Cocktail Review

Cocktail Movie Review (Cocktail Movie Poster)

Rating: 2.5/5 stars (Two-and-a-half stars)

Star Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Diana Penty, Boman Irani, Dimple Kapadia.

What’s Good: The screenplay and dialogues; the songs; the performances.

What’s Bad: The same ol’ story; the stretched second half.

Loo Break: A couple in the second half.

Verdict: Cocktail is a fun movie but gets a bit marred by the dreary second half.

Watch or Not? Watch it for the enjoyable and funny first half.

Rating:

Boy loves girl. Boy ends up falling in love with girl’s best friend. Best friend also loves boy. But best friend sacrifices boy for girl. You get the drift?

Meera (Diana Penty) is stranded in London after her husband Kunal (Randeep Hooda) refuses to take her home. Her knight in shining armour turns out to be the party-animal-drunk-out-of-her-wits Veronica (Deepika Padukone). Veronica takes Meera home and allows her to live with her.

Soon, Veronica hooks up with serial-dater-and-womanizer Gautam (Saif Ali Khan) and the three start living in together. Initially, Meera cannot stand the sight of Gautam but manages to bear him as he is her best friend’s boyfriend. When Gautam’s mother (Dimple Kapadia) lands up at their door, he puts up a show of Meera being his girlfriend (rather than the boisterous Veronica of whom his mother would definitely disapprove). Gautam’s mother immediately approves of the shy, homely Meera and has great plans for their wedding back in India.

Forced to hang out together, Gautam and Meera start liking each other and sparks fly between them. On cue, Veronica decides that she loves Gautam and wants to spend the rest of her life with him.

Where does this love triangle go from here? Does Kunal re-enter Meera’s life? The rest of the movie plays out the answers.

Deepika Padukone, Diana Penty and Saif Ali Khan in Cocktail Movie Stills

Cocktail Review: Script Analysis

Imtiaz Ali and Sajid Ali’s story is a run-of-the-mill love triangle. But it’s the screenplay and dialogues that make the movie enjoyable. Though Saif Ali Khan has some really cheesy pick-up-lines, he gets the best dialogues.

The story is really predictable and the second half brings the movie down. There are unexplained parts in the movie that confuse the viewer. Why does Veronica just take home a random girl she met? How and why does a nice girl like Meera fall for the quintessential bad-boy like Gautam? Why does Kunal, who ruthlessly threw Meera out on the streets, agree for her façade?

Cocktail Review: Star Performances

Saif Ali Khan is very good as the playboy Gautam and equally cute when he tries to win Meera. Deepika Padukone plays her part of the confused-spoilt-brat-with-a-heart-of-gold quite well. Diana Penty surprises with an apt performance as the subdued Meera (though she didn’t have much of emoting in the film). Boman Irani is really enjoyable as Saif’s uncle. Dimple Kapadia is good as Saif’s mother.

Cocktail Review: Direction & Music

Homi Adajania’s direction is alright. While he has chosen a bland story, he’s handled it quite well. Much of the credit also goes to cinematographer Anil Mehta. Pritam’s songs for the movie are very nice. Editing by A. Sreekar Prasad could have been tighter.

Cocktail Review: The Last Word

Cocktail is a nice and enjoyable movie for the dialogues, songs and performances. But the second half is a real drag.

Cocktail Trailer

Cocktail releases on 13th July 2012.