Which Idiot Said Priyanka’s Fashion is a Hit? Bullshit
We survived Fashion.
Never before has there been such an ugly movie about beautiful people as Madhur Bhandarkar’s crap show Fashion.
The simple fact of the matter is Madhur Bhandarkar does not know how to tell a compelling story. And that’s all too apparent in his latest Bollywood movie, the boring Fashion.
An interminably long and mediocre movie, Fashion is a dismal ensemble of bad acting, a lousy screenplay, poor editing and less than impressive costumes and makeup.
An awfully bad actress, Priyanka Chopra, the heroine of Fashion, is the kiss of death for any movie.
In virtually every frame that Priyanka Chopra appears in Fashion, this repulsive Bollywood horror show rolls across like a Katrina and does inestimable damage to our artistic sensibilities.
Whether it’s telling her parents that she’s decided to go to Mumbai to pursue a career in modelling, her tantrums or her confrontations with Manav (Arjan Bajwa), Abhijit Sarin (Arbaaz Khan), Anisha (Kitu Gidwani), Shonali (Kangana Ranaut) in the rest room or dress designer Vinay Khosla, Priyanka Chopra shows no life in her acting and utterly fails to bring any drama to the screen.
Like her male counterpart Abhishek Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra puts in hopelessly inept performances in movie after movie. Love Story 2050, Drona, God Tussi Great Ho and now Fashion, Priyanka Chopra is remorseless in treating the paying audience with utter contempt.
While Priyanka Chopra is a complete disaster in Fashion, Kitu Gidwani as the modeling agency owner Anisha, Arjan Bajwa as the struggling male model Manav, Mughda Godse as the model Janet, Sameer Soni as a gay dress designer Rahul Varma and even Kangana Ranaut as the rival model Shonali throw in decent performances.
Alas, the other actors are peripheral to the movie, which centers around a young girl from Chandigarh, Meghna Mathur (Priyanka Chopra), coming to Mumbai in pursuit of a career in modeling.
Arbaaz Khan is as usual horrible and the less said about this clown the better for your sanity, dear reader.
In Fashion, the screenplay never brings the fashion industry or the people in it to life.
The models walk down the ramp, the effeminate dress designers loudly and crudely advertise their gayness and the top models throw tantrums, snort cocaine and shriek when they are dumped in favor of newer girls but that’s not enough to hold audience interest in the absence of a coherent and gripping narrative. Remember, Fashion is an interminably long 2hr and 42 minute movie.
And what about the obscene length of the movie? The movie could have been cut by about 40 minutes with tight editing. Although Devendra Murdeshwar is listed as editor, we seriously doubt this duffer did any work.
Despite all the pre-release hype, Fashion is an affront to viewers and by no means a worth seeing movie.
Unless you have oodles of cash to burn or time to waste, show Fashion the middle finger.
Fashion Review – Ugly Movie About Beautiful People added by SearchIndia.com on
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i regularly circulate between your blog and the below sites before i consider watching a movie. I have always found that your reviews are a lot more harsher than the below reviews.I dont blame you. I personally think drona was as good as the unflushed contents of a used toilet.
But i have always wondered why the indian critics are so lenient and why you guys are soo unforgiving?
hey check out the following reviews
http://nowrunning.com/movie/reviews/moviereview.aspx?movie=5107
http://nowrunning.com/movie/reviews/moviereview.aspx?movie=5135
http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/movies/review/13720/index.html
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: I have always found that your reviews are a lot more harsher than the below reviews.I dont blame you. I personally think drona was as good as the unflushed contents of a used toilet. But i have always wondered why the indian critics are so lenient and why you guys are soo unforgiving?
Besides Bollywood/Kollywood movies, we watch a lot of foreign language and English movies thanks to the online DVD rental service Netflix.
After watching fine movies like On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cinema Paradiso, Mafioso, In the Mood for Love, Kontroll, Central Station, The Third Man, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Forrest Gump, Pan’s Labyrith, La vie en Rose, The Devil Wears Prada and many many more, it’s hard to summon great enthusiasm or passion for Indian movies, which are mostly garbage if not stolen.
We suspect that most Indian critics do not watch as many non-Indian movies as we do and as a result are more forgiving of the crappy Bollywood and Kollywood movies. So the frame of reference of Indian critics (at least some of them) is narrower.
Plus, we believe there is a hesitation among Indian critics to speak truth to power.
dood or doodette or both, when are you going to watch “The Other End of the Line”?
I know you can’t resist it.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Watched it last night. Review coming soon.
have you watched golmaal returns?t if not, please don’t!!!!i am afraid you will stop reviewing hindi films after that…..
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: have you watched golmaal returns?t if not, please don’t!!!!
In the interest of retaining what little is left of our sanity (after watching hundreds of trashy Hindi and Tamil movies), we decided to skip Golmaal Returns.
