Blue

Blue looks like someone successfully sold the idea of a large budget, first all underwater Indian film to the actors and producers, got the money and started without caring for a decent script. The result is a threadbare story with implausible situations with fiendishly tasteless and amateurish treatment.

To give the film a dazzling start, Akshay Kumar (Aarav) and Sanjay Dutt (Sagar) are put on a fishing boat when a shark tears its way into the fishing net. ‘A hole in the net is a hole in the pocket’, they say. And to save the situation they jump into the waters and proceed to tear another hole in the net. There must be other ways of chasing sharks away (or better keeping them away in the first place) but the filmmaker couldn’t resist the idea of having his heroes ride the shark. And when you have two heavyweight stars you have no option but to offer a shark-ride to both, one by one!

The narrative depends on a one-line story of people hunting for treasure underwater, which had to be stretched to film length. Around the time of Indian Independence Britain decides to a send a shipload of treasure to India as a gesture of goodwill (Howzzat!) but then for some unexplained reason the ships drifts westwards all the way to Bahamas before it sank. Now, more than half a century later a businessman, Aarav is looking for the riches for which he needs Sagar, an employee he has befriended. Sagar doesn’t want to do it because of a family tragedy so nearly two-thirds of the film is spent in Aarav trying out bringing Sagar in, which at the end turns out to be nonsensical methods.

The film is full of details that make you laugh with glee. When Sagar is attacked in his house by a gang of goons, he gears up by promptly putting on his sunglasses! And while the gunfire comes from the back, he spreads his arms with pistols in both hands and fires continuously on his sides as the lady love (Lara Dutta) advises, ‘hey why are you guys firing, can’t you all talk for a change’. Then you see the ol’ ship sitting clearly on a plain sea-bed but our heroes had to push and slither through vegetation covers and go into caves to get to it. You roar when you see the sunk ship has its name ‘Lady in Blue’ nailed on the sides as if was a nameplate outside a dentist’s practice! The ship itself is so small, a well-built man would get stuck inside (Sagar often does!). At the end of it the treasure turns out to be a small sandook with gold bangles and plastic artifacts straight from Manoj Kumar’s Kranti (apparently all the treasures that Britisher took away was what they could force out of our womenfolk!).

Most of the ‘underwater-shoot’ budget seems spent on picturising songs with Lara Dutta in skimpy bikinis with the camera moving between her legs and shots of her pants riding up her ass. There is a pointless Kylie Minogue song where our heroes take turns – as in the shark ride – to pick her up like in a Mumbai dance bar.

Much, way too much of money has gone down the drain in this underwater misadventure.
- Padmaja Thakore