LONDON DREAMS - MOVIE REVIEW

This first Indo-UK collaborated movie is about a musical genius named Arjun(Ajay Devgan) whose only aim is to play at the Wembley stadium. Being a goal-oriented person, he tries to avoid any distractions that could deter his way towards his dream and that also include an attractive girl in his band Priya (Asin). His band London Dreams slowly gets popular and touches the peak when Arjun brings his childhood friend Munnu (Salman) from a small village in Punjab who excels in singing. His freakish charm makes him an instant hit amongst the audience. Arjun realizes that his dream is being taken over unwittingly by Munnu and when Munnu also gets a nod from Asin, Arjun loses it and decides to take the grey route to success, fame and glory at the expense of his friendship. Will Arjun be successful in doing that forms the rest of the story.

Vipul, who showed his talents in his earlier movies, proves once again why he is considered to be a top director by making a visually stunning movie with almost flawless direction. Some scenes like Ajay Devgn talking to a drunken Salman about being sorry for what he is about to do is poetic brilliance. Salman Khan's misadventures in the flight are entertaining. Though Salman Khan's dialogues in the climax are melodramatic it works for the scene brilliantly. But the movie suffers due to few reasons, like some sloppy transitions, unwanted songs and most of all selecting Ajay Devgn to play a rock-star. He is a star alright and the emotional scenes proves how much he has improved as an actor but the character needed a person who is much more energetic on screen and especially on-stage, which he lacked completely. The introduction scenes of all the lead, except Ajay, have been done badly; especially Asin who comes into the picture from no-where and ends up in the band. The pre-climax in the Wembley stadium is laughable, with 90000 people in the audience waiting for Ajay to utter some Hindi dialogues and sending their empty water bottles up in the sky on a regular basis is not at all acceptable. The movie is high on the emotional quotient like Vipul's last two directorial ventures but will 'London Dreams' sustain at the box-office as they did will be interesting to see. But overall, a decent movie with some interesting performance and amazing camera work .