Vaah! Life Ho Toh Aisi! |  | Director: Mahesh Manjerekar
Actors: Shahid Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt, Amrita Rao
Studio: Rainbow
Category: DVD
List Price: $24.99
Buy New: $7.57
as of 9/8/2010 22:55 CDT details
You Save: $17.42 (70%)
New (4) Used (2) from $3.99
Seller: Mantra
Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 142871
Format: Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Language: Hindi (Original Language)
Aspect Ratio: Unknown
Running Time: 138 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7.2 x 5.4 x 0.1
UPC: 792097261708
EAN: 0792097261708
ASIN: B000I0RVFE
Release Date: December 23, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
"My name is Sanjay Dutt. I do small roles in movies." April 20, 2008
H. Bala (Carson - hey, we have an IKEA store! - CA USA)
Great Googly Moogly, this film is just not okay! VAAH! LIFE HO TOH AISI! (Life Should Be Like This) reunites young actors Shahid Kapoor and Amrita Rao (after Ishq Vishk), but so what? I popped this one in exactly because I enjoyed ISHQ VISHK enough that I wanted to see these same two stars together again. But, as it turns out, it was an epic struggle just to finish this movie. And I hear it was released around Christmas-time, 2005? Way to ruin the holiday spirit, guys.
Here's the plot, anyway: Aditya Verma (Shahid Kapoor) is an auto engineer who also plays big brother to a raucous bunch of nephews and nieces who dwell with him in a huge, old house in Lokhandwala, Mumbai. Adi is fun-loving but hardworking, and, as of right now, life could not better be. The girl he loves loves him back, and he had just built a revolutionary solar-powered automobile, on which he pins his future. But it seems he doesn't have much of a future left. It all ends horribly for Adi as he is fatally run down by a truck.
But then Mr. Yamraj (Sanjay Dutt) - or the Messenger of Death, a lowly deity - takes pity on Adi, allowing him seven more days to spend on earth to get his closure, but as a disembodied soul, after which Mr. Yamraj will descend and grant him 5 minutes of life. And then, for Adi, it's off to the pearly gates. Adi finds himself being accompanied by Shakti, a little boy who had also just passed away. Visiting his home, Adi learns the true nature of his friend and his uncle, who both go on to tell baldfaced lies and then leave the family in a serious financial lurch. There's apparently a nasty villain out there, too, eager to take over Adi's property. But, really, what can Aditya do? He's an intangible spirit.
Ah, but then another god steps in...
So it's a good thing this wasn't the very first Bollywood picture I saw, as this would've put me off Indian cinema for eternity and three days. VAAH! LIFE HO TOH AISI! is just one representative of the rampant banality which afflicts this film industry. It's a booming biz, yeah, but for every film of excellence, there are ten films of amazing cruddiness. VAAH! LIFE HO TOH AISI! clings to that time-honored Bollywood tradition of copy-catting from several American pictures. This time, certain elements from Ghost and Men in Black (Deluxe Edition) are resurrected. But, see, this film doesn't lift from them very well, to go by the resulting overall poor quality of the storyline. VAAH! LIFE HO TOH AISI! tailors its silly and vexing sensibilities towards children, clearly its target audience. It's that, or the level of sophistication in India has dramatically plummeted. How else do you explain Adi and the dead kid Shakti walking around in Men In Black outfits in the afterlife? The film tries much too hard to be precious and endearing mostly by having its cast of kids engage in cute pranks. But it doesn't work. It bugs me that Adi and Shakti go from being intangible and unable to affect objects to then being suddenly endowed with superhuman powers which allow them to kick villainous boody. I mean, pick a plot device and stick with it. Meanwhile, the songs are across-the-board unexceptional, the comedy is vacuous, and the special effects are so shoddy even Ed Wood is snickering. This messed-up, character-development-lacking story is about as compelling as clipping your hairy, bulky grandfather's yellowed toenails.
The story and script are so insipid I don't think any actor could've saved the film. In Jab We Met and in Vivah, Shahid Kapoor proves that he can deliver the goods. But, here, he's a non-presence. And one shouldn't really diss the beautiful Amrita Rao because she wasn't given too much to do here. Her tuition teacher role could've used some sprucing up. Sanjay Dutt, in his supporting role of the celestial Mr. Yamraj, is actually not bad; he's even funny, at times. Actually, Dutt lands the best and undeniably most colorful part of the film. His Grim Reaper character is wardrobed in designer outfits and he zips around in a flying classic crimson Chevrolet (kind of like a Bollywood Chitty Chitty Bang Bang).
I guess if I have to pick a favorite scene in the film, it would have to be near the end when the supernatural Mr. Yamraj reveals himself to the children, who then unanimously yell out: "Sanjay Dutt!" I thought that was pretty funny, but that was the first time I even smiled during the film. There'd be another humorous sequence just before the closing credits, and again involving Sanjay Dutt ("My name is Sanjay Dutt. I do small roles in movies."). But these positive moments are too few and far between and if the film takes until it's almost over before drawing a smile from its audience, then how good could it be?
Just give this one a pass.
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