We’re having a hard time figuring out whether Ajay Devgan, Tusshar Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor belong in a zoo or at Guantanamo Bay. You see sometimes we think the trio do a remarkable imitation of simian antics but on other occasions we feel they’d fit well in as prison guards at Guantanamo Bay since they excel in torture.
Thanks for the warning though. 🙂
hey….i just watched ‘jaane bhi do yaaron’ after reading in wikipedia that its a cult classic…..enjoyed it thoroughly….and guess what, its climax has inspired the main theme of the hollywood movie ‘weekend at bernie’s’….
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Interesting.
We’ll try and watch both and let you know (will take some time though since Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron is not available at Netflix).
great…..nasseruddin shah simply rocked in the film!!and i have heard they are going to do a remake of the film….as if rgv’s aag wasn’t enough!!
SearchIndia.com Responds:
RGV’s AAG is the equivalent of the Holocaust in the art world.
Fashion was cliche’d to say the least.
Having watched Bhandarkar’s other movies, I felt he has not covered new ground, and instead of giving new insights into the world of fashion, ends up strengthening the existing stereotypes. He has clearly taken a dig at some folks in the industry, but he makes it appear that most males in fashion industry, if not all, are gay, effeminate and predatory.
The other problems here are poor screenplay, predictability, and most importantly, poor performance by the lead artist Priyanka Chopra.
Whereas Tabu in Chandni Bar and Konkana Sen Sharma in Page3 literally carried the movies on thier shoulders, and Bipasha Basu (with a smaller role) was OK in Corporate, Priyanka Chopra has not done a good job here.
I would still recommend that you watch Chandni Bar, Page 3, Corporate and Traffic Signal. The last movie is more like a collection of events, but is watchable yet, because of Kunal Khemu. These are still OK to good movies given Bolly/Kollywood standards.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write: I felt he has not covered new ground, and instead of giving new insights into the world of fashion, ends up strengthening the existing stereotypes
Forget new ground, fresh insights & strengthening stereotypes, Fashion is not in the least bit entertaining, the foremost requirement of a feature film.
What we can’t understand is other reviewers’ blah blah blah about what a wonderful job Priyanka Chopra has done in the movie. Did they release a different version of Fashion for these reviewers in India?
1. Madhur places immense trust on Priyanka and she is remarkable all through, more towards the second hour – IndiaFM
2. We’ve seen Priyanka in quite some high profile movies recently, but this is the first one to actually use her talent… – withoutgivingthemovieaway
3. The actress delivers a competent performance … – Times of India
If we were not mentally strong, we’d have doubted our sanity.
Wow. Was thinking of going to Fashion this coming weekend.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: Was thinking of going to Fashion this coming weekend.
Surely, there must be less painful torture ideas in your masochistic playbook.
I was planning to watch Fashion, won’t waste my time now.
But one thing I’d like to say here, Priyanka’s not a bad actress, really, I think she’s materialistic, plain and simple, every other movie this year featured Priyanka, be Love Story, God Tussi, or Fashion, or Drona, I think she’s overwhelmed about the fact that too many producers are approaching her, I read somewhere that she’s the most sought after actress in B-town these days, maybe she’s taken that fact to head, cos it sometimes seems like she’s on a roller coaster ride, too much to do with too little time.
I think, that if she chose movies when she’s:
A- not drunk
B- not looking at the zeros on her price tag
C- try to work with good actors & a good technical team
she’d do a much better job. BTW, we have Dostana coming up, although it has AB {God I hate him} and Priyanka who’s delivered only flops this year, I think it’ll be good, what do you have to say?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: But one thing I’d like to say here, Priyanka’s not a bad actress, really
If Priyanka is a good actress (which you imply), then it must be a closely guarded secret or they must be releasing a different version of her movies in the U.S. because we’ve seen little evidence of her acting skills so far.
Like most Bollywood stars, Priyanka Chopra wouldn’t recognize acting if it smacked her on the face. Priyanka Chopra is a Bollywood disgrace (who isn’t?).
Fashion seems to be placed in no 36 position in US box office hits for Hindi movies. Naturally …… when you have movies like ‘Singh is King”in the second position what else do you expect ???? So guys enjoy watching “Singh is King” . Movies like fashion are not meant for you. Continue watching ‘Singh is King” and “Jodha Akbar” ……………….
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: Continue watching ‘Singh is King” and “Jodha Akbar”
We hope you are not directing the above sarcastic remark at us.
Please see our reviews of Singh is Kinng and Jodhaa Akbar.
i watched this movie ‘morning raga’….do watch it, shabana azmi rocks!!!
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: do watch it, shabana azmi rocks
This is what we wrote (pre-blog format, brief reviews) after watching Shabana Azmi in Morning Raga a few years back.
ooh…you have reviewed it already…great review for a great movie…so did you watch dil chahta hai yet?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: so did you watch dil chahta hai yet?
Not yet. We have yet to receive the DVD from Netflix.
