Happy New Year: An attempt to produce an original heist drama

Director persists on maintaining her signature style with all the originality that it demands.

MUMBAI:

Ace choreographer and commercial film maker Farah Khan reveals the challenges involved in not making her latest project, Happy New Year a typical run of the mill heist drama.

After blockbuster entertainment packed films like Main Hoon Na (2004) and Om Shanti Om (2007) to her credit list, Farah persists on maintaining her signature style with all the originality that it demands.



“The biggest challenge was to keep the film original. Heist is a formula film, so the challenge was not to take anything from any heist movie,” said Farah at the launch of the film’s first trailer on Thursday.

A classic entertainer catering to the masses includes a huge star stellar cast. With the likes of Shahrukh Khan and Deepika Padukone playing the lead roles, Abhishek Bachchan, Boman Irani and Sonu Sood, known for their comic relief and humour, accompany them in full swing. The suave Jackie Shroff features as the villain, while veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah’s son, Vivaan Shah’s presence is the cherry on top.

Happy New Year is the Farah and Shahrukh’s third film together. Besides other ingredients, the duo promises a good dosage of action packed sequences, full of interesting twists and turns.

“We have changed the action in the film. There are no guns in the film and this is so because my son Czar doesn’t like watching guns,” said Farah.

Shahrukh, who was last seen performing dangerous action sequences in director Rohit Shetty’s action comedy Chennai Express in 2013, said that, Happy New Year brings double the action on the screen in comparison to his last two movies  — Main Hoon Na and Om Shanti Om with Farah.

“If there is a lady who knows aggression and action, it is Farah,” said Shahrukh humorously. “It has lot more action than the first two films,” he added.

Farah’s last film, Tees Maar Khan (2010) based on a similar robbery plot with Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif bombed miserably at the box office.  To no surprise, Farah has reunited with her best friend and lucky charm Shahrukh to recreate magic that they are known for. Produced under SRK’s Red Chillies Entertainment banner, the film is all set to release with a bang during Diwali. Where Farah usually gets her sucess formula right with the optimum  mixture content and glamour one wonders whether the film will be able to pay her back this time around. After all the likes of Kick and Singham have changed the landscape of commercial cinema in Bollywood and more importantly how heroes are looked at from the audience’s perspective.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 18^th, 2014.

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