Karan Johar’s “Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani”: A Jumbled Up Love Story!

I am back with my Bollywood reviews, and this time it’s about a unique love story! Opposites attract! A Punjabi young man falls for a Bengali young woman. So, now what do the two love birds do? They have to convince their families who are deadly opposed to their marriage owing to their cultural differences. And how do they do it? To know that, visit your nearest theatres and watch producer and director Karan Johar’s “Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani” which was released on July 28, 2023.

Introducing Ranveer Singh As Rocky The “Heart Throb”! Cameo: Varun Dhawan, Ananya Pandey, Janhvi Kapoor, And Sara Ali Khan!

A happy-go-lucky and attention-seeking young dude Rocky Randhawa (Ranveer Singh), the grandson of billionaire Dhanlakshmi Randhawa (Jaya Bachchan), falls for a young Bengali female journalist, Rani Chatterjee (Alia Bhatt). Their meeting was interesting. Actually, Rocky’s grandfather Kanwal Lund (Dharmendra) had fallen in love with Rani’s grandmother Jamini Chatterjee (Shabana Azmi) when they had met during a poetic event back in the year 1978. After that, Rocky’s grandfather had fallen down the stairs when he was young and since then he had been paralyzed in a wheelchair. He always used to chant Jamini’s name, even before his wife, Dhanlakshmi Randhawa.

Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023): Featuring Ranveer Singh As Rocky Randhawa And Alia Bhatt As Rani Chatterjee!

Rocky planned to unite his grandfather with the love of his life in his old age. That’s how he contacted Rani and as the love story of the two old birds, Kanwal and Jamini, flourished, so did the love story of the two young love birds, Rocky and Rani. After seeing Jamini, Kanwal’s paralysis vanished and he started dating her! But whatever was going on, was it actually right? Kanwal had his wife and he was secretly dating Jamini, which was actually wrong in the eyes of Dhanlakshmi and her son Tijori Randhawa (Aamir Bashir). If you ask me, this could be wrong in the eyes of everybody. So, what if they were old? After all, it was extramarital!

This led Dhanlakshmi and her son Tijori to despise Rani even more, as they thought she was behind all this. Now, Rani was a girl with a modern outlook. Even she had a dislike for Rocky’s family members. So, she came up with a plan which she told him. Rani’s plan was that she and Rocky would switch their families for three months and see if they could be compatible with each other’s families or not. That meant Rani would stay with Rocky’s family in their house for three months and Rocky would do the same by staying with her family in her house during that time. This would also help Rani understand whether Rocky’s family would accept her in the future or not.

But as their fate would have it, the stubborn and headstrong Dhanlaskshmi and her arrogant aging son Tijori, cooked up plans to drive away Rani from their house as well as from Rocky’s life. Will Rocky and Rani’s love flourish among so many hurdles? Watch the movie to get to know that!

Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023) Official Trailer:

The Good:

For decades, Bollywood has shown in its movies that certain guys can get all the women they want. Rani had a colleague named Sumen Mitra (Namit Das) who liked her and wanted to marry her, but no! In spite of Sumen giving her everything that he could, she had to fall for the “bad boy”, Rocky! Rocky’s funny attitude, muscular physique, and macho style had impressed her at first glance. In the scene where they first met, and Rocky left, she was laughing aloud! I truly believe that if you can make a woman smile or laugh after meeting you, she’s fallen for you!

In Hindi, it’s a popular saying, “Hasi To Fasi!” It has been revealed after studying the psychology of women that women mostly prefer the “bad guy” over the “good guy”. To be honest, I was actually feeling sorry for the poor guy, Sumen. I felt pity at how Rocky and Rani were both trying to shove him off to have their own “private space” with each other while he was accompanying Rani.

