8/10
Good Comedy
15 December 2010
Warning: Spoilers
Tere Bin Laden is part of the new Indian Cinema. It belongs to the category of films like Dev D, Khosla Ka Ghosla and Road, Movie. Movies about real people. Played by good actors. These movies do not rely on huge budgets, exotic locales, over the top acting and item numbers. Instead the focus on plotting, scripting, directing and acting. Things that really make a movie

Tere Bin Laden is different from most Bollywood films that have been made in the last decade. It is well researched and actually says something intelligent. It has a sense of humor and has good jokes. Compared to the shipload of terrible comedies made in Bollywood over the last decade Tere Bin Laden can be heralded as the 2nd coming. I can see this film with a big budget. Akshay Kumar playing the lead in his over the top manner. Katrina Kaif playing the hairdresser and forgetting to act. Paresh Rawal playing Osama and somehow trying to make sense of the mess surrounding him. And somewhere we will have an item number by Malaika Arora thrown in. And thats that. We will have the biggest Bollywood hit.

Tere Bin Laden doesn't do that. It stars a bunch of character actors from Bollywood and stars a Pakistan Rocker as the lead. They all do a good job and all of them make an attempt to act and create. They seem like they are having fun and that goes a long way in making this a good comedy and not another piece of dung like Housefull and the like. Some jokes do fall flat but I think that's because they try to make the film have more of a selling point but that doesn't matter.

The film opens with a disclaimer that a particular word used in song lyrics is a reference to a Bulgarian poet and isn't meant to offensive. The point of having such a disclaimer eludes me. IS that how sensitive the audience has become . I found that the film was sued, banned, condemned. How stupid have viewers become ? Can no one say anything different from the what is the status quo? Have they forgotten what satire is ? How to laugh? Douglas Adams would never be appreciated by South Asians.

But the reference to the poet shows that the director is well read and intelligent. Ali Zafar the lead in the movie has posters of films like Goodfellas and Amercan History X. An Indian director with good taste in books and films? Thats new. It told me all I needed to know. I was in good hands. I would be entertained in an intelligent manner that wouldn't insult my intelligence.

Tere Bin Laden towards the end makes a few intelligent points. The writer seems fairly up to date with current affairs and efficiently lampoons the current scenario. It is not like Karan Johar's fecal piece My Name Is Khan that was so divorced from reality that it wasn't even funny. It was just two and a half hours worth of depressingly bad cinema. Tere Bin Laden is a breath of fresh air in Indian Cinema. It is not quite art but at least it is entertaining.
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