Om Shanti Om was made at a time when Farah Khan hadn't got the better of herself in thinking that she can do well enough without Shahrukh Khan. Starting from Main Hoon Na, Farah Khan established her name in a particular genre that can only be described as 'glorifying-the-masala-of the-Bollywood-80s'. So there's a heroic hero, a bad bad man, multiple songs, a svelte leading lady, numerous song and dance sequences and the most important element of them all - revenge.
Om Shanti Om rehashes that formula and puts together a montage of the above mentioned. The hero is Shahrukh Khan, the leading lady Deepika Padukone, the bad man Arjun Rampal and so on and so forth. In a script that's heavily borrowed from Karz, Farah lets loose her imagination in extracting multiple cinematic liberties from the script. The movie's best feature is the first half where Farah takes digs at Bollywood itself. She's obviously grown up on a diet of those stereotypical movies and she brings her treasure trove of knowledge to the fore and makes the first half an immensely entertaining watch. That apart the music from the duo of Vishal-Shekhar is quite catchy and keeps your toes on the move while you're watching the film. Deepika Padukone, a newcomer in 2007 when the movie release, shows potential with a refreshing on-screen presence.
Where the movie slithers away frame by frame is the second half where melodrama in script and acting excesses pretty much spoil the good work done in the first half of the film. Arjun Rampal does the best he can to portray evil but isn't a shade of the shady villiains we used to have back in the 80s.
All in all, Om Shanti Om still makes for a watch worth your time because of one simple reason- it doesn't take itself seriously for most of the time. The moment it does, it miserably fails. This is one of those movies that's a story of two halves- a good first half and a nearly forgettable second.
Rating: 6.1/10
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