Rockstar goes down down!!!

Rockstar! As painful as Immortals; except I was actually thought this was gonna be good
4/10 and here's why:
(again all of this is opinion of lil' ol' me so don't read it if you don't want to..)

1) Nargis Fakhri - She just didn't cut it, the role was too passionate and demanding for her abilities which are extreeeeemmmmmeeeeely minimal! (right now anyway). My friend Gaurav Batla tweeted saying she makes Katrina Kaif look like Meena Kumari... and he is so right!! I am not sure who could have played the destructive forbidden fruit(can think of Kangana Ranaut and in fact Aditi Rao Hydari who was actually in this movie too :)) but definitely should not have been her.

2) Really really bad second half - The editing team clearly fell asleep and pasted all of Ranbir's screaming scenes together to complete the second half. But then again with a non-actress being a part of most o' the scenes I don't blame them coz they clearly had to fill in something for all the scenes of hers they might have had to cut.It was like I was watching 2 different directors doing the two halves. Imtiaz Ali had it together in the first half but went down like the Titanic in the second.
3) For wasting a few things that were good:

a) The first half of the movie - had good narration - was simple and streamlined just like Imtiaz Ali usually does it. I found many simple scenes which really connected well and I did associate with the character's ascent to stardom
b) Ranbir Kapoor - Packed show in a place like Chembur during matinee time, clearly we all love him. As an actor, he was exceptional, he's really coming of age. But I didn't see enough negative motivation anywhere in the movie for him to be so pissed off all the time. However, his understanding of a crazy rockstar and body language were extremely good
c) AR Rahman and Mohit Chauhan - Lajawaab Gaane! The songs were very apt, 'rockstar'ish. I did feel during the promos that Vishal - Shekhar would've probably done a better job but I think I changed my mind today. Maestro Rahman and his muse Mohit Chauhan did well
d) A sweetheart called Shammi Kapoor - Oh my he still has such a personality even on a wheelchair - I was aching for a couple of scenes between him and Ranbir - A jugalbandi, the Ustad teaching the Shagird a couple of things etc... missed the element very much indeed.

4) For not making the movie as much about Music as it was (trying to be...) about love - I may be the eternal optimist but that beautiful, creative element that would have made Ranbir's character shine was sadly missing entirely. I had expected the core of the film to be love, sure... but a few scenes where he is finding himself and his vibe as a musician would have been welcome. Associating a mentor or Guru to his character would have created room for dialogue to actually express what he was feeling. I did not get his angst at all throughout the movie.

5) Because any movie on a 'Rockstar' should always be autobiographical - And this is opinion guys but think about it. Whether its Cobain or Morrison or our very own Kishore Kumar and the likes - all of whom lived very strange lives; none of us can understand what goes through the minds of these geniuses. To try and recreate a fictional genius is one mighty difficult task. That's probably why Imtiaz Ali failed in the screenplay. While it was definitely very interesting subject matter to base the film on, if only he had researched and paid homage to one of the Gods of music gone by (and there are soooo many), it would have connected much better with the audience. The movie would have been safely home because although we may not understand the scenes, we'd know that all that stuff in people's lives actually went down.

All said and done, I still love Ranbir Kapoor and consider him to be the one to beat today in terms of talent and star presence.. but my fear is that he may have taken a big chance with this movie. I am sure the movie's gonna break even coz Ranbir is still gonna pull full capacity crowds for the first 3 days. But the disappointment they carry out is going to dent him unfortunately... after all Ranvir Singh is lurking in the shadows only a few feet away, and the SRK's and Hrithik Roshan's of the world ain't sayin' good bye yet!

I'd still be rooting for Ranbir but he's gonna have to work fast and smart to undo this damage... something tells me though... that he will :)
Cheers!... Laterz