‘London Dreams’ hits the right note - Movie Review

Published: November 2, 2009

By JENNIFER HOPFINGER

Starring Ajay Devgan, Salman Khan, Asin, Rannvijay Singh, Aditya Roy Kapoor

Rock bands in the West—and movies about them—are expected to embrace certain clichés: misunderstood artists, rifts over professional jealousy and women, self-destructive behavior, and Lenny Kravitz-style attire. On-stage squabbles (think Oasis), while rare, are greatly appreciated. London Dreams takes the rock-band formula and runs with it.

No one does dark and troubled better than Ajay Devgan, whose character, Arjun, the leader of the band, channels his torment into self-denial (and bizarre self-flagellation), leaving the requisite sex and drugs to his best friend and bandmate, Mannu, played by Salman Khan, who steals the show, just as his character does in the story.

Arjun and Mannu are childhood pals from a village in India, and they share a love of music. Arjun goes to London to become a rock star while Mannu stays behind and ekes out a living performing at weddings. (Actor Akshay Kumar—known for playing tough, rural simpletons—had better look out because Khan’s macho bumpkin has much more intriguing depth than Kumar’s two-dimensional characters.) Arjun forms a band with Zoheb and Wasim (Rannvijay Singh and Aditya Roy Kapoor), two brothers from Pakistan, and Priya (Asin), a girl from an ultra-conservative south Indian family. Arjun never wavers from his focus on his career by acting on his secret desire for Priya.

Eventually, Mannu joins the band as well. He’s a fun-loving, sweet-talking musical genius, who upstages the less-talented but obsessively driven Arjun and wins Priya’s heart. Insanely jealous, Arjun retaliates during the band’s European tour by luring Mannu into drug addiction and promiscuous sex. Mannu happily engaged in the latter but not the former back in India, and because of his pleasure-seeking nature, he takes to cocaine like a feline to catnip. Arjun thereby destroys Mannu’s budding romance with Priya but also sabotages the entire band’s future and Arjun’s own goal of stardom.

The soundtrack is average, but so is most Western pop music these days, and since world music is always hip, it’s believable enough that a mediocre Hindi band could fill London’s Wembley Stadium—and then, like all good rockers, screw up their success.

London Dreams is rated Worth Watching.

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