Bharti naari, a party girl and an aging Lothario do not make a good Cocktail

After my latest sojourn to the local cinema, I have come to the conclusion that I seriously need to move to a country where they show things besides ‘Abraham Lincoln: the Vampire Killer’, ‘Rowdy Rathore’ and something called ‘Cocktail’. 

For starters, why was the film called ‘Cocktail’? All indiscretions happened after shots, all conversation happened over a glass of red, Saif Ali Khan even competed to finish a beer bottle in one go, but NO cocktails, so why name it cocktail? It’s not like anyone was either serving or drinking them but I digress.

The film starts with Saif Ali Khan playing an Indian Lothario and wooing a flight attendant with lines so cheesy you would think you are not in a cinema but damp cheese ripening rooms. As if that was not cringe worthy enough, he continued to act like a stupid 22 year old and tried pick up lines – in Hindi – that were once used by Dev Anand in his jawani, on random gori women on the streets of London and his workplace. He tried to do the same to a certain Bharti Naari at Heathrow airport, who came all the way from India in gulabi jora, bangles and bindi to meet her husband. The husband turned out to be a scumbag who only married her for her money and wanted her to go back to India. She was a loser miskeen behen ji type with no parents and an aunt who couldn't care less about her and one wonders why anyone would marry her for money.

Somehow the Bharti naari ended up in a club’s (or was it a restaurant, I can’t recall as I must have dozed off in the super thanda air conditioned cinema hall) restroom where a party girl played by Deepika Padukone came to her rescue. To cut a long story short, Bharti naari became a free loader at the party girl’s house and in another scene the Lothario and Party girl decided to become lovers (they said they are just having fun) and he too moved in to party girl's house. 

A few other inanities, a crazy Punjabi mother and bumbling mama scenes later, party girl decided that she is done having fun and wants the whole works: Shadi, ghar aur bachay. While party girl has had a change of heart, the Bharti naari went on a vacation with these two, wore a short dress, had a few shots, danced a bit and wham, the Lothario falls in love with her. Even though the party girl had been doing pretty much all of it all along, the Lothario remained unaffected. But the minutes Bharti naari showed her long limbs, the dude was a goner. Even though the girl was a Bharti naari who was still married to the money hungry scumbag, she had no qualms about kissing her BFF’s boy friend – the same BFF who sheltered her, was also sponsoring her lifestyle (and perhaps her vacations). What about the bharti naari code that a wife must stick to her husband after saat pheray even if he happens to be an arse and a greedy one at that? What happened to the girl code that says that 'thou shalt not look at your bestie's boy friend with lovey dovey eyes?'

When the party girl finds out, she flips and the Bharti naari goes out. The minute the bharti naari is out of this aging lothario’s life, she goes back to her old dowdy self and behenji clothes. I mean who wears floral printed corduroy cropped jackets FFS!

The scenes where the party girl begs the Lothario to marry her border on torture. Here is a friendly, free spirited, well off party girl begging a guy with too much Botox, to take her and is willing to morph into his mother’s clone for him to accept her. To make it even more puke inducing, she mouths dialogues like “Party girl (forgot what the party girl was called in the film) bhi ek normal larki hai, usko bhi pati aur ghar ka sukh chahiye.”  With lines like this, feminism goes back to the century before last.

Lothario did not have one endearing quality apart from bouts of grocery shopping and still two seemingly intelligent, beautiful women who are both taller than the Lothario fall for him. The behen ji who called him pig for being a man whore fell for him just because he said she is beautiful! I mean how easy do the Bollywood walahs think girls are, esp those who are like ten feel tall and weigh 120 pounds?  

The premise of the film was that men fall for behen ji types even when they are man whores and have slept with half the women in two metros (Delhi and London). Lothario was a slut because he had not found true love, party girl was a slut because she has abandonment issues and Bhati naari was NOT a slut because she was insecure about her looks.

I ask Bollywood one simple question: Why can't sluts be sluts because they feel like it? Why do they have to have something deep going on? Why can’t the NOT sluts be Not sluts because they do not feel like sleeping around? Why do they have to be insecure about their looks and what not. Why can’t life be simpler and why does Saif Ali Khan use this much Botox? 

The party girl, the Lothario & Bharti naari in a not so Bharti naari-ish dress!