It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Unconventional love triangleThe 2008 hit movie Dostana by director Tarun Mansukhani is a romantic comedy with an unbelievable twist. Mansukhani goes against the classical Indian love story that we have seen since the dawn of bollywood cinema. Instead Dostana is a love rectangle between three guys and one girl, where two of the guys pose as a couple. Dostana will have you drawn in from the beginning all the way to the ending credits. After all who could resist watching a movie that keeps you laughing and in the end touches you. Dostana starts out with two single bachelors looking for pads in Miami. Sam (Abhishek Bachchan) and Kunal (John Abraham) who are from different walks of life keep running into each other and go to look at the same apartment to rent. When they arrived at the beautiful apartment, Neha's Aunty turns them down. Aunty will not allow two men to live with her niece Neha (Piryanka Chopra) for obvious reasons. The two hatch a plan to pretend to be gay so they can secure the apartment. They form an amazing friendship with Neha. Sam and Kunal's gayness leads to many humorous situations that will have you laughing out loud. But then things start to get serious. Both Sam and Kunal are falling for Neha, but she is blind to their emotions because she believes that they are gay. Neha is looking for love and wishes that she could find someone like Sam or Kunal. This is when her new boss Abhimanyu Singh (Bobby Delo) comes into to picture which leads to three men fighting for one lady's love.Dostana is translated to mean friendship. That is what this movie is really all about. In one of the beginning scenes Kunal and Sam are both looking for a cab on opposite sides of the street, the camera keeps switching focus between them. Finally they both catch a cab, the camera pans to the overhead position and you can see that they are both getting into the same cab. The camera splits and has Kunal on the left side and Sam on the right side and then fades into one shot as they get into the cab. These camera angles tie in with the overall theme showing how they come from two different worlds and are now coming together. The coming together shows how they become such great friends, and how they are going to pretend to be a gay couple. Sam and Kunal coincidentally say the same address at the same time to the taxi driver. Then once they get to the building they say 16B in sync. This shows how they are interconnected and will be friends throughout the movie. Dostana is a movie that will attract younger generations because of it humor, perky songs, and colorful atmosphere. Friendship is just like love complicated, unpredictable, and unexplainable. Everyone can relate to this. That is why I would recommend others to go and see Dostana. If the theme doesn't catch your eye I know Kunal and Neha's looks will!

Karan Johar came up with another film that is very identified with his own style of film-making, Dostana. He combines comedy, drama and emotions in one film, though in this case there was a very well-noticed balance. The film, in contrast to Johar's previous films where all starts as a great comedy but ends up in a tearful melodrama, remains a comedy almost from start to end, though different clichés from time to time are inevitable and easy to predict. This is not a bad thing, that's Johar's style and it has clearly proved to be successful in previous attempts, but while I found myself laughing from time to time, I was also quite annoyed by some of the cheesy proceedings.The direction was pretty good, not that anything great was required there. The cinematography was well done, the locations were fantastic. The westernised music contributes to the light mood of the film. The film is stylish and modern, though surprisingly not as modern as films like Salaam Namaste and Hum Tum. The various jokes in the film do manage do work though some of them are unoriginal and we are already familiar with them thanks to our film experience. It's still fun, maybe because we had not seen that in a Hindi film before, and maybe because it's unbelievable to see the leading actors in such situations.Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham get equal footage, and they are okay. John is good-looking and he does not lose any chance to take his shirt off and get cocky, which really gets on one's nerves. Abhishek performs better and he's more effective in comic sequences. Hottie Priyanka Chopra plays their friend and a struggling career woman. She's not a great actress, but she's competent in a role which is not very demanding but pivotal. Kirron Kher utterly steals the show with her brief appearance. Her loud and hysterical woman is just hilarious, and her transformation from a desperate mother to someone who learns to accept her son's "identity" is brilliant. The fact that we know the truth only makes it funnier. I can't see another actress doing this part as well.All in all, Dostana is not a great film but a decent one. It is filled with the usual clichés and the moments of old platitude one can expect from a movie of this sort; it is predictable, it is stereotypical and not very original, but having said that, it is entertaining and fairly enjoyable. Try this Bollywood entertainment, preferably with your family or friends, so that it may elevate your level of enjoyment of it.