There were some hilarious and “WTF” moments in it. There were scenes where Rocky’s sister was getting rejected by multiple men who were visiting her home with their parents for an arranged marriage with her. And she had the habit of speaking the wrong phrases, which turned out to be vulgar. In another scene, when the paralyzed Kanwal Lund (Rocky’s grandfather) met the love of his life Jamini (Rani’s grandmother), he suddenly got up from his wheelchair, started singing for her, and to the amazement of every family member of Rocky and Rani, he caught hold of her and planted a kiss on her lips. Seeing Dharmendra romancing at this age, was hilarious in itself. After all, he is 87 years old!

The cinematography was pleasant and the sets and backgrounds were very much visually appealing. Shooting commenced at various breathtaking locations of Mumbai, Delhi, and Jammu and Kashmir in India and also at international locations like Moscow, Russia. Moreover, the songs and their choreography were amazing! Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani happens to be a musical drama and the songs, which comprised several Bollywood retro songs, took up most of the screen time which stretched the screenplay by a good amount.

The Bad:

If you think that I will praise this movie like all other critics are doing, you are mistaken! This three-hour-long movie is as boring as hell! I mean, there’s nothing new to the story! It’s just a young man and woman of opposite cultures who are falling in love and stretching the screenplay for a good long three hours. The plot is too ordinary and there’s nothing new to it. Movies like this have been shown for decades in Bollywood.

While watching this movie, I was looking at my watch every now and then because the plot was absolutely predictable. After all, Rocky and Rani would unite at the end and it would be a sure-shot happy ending. The three-hour screenplay was overloaded with so much melodrama about family arguments, humour, and emotions that it got very frustrating.

There are too many lip-locking scenes in Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt have fired up the screen with their intense smooches. They just can’t seem to get enough of each other! Both have bored me so much with their mindless melodrama and cheap dialogues that I would like to never see their movies ever again! Do you call this a family movie that you can watch with your children? I don’t, but maybe someone like Karan Johar does!

I genuinely cannot praise the performances of any actors in this movie. The supporting cast, Jaya Bachchan as Rocky’s grandmother, Dharmendra as Rocky’s grandfather, Aamir Bashir as Rocky’s father, Shabana Azmi as Rani’s grandmother, and Tota Roy Chowdhary as Rani’s father, have indeed given their best. However, the screenplay itself was filled with so much monotony that their efforts were overshadowed.

To sum up, Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani is so bundled up with romance, futile humor, and some extreme family emotions that everything feels jumbled up into mediocre porridge. And oh, the editing! I mean, how on Earth can Karan Johar think that this so-called “family drama” can be three hours long? Had it not been for the cheesy slow patches, boring melodrama, and too many retro Bollywood songs playing in this movie, it could have been very well reduced to a little more than two hours.

The Verdict:

So, it is my sincere request to you that you do not waste your hard-earned money on watching this movie. You will find many reviews online, stating that this movie is extraordinarily awesome and fantastic, and that “Ranveer and Alia have nailed it”, etc. Do not fall for them. If you really want to know the correct opinion on Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani, then please go through my review only on The Movie Blog, and save your time and energy as well as your pockets!

The very concept of this movie is wrong. It promotes extramarital affairs. When Kanwal was already married and was living with his wife Dhanlakshmi, it was not appropriate for him to start dating his long-lost crush Jamini, behind his wife. It was true that Kanwal was mentally unstable after falling down the stairs when he was young, but that does not justify the extramarital affair that he started pursuing with Jamini, whose abusive husband was dead. The ending is tragic which shows Kanwal’s death.

Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani can be addressed as misogynistic as criticizes the mentality of modern women. Rani initially had looked upon Rocky’s love for her to be just lust. But of course, realization always happens much later. And talking about women empowerment, the entire second half of this movie is about that only! 

 

Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023): Behind The Scenes With Karan Johar!

Talking about this melodramatic movie, the entire theater hall was empty. Only I and three to four other people were sitting at the night show, from 9 PM to 12 Midnight, watching this movie. Those few people had left even before the climax scene happened at 12 midnight, and I was left alone in the hall. S