Starring: Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Diana Penty
Directed by Homi Adjania
Rating: **
Cocktail feels like two different films. Pre-interval, it could have snatched 3 stars, but the post-interval bit spoils the show entirely. Bollywood’s attempt at a menage a trois doesn’t play out quite as edgy as we would have expected from Homi Adjania (of Being Cyrus fame).
In fact, the film stays faithful to writer Imtiaz Ali’s age-old confusion-in-love formula. Man and woman meet, fall either into what seems like friendship or lust, and then take an entire movie to realise that it was actually love. And not just that. Just when you think the movie was breaking a few taboos, it does a U-turn to reinforce all the old detestable cliches and stereotypes.
Things end the way you’d expect them to in a Hindi flick—with needless melodrama and coincidences stretching too long for comfort. Veronica (Deepika) is hot and reckless, Meera (Diana) is pious, pouty and helpless and the guy (Saif) is, well, confused. It’s interesting to see the relationship between the girls. They seem to complete each other’s world and the guy seems inconsequential and incidental in their scheme of things.
There are smart one-liners, slick frames but the intriguing relationship dynamics don’t remain radical. Because, all has to end well after all.
