Reviewer’s Summary – Pitiful, Boring Movie

Language: Hindi
Year: Released on April 27, 2007 in the U.S.
Actors: Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukerji, Javed Jaffrey, Angelina Idnani and Ali Haji
Director: Siddharth Anand
Producer: Aditya Chopra
Screenplay: Habib Faisal
Dialogs: Habib Faisal
Music: Vishal G Shekhar
Lyrics: Javed Akhtar

Last week the Hollywood mavens brought us a delightful movie in Fracture (featuring Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling).

This week the Bollywood bozos dumped yet another disgusting, amateurish film in our laps – this time, the unwatchable flick is Ta Ra Rum Pum.

Dreadful

Bereft of any artistic merit or entertainment possibilities, Ta Ra Rum Pum is a feeble shot at movie-making.

Ta Ra Rum Pum’s incompetence is not limited to the story, acting and directing. It encompasses the below average music as well.

Shot mostly in New York, Ta Ra Rum Pum is the effete story of a young Formula race driver Rajveer Singh a.k.a RV (Saif Ali Khan), his wife Radhika (Rani Mukerji) and their two children Champ (Ali Haji) and Princess (Angelina Idnani).

A bad accident on the track sends RV, the champion racer to the hospital. Out of action for a year, RV returns to the race track but traumatized by the accident he ends up last in the next 10 races. Thrown out for his poor showing, a penniless RV, Radhika and their children are compelled to leave their plush home in Manhattan and move into a dingy place in cabbie alley. To ease the blow on the kids, RV and Radhika lie that the family is acting in a reality show and have to pretend to be poor.

Director Siddharth Anand’s previous movie Salaam Namaste was a big hit with viewers although we found it silly. But in Ta Ra Rum Pum, Siddharth Anand delivers an untidy mess with an unappealing story. Full of sloppy loose-ends (such as the missing details of the injuries from his serious accident), Ta Ra Rum Pum’s story never resonated with us and left us numb and dumb at the banality of it all.

Both Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukerji – two of the finest actors in Bollywood – fail to bring passion to their roles cheating the audience of seeing their full potential.

It boggles the mind that the Saif Ali Khan in Ta Ra Rum Pum is the same actor who bowled us over in Parineeta, Omkara and Being Cyrus.

Saif Ali Khan’s heart was not in this movie with his ridiculous performance. In the early racing scenes, he has the demeanor of a young fellow taking Papa’s car for a spin. As for Rani Mukerji, whatever happened to the talented actress who gave us powerful performances in Black and Paheli. In Ta Ra Rum Pum, Rani Mukerji is not in her element and seems to be just going through the motions.

Awful Script

What really strains viewers’ credulity in Ta Ra Rum Pum is the clumsily written script.

Take for instance the scene in an American hospital where all the White staff is engrossed in watching and cheering Saif Ali Khan as he races his Formula car. Need more examples? How about this? With his son very sick in hospital and needing $65,000 for an operation, Saif Ali Khan is outfitted, manages to put together a team with his former buddy, gets a car and is back on the racetrack, all in the blink of an eye.

What was director Siddharth Anand thinking i.e. assuming he was thinking at all when he made Ta Ra Rum Pum?

As for the two kids in Ta Ra Rum Pum, don’t even get us started here.

Like their older peers, child actors in India are agonizing to watch on the big screen, be it Hindi or Tamil. In Ta Ra Rum Pum, both Angelina Idnani and Ali Haji are absolutely impossible to tolerate, particularly the young girl. Hollywood child actors like Dakota Fanning (now a mature 13-year old) are a delight to watch. Whether it’s Man on Fire, Uptown Girls, Trapped or the earlier film I am Sam, Dakota Fanning demonstrates that age is no barrier to fine acting.

Music director Vishal Shekhar does himself no credit with a less than stellar effort. Virtually, all the songs in Ta Ra Rum Pum were mediocre efforts.

There were just five people in the entire movie hall for the first show of Ta Ra Rum Pum at Regal Hadley 16 Cinemas in South Plainfield (New Jersey) on Friday, April 27.

Viewers of of Ta Ra Rum Pum may also find some similarities with the 1990 Tom Cruise film Days of Thunder.

All in all, Ta Ra Rum Pum is a Bollywood movie with all lows and no highs.

For viewers, hope quickly turns into agony, then despair followed by joyous relief when Ta Ra Rum Pum finally ends.

  Ta Ra Rum Pum