Ta Ra Rum Yawn

I am an optimist. I tend to hope that movies will turn out better in their two and a half hour format than the trailers. I obviously, need to have my head examined. Ta Ra Rum Pum we went for, and a damp Ta Ra Rum Pum we got.

There’s something to be said about using a famous city as the backdrop in a movie. I am not saying that every movie needs to be celebrating the space in which it is located. Every movie is not supposed to be Manhattan. But it would be nice to actually “use” the city. As always, this is not a review, just a set of notes on a movie that could have been so much better. (Note – plenty of observations are just spoilers.)

1. Why did Rani Mukherji have the worst hairstyle in Bollywood history? You either have curls. Or have a fringe. Not Both. Every ten seconds, I just felt like grabbing a flat hairbrush and yanking her hair back to some level of sanity.

2. If you had to have an annoying sidekick as a “best friend” for Rani Mukherji, can you please keep her for the rest of the movie.

3. What is it with kids saying “best, best, best”? If they spent so much on that kid’s schooling, the least they could have done was to ensure she managed to speak in coherent sentences.

4. Ipods were launched in 2001. Not in 1999. Not the model Rani Mukherji was using anyway. In fact, if I was an ipod, I would be very upset with the movie. One small fall and her ipod stops working?

5. Why wouldn’t a person who races cars for a living have insurance?

6. Are there no traffic cops in NY City?

7. How can you just pick up a grown (well-groomed) dog that walks into your lawn and declare him to be yours?

8. Where in Manhattan do you have mansions like the one in the movie?

9. Why is this movie called Ta Ra Rum Pum?

10. You know there’s trouble ahead when the best actor in a movie is a dog with a total screen-time of about 4 minutes. The dog was adorable actually. I just wish he’d bitten some of the characters.

You know, these questions don’t usually creep into your mind if you actually enjoy a movie. Yes, I believe that’s my fundamental complaint. I was just annoyed with it. Actually, I think a suitable sequel would be to show the kids turning out to be serial killers, and how it was all because the parents chose names like Champ and Princess.

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