{"id":675,"date":"2008-12-09T09:27:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-09T09:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2008\/12\/review-hello-2.html"},"modified":"2011-06-07T01:15:45","modified_gmt":"2011-06-07T01:15:45","slug":"review-hello-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2008\/12\/review-hello-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Review : Hello"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rating<\/strong><\/a> : Poor (2.5\/5)
<\/strong>Genre<\/strong><\/a> : Drama
<\/strong>Year<\/strong><\/a> : <\/strong>2008<\/strong><\/a>
Running time : 2 hours 17 minutes
<\/strong>Director<\/strong><\/a> : Atul Agnihotri<\/strong>
Cast : Sharman Joshi, Eesha Koppikar, Sohail Khan, Gul Panag, Amrita Arora, Dalip Tahil<\/strong>
Kid rating<\/strong><\/a> : PG-13<\/p>\n

HELLO : WRONG NUMBER, ANYONE ?<\/em><\/strong>
<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHello\u201d is said to be based on Chetan Bhagat\u2019s bestseller \u201cOne night at the call center\u201d. And if this is a fair adaptation of the book, I\u2019m not sure I want to read it. The characters in the film are a little juvenile, much too clich\u00e9d, and lack depth. I haven\u2019t read the book, but have heard that the charcaters are better sketched out in the book. In the film however they get \u201cshallow-ized\u201d and made palatable for a light, fluffy, doesn\u2019t-mean-too-much desi film with a too-pat ending.<\/p>\n

OK, the film is basically about a bunch of call-center employees, with a myriad of problems. There\u2019s Shyam (Sharman) who\u2019s in love with Priyanka (Gul). Priyanka is also in love with him, but in the face of parental pressure and differences with Shyam (whom her mother doesn\u2019t approve of) has consented to a marriage with an NRI \u201cboy\u201d.There\u2019s Radhika (Amrita Arora), stuck with mean in-laws, while the husband is perpetually out of town and up to no good. And there\u2019s Isha (Koppikar), who in her race to become a model, is losing her integrity. There\u2019s also Vroom (Sohail), a type A personality in love with Isha. Rounding off the bunch is the lone oldie \u201cMilitary Uncle\u201d (Sharad Saxena), who\u2019s US-settled son is apparently a heartless wretch. Dalip Tahil plays their wanna-be American boss. The resolution to all their problems, comes via a single phone call, from God.<\/p>\n

First off, Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif have only guest appearances and the stars of the film are the above insipid bunch (save Sharman). Secondly, the much-touted humor (a funny move, you say ?) is quite absent. Thirdly, the direction, the screenplay and the pace of the film are abysmal. Note that I\u2019m not in awe of the (weak) story or the (juvenile) dialogues either. The characters are card-boardish, and the director is too busy too create a \u201cfrothy\u201d film to care.<\/p>\n

The film takes quite a few pot-shots at the Americans, equating a 35 year old American\u2019s intelligence to a 10 year old Indian\u2018s. Yes there are dumb Americans, but the director should remember that stupidity is not the sole domain of the Americans; he himself, doesn\u2019t appear to be the sharpest tool in the shed.<\/p>\n

Hello appears to be the work of an amateur. It has zero finesse (the love-making scene between Gul and Sharma seemed C-grade), very little depth, and very little to care about. It’s uninteresting and quite a mess.<\/p>\n

Kid-wise – this does have some mature content, and might only be OK for older kids.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rating : Poor (2.5\/5)Genre : DramaYear : 2008Running time : 2 hours 17 minutesDirector : Atul AgnihotriCast : Sharman Joshi, Eesha Koppikar, Sohail Khan, Gul Panag, Amrita Arora, Dalip TahilKid rating : PG-13 HELLO : WRONG NUMBER, ANYONE ? \u201cHello\u201d … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":"","facebook_10233691416821117_190635594420624":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[70,76,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-70","category-bollywood","category-rating-pg13"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":2,"uagb_excerpt":"Rating : Poor (2.5\/5)Genre : DramaYear : 2008Running time : 2 hours 17 minutesDirector : Atul AgnihotriCast : Sharman Joshi, Eesha Koppikar, Sohail Khan, Gul Panag, Amrita Arora, Dalip TahilKid rating : PG-13 HELLO : WRONG NUMBER, ANYONE ? \u201cHello\u201d … Continue reading →","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45CAb-aT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1500,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions\/1500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}