This is my second foray into Bollywood and it pretty much mashes together every genre possible. There's comedy, drama, action, romance, and even horror. Plus, a music video pretty much every fifteen minutes. Om (Shah Rukh Khan) is a junior artiste, basically a paid extra, who dreams of being a superstar. Then he'd get to date the hottest heroine, Shanti (Deepika Padukone). One day Om follows her to a new set and discovers that she has been secretly married to her producer, Mukesh (Arjun Rampal), for two years. She wants to go public with their relationship but Mukesh thinks it'll sink both their careers. Who wants a married heroine, after all? Rather than risk Shanti ruining all his hard work, Mukesh traps her in a building and sets it on fire. Om breaks in to try and rescue her but they both die.
Hang on. Bollywood, remember?
As Om is dying in the emergency room, famous movie star Rajesh Kapoor's (Javed Sheikh) wife goes into labor. Om is reincarnated as a prince of the cinema, thanks to his new dad, and remembers nothing of his old life until an accidental trip to the burned out set. Memories start to come back along with a desire to get justice for Shanti, since Mukesh has spent the last thirty years making millions as a producer in America. Om decides to restage Mukesh's failed picture in an effort to scare the man into confessing. But will he find his Shanti in time?
This movie was damn near three hours long, which makes sense because it's essentially one guy living two consecutive lives. The humor is very accessible and, again, there are at least a dozen musical numbers, with multiple costume changes apiece, so there's really not room to get bored. I felt like Devdas was extremely melodramatic and I was afraid Om Shanti Om would be similar, since it has at least three of the same main people, but I was really won over by the humor. You can tell that it really is a love letter to older, I'm guessing classic, Bollywood movies but it's not afraid to poke fun at some of the more ridiculous tropes.
I would actually consider owning this movie. And not just because dude looks like this in it:
Although it doesn't hurt.
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