Review: Out of Control

Out of Control

Baradwaj Rangan

(C) The Economic Times, Madras Plus - Nov. 27, 2003


'Out of Control' is full of comedy of the unintended kind. At the
beginning, New York-based cab driver Jimmy (Ritesh Deshmukh) cavorts
with scantily-clad 'firang' dancers in a dream sequence, but two
scenes later, in a nightclub, he looks away demurely when the girls
begin to strut their stuff. He tells singer Sally ('Baywatch' star
Brande Roderick) that the reason men keep trying to paw her during
performances is her choice of clothes, that she should wear 'dhang ke
kapde' and expose her voice, not her body. Sally sees the error of her
ways and covers up during subsequent shows, proving that inside every
'Baywatch' body there's a 'bharatiya nari' waiting to be set free.

Soon Jimmy and Sally get married - he has visa problems and this is
the only way he can stay behind in America - and we get treated to
another little gem of a comic moment. Sally watches 'Love Story' and
sees Vijayeta Pandit take a lunch 'dabba' to the toiling Kumar Gaurav,
so she dolls up in a 'ghagra choli' and sashays to Jimmy's workplace
with a 'dabba' of her own. When a 'desi' onlooker comments that he's
never seen a 'gori' do something like this, she flutters her eyelids
and coos, "Not 'gori', silly, 'gaon ki gori'."

If this sort of thing doesn't tickle you, nothing else in 'Out of
Control' will - the only way to keep yourself amused through this
missed opportunity of a film is by rolling your eyes at the botched
comic attempts, wondering whatever they will think of next.

What they do think of next is to concoct circumstances that get Jimmy
married to Richa (poor Hrishitaa Bhatt, in a thankless role that
requires her to break into one of those out-of-nowhere solo dances
Sridevi used to do in her Yash Chopra movies when she got really mad).

Ah, you think, this is where 'Out of Control' is truly going to spin
out of control, having stepped into Govinda-David Dhawan territory.
But where a Govinda would have given the audience a leery wink and
carried on with his two wives, at least till he got caught, Jimmy
mopes as if he's trapped in an existential dilemma, making you wonder
at times if the directors' original intent was to shape their bigamy
theme into a cheerfully crude farce like 'Saajan Chale Sasural' or a
contemplative weepie like 'Daag'.

This confusion is probably why the Indian cast - with the exception of
Satish Shah, who works up some titters as a drag queen named Flower -
appears stranded, displaying neither comic timing nor dramatic chops.
And that makes Brande Roderick the saving grace of the mercifully
short 'Out of Control'. With her game 'jhatkas' to Anand Raaj Anand's
catchy 'USA vich LA' and her pidgin Hindi - about her decision to
marry Jimmy, she rues, "Main ees-kee pyaar mein undie ho gayee," and,
earlier, she enquires of him, "Kyon hoah purrey-shawn" - she evokes at
least a couple of giggles, alleviating at least some of your
purrey-shawnee with the rest of the film.