PK: A One-Time Watch

PK is a one-time watch and its claim for that tag is the humour with which they have approached everything. Apart from that, there is nothing about the film that appealed to me: the acting, the storyline, the way issues have been handled, etc. In fact, the film tries to tackle a lot of issues in one go and fails to do justice to them; any of them. At best, PK is a mediocre movie and it's only the technical work like editing, screenplay and dialogues that make for some salvation, not Aamir Khan.

Talking about acting, the actors failed to establish a connect. Aamir Khan was good as PK, but the conceptualisation of the character wasn't brilliant; only his dialogues were. This is not even close to being his best performance. Anushka Sharma's acting doesn't let the character linger on your mind probably for her inadequate dialogue delivery. Sushant Rajput was good but barely had any screen time.

About the movie plot, it was fine, but that's all that it was. My problem with the movie was that it tried to do too much and failed at all of it. Let's take the entire idea of faith. Oh yes, PK could mobilise the entire nation with his idea of the wrong number with his common sense that he uses and others didn't prior to this, he finds all faith equally comforting and equally confusing, etc. However, the end shows the entire question of faith in religion on a stupid thing like whether the prophecy was right or wrong. Understandably, the film aimed at highlighting that being Muslim doesn't characterize one as a cheater and yet, it hinges on whether a relationship was trust-worthy or not. Putting the incredulity of the fact that the entire Pakistani embassy was on its feet at Jaggu's call, or that it was even open on a Sunday, or that this entire things is very conveniently discussed on national television like a personal dialogue, how does idealism of relationships save a situation where religious problems are in question? Ok, it's a movie so guy loves girl but would you really just throw the entire thing away if in real life, the guy really didn't love the girl?

This also reduces the lightly picked upon incident of the bomb blast and Sanjay Dutt's death in the movie. PK says God doesn't need protection, and fools like you tried to do something similar today morning with the blast. Now, such an important point gets lost because faith can easily be instead reaffirmed and a religious/spiritual mass leader can only be deemed unreasonable by the success of a love story. Sanjay Dutt's story hangs in the air like a parallel plot that was oscillated between relevance and irrelevance throughout the movie and it is denied a proper end even after it was elevated to something so urgent.

Talking about things that seem out of place, PK falling for Jaggu is also absolutely irrelevant. He didn't have to love her to have a discussion on staying on earth and finding love and changing names for that purpose to give her some cards to remind her of Sarfaraaz to hold her hand to know what's happened to reveal it during the talk.  That's called absudity. Again, another strand of thought picked up and left hanging in the middle.

So love, religion, communication, longing to go home, unrequited love and terrorism all tried to mesh together to make something wonderful. I think this project didn't quite go well.

Having said all of this, what make the movie a good one time watch is the way the logic in faith is manifested through PK. Locking his slippers with the cycle lock, looking at donation as fee for work, trying to find universality in communicating with God through wine, pooja ki thaali, etc. Makes sense and it is indeed a fresh approach to question logic of ritualistic faith.

So yes, you should watch PK. Yes, it is a good film. No, you don't have to leave your brains at home but don't expect it to be a mind blowing watch unless you're easy to please. It's just a good watch.