Here's Why Om Shanti Om Was Much More Than A Karz Inspired Remake!

Om Shanti Om was not just a Karz inspired remake ! 

Om Shanti Om without an iota of surprise was welcomed to a rather rough reception by the popular film reviewing brigade back then. Critics scoffed and scowled at it, the audiences loved it. Obviously when it comes to common sense and intelligence, audiences seem to carry that much more than critics. They knew Om Shanti Om had everything that a viewer wanted. It had competent acting from its entire star cast, great music, good comedy. Above all it had an underlying unabashed drama!

I have been of the firm opinion that if SRK wants to build a longevity of superstardom the one which Amitabh has been able to manage, he will have to look at working with directors like Farha Khan and Rohit Shetty. Directors who understand what the audiences want , to use a cliché, but in the garb of fun or nonsensical films they have strong plot ideas. The difference of intelligence in mainstream media is dangerous for box office and you land up with duds like FAN. I digress however! Today is the day to celebrate one of my favourite movies from the decade of 2000 – Om Shanti Om.

The title draws on the names of its two principle characters Om and Shanti. It also draws on the rocking chartbuster of 1980s Om Shanti Om sung in Karzz. A classic that came at the start of 1980 or the end of the glorious decade of 1970s, whichever way you look at it! In fact the climax of the movie draws again heavily from the Subhash Ghai classic when SRK tries to evoke the strategy of guilt ridden confession from Arjun Rampal.

However Om Shanti Om is a brilliant effort of a movie which tries to remain a fun film and yet ends gives us traces of a thriller. So it is a love story of an already secretly married superstar called Shanti with a small time actor struggler called Om. Who has a loving doting mother played with such comic aplomb by Kiran Kher that you want to ask Bollywood why has this woman not been given better meatier roles more consistently. The love between Om and Shanti remains unfulfilled because the night that he plans to tell her he discovers her secret and both are dead due to the evil of Shanti’s husband Mike.

Mike was played by Arjun Rampal , A villain with so much cool attitude that he actually overshadows SRK in the climax. That probably was the plan of the director and that is where my point on masala films actually having intelligent ideas behind them gets underlined. In Mike’s powerful evil and Om’s underdog status lies the brilliance of OSO’s climax. How Om who is now a superstar in his next birth traps Mike to confession, who still knows that he can walk free. Only there is a super natural twist in the climax.

OSO worked for various reasons. It had brilliant comedy. It had a theme of reincarnation. It had romance. It had great music. For me however the best part of OSO was the way it celebrated the era of 1970s. The titles actually are fused with the shooting of Om Shanti Om song. The way 1970s movies were made. The stars in that decade had a very different aura. They were celestial beings. The comedy that is built around the situations particularly a guy called chi chi coming to Om and his friend for advise and they asking him to go ahead with the name Govinda and try his luck ! The track of comedy with Manoj Kumar’s driving license went into unnecessary controversy but I found it genuinely funny. OSO also made the current generation more curious about the decade of 1970s and made them have a relook at the movies from that decade. That is one of the most unrecorded and unheralded contribution of OSO.

There was more to this film than just serving entertainment needs. It woke up directors to the genre of heavy duty dialogues and 70s style of movie presentation. Directors like Prabhu Deva who then came up with movies like Rowdy Rathore and R Rajkumar, can probably thank the duo of Farha Khan and SRK for opening the flood gates of a cinema which had the triple component of bombastic scenes, heavy dialogues, hero-heroine nok-jhonk and hero vs villain plots.

Om Shanti Om did not just bring back money for its makers. It brought back the belief in large than life drama of 1970s once again. That remains the biggest success of Om Shanti Om till date. Let’s celebrate its anniversary for a simple reason that it told us that while realistic cinema is the flavor of the years , drama is going to go nowhere away from cinema.

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