We wish that Netflix would boost the number of Bollywood movies in their instant collection.
I watched Golmaal returns at a friend’s place.. The other choice was Fashion.. as I already learned that Fashion would be horrible, I ok’ed Golmaal.. it made an ok watch.. Celina Jaitley as a tamilian, made me chuckle… I had 4 drinks, so that helped.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: I ok’ed Golmaal.. it made an ok watch
Must definitely be the booze.
We skipped it based on the trailer, some unfavorable comments (including from Aditya) & the cast.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2jp4iwRz-A
is heavily inspired by the Sivaji song, as you probably know.
And Celina wants to name her baby after Rajinikanth..
And there were many jokes about tamilians..
Those things(and the 4 drinks) probably made me like the movie more than I should have.
I guess people expect logic in a spoof movie. I thought some of the humor was quite clever.. There was huge phases of boring stuff.. but I was also browsing the internet at the same time.. so that didn’t irk me too much.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. The Hindi version is ugly as hell (partly because of the deja vu feeling).
The Tamil version was better. Shriya Saran did a better job in getting ‘us’ to 45-degree. We liked her Moon-Rooba (Rs three) slutty dance in the song.
2. You write above: And Celina wants to name her baby after Rajinikanth..
If true (not sure if it’s just in the movie or in real life), then she deserved to be called Sarah Palin.
trey, it definitely has to be the booze…..the first movie-golmaal, was very good…..the sequel is plain stupid…..i only feel bad for shreyas talpade….he is a fine actor, wasted in a stupid film …..
btw SI i was wondering….how long ago did you guys move to U.S.? have you visited india after moving there?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: how long ago did you guys move to U.S.?
Pre-Internet era in India.
A friend recommended Fashion to me, informed me that it was a must watch. She claimed watching it was definitely an unforgettable experience. I think my friend is on crack.
I’ve actually been catching up on older films I hadn’t had the chance to see yet. Just saw Fight Club, American Beauty, Superbad, Pursuit of Happiness, Gladiator and The Bourne Trilogy. I was feeling pretty damn satisfied until I had to ruin it all by watching Fashion.
I was actually planning on staying away from Hindi and Tamil films (with the exception of Ghajini) and was only going to watch a film if it was recommended to me. I can’t even rely on my friends opinions any more…*sigh*
What a pathetic piece of crap.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: A friend recommended Fashion to me, informed me that it was a must watch. She claimed watching it was definitely an unforgettable experience. I think my friend is on crack.
1. Funny. 🙂
Given the way Fashion turned we think not just Kangana…the whole Fashion unit must have been on a Snow White trip .
2. Interestingly, Fashion director Madhur Bhandarkar is strutting around like he’s swept the Oscars.
Here’s an excerpt from Madhur Bhandarkar’s interview with IndiaFM:
In the U.S., Fashion was a frigging disaster
The reviewers’ comments on this site are largely personal and not objective, as further confirmed by the adjectives used. This is one of the worst-written reviews I’ve ever read… largely broadcasting personal views first and then the specific comments. You guys are entitled to your views — but really lack the ability to critique impartially.
Good screenplay, narrative and dialogues; Priyanka’s best acting so far; impressive costumes and sets; a binding central success-story; meaty peripheral roles and sub-plots – that’s Fashion. And it is a claimed Hit, as well as very appreciated by esteemed reviewers. Bhandarkar really knows how to bring out the best… whether it’s acting, technical aspects or the right backdrop.
Having seen a huge number of Hollywood movies myself, I still rank Bhandarkar’s movies as among the best of Bollywood and would say that they are at par with several good Hollywood movies.
Yes, the editing could have been more crisp and the length shorter — agreed.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. You write above: And it is a claimed Hit, as well as very appreciated by esteemed reviewers
The movie is a frigging disaster in the U.S. And we gave the numbers because we know there’s always some dodo somewhere who can’t read text.
And the esteemed reviewers are who? Your friends Meena, Sheela and Tina.
2. We stand by what we said in the review:
Not calling Priyanka Chopra a pathetic actress would be a crime. She’s the kiss of death. Just look at the fate of Priyanka Chopra’s movies lately:
Love Story 2050 was a disaster, according to media reports. Drona was a mega disaster, God Tussi Great Ho was a mega-disaster and Fashion a big disaster. That’s not opinion but fact. Do you even know the difference between the two.
You guys totally crack me up…i love your reviews and m always nodding my head in agreement reading them.
Fashion was a yaaaaawwwwwwnnnnn movie…i mean whats so unique about being dumb, dumping the right guy, being a bitch and then suddenly realizing you are dumb and making things right!! Dumb people stay dumb! they don`t get back to normalcy as easily as shown in the movie.. so that was something really confusing!.. and rest was like I said yaaaawwwwwnnnn…..zzzzzzz
SearchIndia.com Responds:
If our memory is not playing truant, this ugly movie won a bunch of awards in Incredible India! 🙁