With the Rs 38 crore (figures put out by producer Vipul Shah) it raked in on its first weekend, Singh Is Kinng is being touted as the biggest opening in Bollywood for the current year. While that’s only as good as the next film which out-grosses Kinng, there’s no denying the sway Akki aka Akshay Kumar has over his fans. After last year’s triumphant march, when three of his films became big hits — Namaste London, Heyy Baby and Welcome, he’s turned into an unstoppable hit machine.

Bachna Ae Haseeno was created solely to have the sort of impact it has had: both for the beleagured Yashraj Films (YRF) and its stars, the film is win-win all the way. Ranbir Kapoor plays Raj (when it’s Yashraj, it’s gotta be Raj!), the hot-bod who makes up and breaks up with pretty young things as easily as he changes his hair-style. The three girls — Minissha Lamba, Bipasha Basu, and Deepika Padukone — look and sound exactly as Yashraj heroines ought to. The first, a small-town girl from Punjab on her first trip to Europe, finds Raj just as cute as the other Raj (remember Shah Rukh Khan in DDLJ?). The second, another small-town girl who is in Mumbai to become a supermodel, is left high and dry as Raj wings his way to Australia, where he meets Girl No 3, Deepika, who teaches him the true meaning of love.

The girls are svelte and accessorised from hair to toe. And the boy is designed to be the nation’s new heartthrob. He showed potential in his first film Saawariya. He ensnared many hearts, both males and females by his youthful charms! In his second film, Rishi Kapoor’s son shows he’s a chip off the block: like his father, Ranbir treats the camera like a pal, and has his mother’s (popular actress Neetu Singh, who married Rishi after a long-drawn romance) sense of fun. The combination is potent and the results are out there — swooning young ladies and matronly sari-clad auntyjis, all queueing up for him.

The success of the two films shows what’s working in Bollywood these days. Whether it is comedy or romance, packaging is everything. In Singh Is Kinng Akshay is at his least adventurous — he’s played the good-hearted village bumpkin before and was also paired opposite Katrina Kaif earlier. But in those earlier ventures he was open to trying something new every time; in Singh Is Kinng, he’s so anxious to be the King that he (aided and abetted by directors Anees Bazmi and Vipul Shah) does not take any risks.

Katrina in a short, short diaphanous shift, swaying away? Check. Akshay chasing hens in a Punjab village? Check. International locations? Double check. Egypt and Australia, which are rapidly turning into Bollyood’s new Switzerland. There’s nothing new here, but clearly, the audience was happy with the package: Akki in designer turbans, Kat in ultra-short dresses and a series of sad gags. The trouble with Singh Is Kinng is not that it is silly. It’s just not silly enough. The film didn’t make me laugh.

Who cares as long as the box office returns are still rolling in?

The Yashraj romance reclaims Switzerland’s position by getting Ranbir and Minissha to meet in a Eurail compartment, just the way Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol met in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge in 1995. They even miss their train just like the older lovers did and discover fondness for each other overnight. YRF discovered packaging years before anyone else did, and the fact that the production house is an ace player was evident back then too. Now packaging is almost the only thing one can see in YRF’s films, which is why they’ve been dying at the box office: Tashan has been its most mercilessly packaged film and the biggest clunker as well.

The only reason Bachna Ae Haseeno manages to rise above all the carefully calibrated manicuring is because of its cast, especially Ranbir. You can actually smell the coffee from his cup as he pretends to be madly in love with Bips and hear the lets-make-fun-of-the-poor-besotted-Minissha as he recounts his Swiss adventure to his friends.

The star attraction of Abbas Tyrewala’s Jaane Tu… was Imraan Khan and his college friends and the fun-filled, this-is-how-it-is-in-real-life banter. This one too had everything in place — just the right décor, costumes and well-written dialogues. It’s subtler, skilful, but it’s a package all right.

One for my master, one for my dame, and one for the little boy, who lives down the lane.

shubhra.gupta@gmail.com

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