I have always wondered why Indian movie makers have to choose exotic foreign locations to generate interest in a movie. I am not aware that any other movie industry in the world does this to such an extent, with their main projects. In my humble opinion India has many beautiful locations to recommend the country, which are not that often seen on Bollywood movies, even now----Darjeeling, Arunchal Pradesh, Andaman Islands, and Cochin, Kerala. From the perspective of Indian producers, Indian audiences might appreciate "exotic" mainly WESTERN foreign locations, but I am sure with excellent direction an equal amount of interest can be generated with local Indian scenery.This movie I am sorry to say has a certain "Coolie" mentally, carried over from the colonial era. That one should at least try and see the beauty in India first, if possible with all the problems, and then pay slavish homage to foreign Western locations, which lets face it the vast majority of Indians will never see in reality, or experience directly.Psychologically and politically since 1991, and the reforms of Manmohan Singh, after Rajiv Gandhi, and the ditching of Congress Socialism, the Indian elite has been seeking greater linkages with the USA.........after the long romance with Russia, and the movie by Karan Johar reflects this current political aspect at various levels. It has all the cliché nods in the direction of the USA, which are not that amusing any more.But Gunga Din salutes with this offering.Acha Sahib!!!!!! The subject matter of straight men acting as gay males has many potentials for a movie as a comedy, and do see "Some Like It Hot" 1959, directed by Willie Wyler,to remind ourselves how the subject can be treated in a really humorous way, also set in Miami, about two guys escaping the Chicago Mob.Perhaps the directors could have chosen San Francisco as a more appropriate location instead of Miami....to begin the movie with. Perhaps also the directors could have consulted with some actual gay men to make our hero's roles a little bit more believable and interesting...even as really straight men. We could have had amusing arguments and fights over furniture location, clothes and fashion, food, computer laptops, Indian gay men against American gay men..maybe arguing about politics...women's fashion.....how they might communicate with each other..the cultural clashes.....the scene with the Military guy talking with our hero's could have been elaborated a little bit more. That one particular scene has certain political, social, racial, sociological implications which the director could have pursued and developed in a professional but in a humorous manner. We don't need to flick from scene to scene in an endless barrage.Why not stay with one scene and let the characters talk, REALLY interact, and develop their dialogue and characters.The concept is interesting for an Indian movie at least, if not for Western audiences (where the subject is well covered beyond tedium since the early 1960's)The dialogue did not seem inspiring, though I don't understand Hindi...........consisted of short monologues, with short monologues of reactions....no real dialogue to speak of. The main joke being 2 straight Indian men acting gay......Ha! ha! ha!, and how long can you carry that as a joke? Maybe you can carry that for 3 hours with naive Indian audiences, not used to seeing their leading actors play such roles...i.e Novelty value, but don't you have to offer other jokes as well along the way? The leading actors even as straight men could have made their gay roles more believable, and funnier. Gay people can be very very funny without even trying....I had a distant cousin who was openly gay, and he was a constant source of wholesome everyday humor...because they represent through their character and lifestyles a pattern of human behavior which is wholly unconventional, and not normal-------thus they present a massive reservoir for comedy for the Indian "masses".If you are relying on dialogue to carry the movie, then the dialogue has to be creative and funny, and not cliché ridden. Dialogue is not that important if its a slapstick comedy such as the Police Academy movies. Clearly this wasn't looking to be a slapstick visual gag comedy, but only visual in the sense of beautiful locations, with beautiful people.The movie clearly relies on visual imagery, with the "Exotic' locations, and stars with beautiful bodies, and affluent lifestyles of two people with very modest incomes. Again one can imagine, SADLY, the Indian masses gawping over such visual, empty, soulless beauty. But it is the arrogance of people like Johar who produce such COMMERCIALIZED CRAP, which is WHOLLY disconnected with India that the main criticism must be directed against.We don't have to have a juvenile approach to such a sensitive subject, and then have the attendant juvenile lines with coy stars delivering their lines badly. This movie definitely doesn't elevate Indian cinema to the "next level" but, rather drops Indian cinema below the great quality of some of the classical productions, such as .........Sholay, Mughal E Azam and so forth. This movie takes Indian cinema backwards, into a cultural cesspool of miss matched Westernized Indians trying to look cool, and hip, along with he banner of "Shining India". There is of course nothing wrong with looking cool and hip, and modern, after all not Indians are computer techies, doctors or accountants.....but being cool and modern requires a certain believable panache that fits in with the characters, their acting, and most significantly the lines they deliver------in this movie, non of the stars did.Indian Baywatch it wasn't.

I wonder if those of you that gave this high ratings actually watched the movie. There was no plot development, no character development and the jokes - oh! there were jokes? I must have missed them as did the writers as they clearly missed including them in this massive stinker.The beginning has some measure of promise that is then never fulfilled in the second half. The humour, such that is is, is so over the top and exaggerated that it's no where near approaching funny. John Abraham, "Mr. Hot Bod" is only that - this guy really needs to spend less time in a gym and more getting some decent acting instruction. "Little B" does as much as he can with the minimal material given him - usually if he's given decent material, he's one of the few in Bollywood today that can approach what the rest of the world considers actual acting - with time, I'm sure he will emerge as a truly decent actor.The one redeeming feature of the film is Chopra - not only does she appear breathtakingly beautiful as usual, however she appears to be maturing into a genuine actress. Even with the pathetic material she's been given in this dog of a film, she makes a best effort and really brings her character to life. That the character is lifeless in content is the fault of the director and writers - not her.Finally - who allows any of the Deol's to make movies? Really? They are HORRID actors and Bobby Deol is one of the worst so called actors to grace the screen in any country. SRK is mono-dimensional, but this guy is non-dimensional. Don't waste your money or time on either the theatre or rental or a download - rubbish - pure rubbish!