Vertically challenged Bauua Singh, thirty eight years, in Meerut is all of four feet six inches and belongs from a affluent business background. Anand L. Rai does not call for the audience’s sympathy, on the contrary he simply makes the protagonist a cocky, impulsive, witty character who is seldom short of confidence and always loose on tongue. Known for his famous films like Ranjhana, Tanu Weds Manu, Anand has done full justice to zero so far as the genre of the film is concerned.
A great concept needs an equally skillful execution. Zero has a story with an interesting and inspiring concept that doesn’t hold back with its outrageousness. This Meerut-to-Mars romance dabbles with ideas of science, interplanetary travel and closer to home, conventional themes like unrequited and undying love. In doing so, the film tries to put forth too many ideas and doesn’t quite do justice to any one. Some of the visuals and romantic moments are striking, but most of them disappear as quickly as a shooting star.
The film begins with Bauua Singh, in a dream, acting as a hero of his original height casted opposite his father, whom he calls by his name, Ashok. Bauua Singh’s quite close to his mother Beena Singh, who is always protecting Bauua from his father’s tantrums. In the hands of director, Anand L. Rai, writer Himanshu Sharma and Shah Rukh Khan himself, Zero opens with a promise. However, the screenplay is muddled and takes up too much of our patience and we do not get what we were promised.
The story revolves around a dwarf guy, Bauua Singh and his fear of commitment for Aafia, infatuation for Babita Kumari, a distressed heart broken actress. The film takes a dramatic turn from a flashback, when Bauua Singh visits the office of Shaadi.com in an effort to find the perfect match for him. He somehow gets a picture of Aafia Yusufzai Bhinder, the great genius scientist of NASA.
The director then takes us through an unconventional journey of love between a dwarf and a scientist, which is very entertaining and King Khan does full justice to his role, so does Anushka Sharma to some extent. While the ideas are unique and appreciable, the narrative doesn’t connect all the proverbial dots in the arc of the story. The plot of Zero, neither engages you, nor does it offend you.
He’s vertically-challenged and she suffers from cerebral palsy, so their shortcomings become a common ground and that creates a new space for a relationship between the equals. The physical challenges aside, their personalities are also worlds apart and that eventually heightens the drama in the plot.
Bauua is infatuated with Babita Kumari (Katrina Kaif), a bollywood diva, who is going through the phase of heartbroken failed love. A feeling of annoyance and arrogance is very pronounced in this character and Katrina does full justice to this role. Bauua, already infatuated with the super star, gets deep down in his quest of acquainting himself with Babita Kumari.
Till this juncture,the audience is satisfied with the direction and screenplay, but after this it seems like a mess. There is so much irregularity in Anushka Sharma’s acting while playing a patient of cerebral palsy, that we can almost tell the deformities seems to be so superficial at times.
Undoubtedly, the King of Bollywood brings in that emotion in Zero,nonetheless the second half of the movie seemed to be very tiring for the audience. All the magic has been already done in the first half, the second half simply drags the story to give it a ending that is senseless to the audience.
Had it been for any other actor apart from Shah Rukh Khan, then this movie would turn out to be a big flop. It’s only owing to King Khan’s stardom that Zero is still earning some money at the box office.
The Jab Tak Hai Jaan trio (Shah Rukh, Anushka, Katrina) has done a better job this time, but it could have been much better with the right kind of screenplay and a compact direction. The 2 hour 55 minutes film is too long a stretch for audience to pay for the circus.
I will go with 2.5 stars.
