Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone, Diana Penty, Boman Irani.

Genre: Romantic, Comedy, Drama.

Director: Homi Adjania

Rating: 2.5 / 5

Think of a chameleon and his exquisite nature of altering colors with the environment it is placed in.  Now, replace chameleon with Saif Ali Khan and the environment with the two female leads and blimey, you have just tasted the much hyped Cocktail.

Meet Gautam (Saif Ali Khan), a pants-down player who has recently shifted from New Delhi to London. Roll forward and you find him sharing an apartment with a typical rich bitch, Veronika (Deepika Padukone) and our ethical Hindustani-at-heart mademoiselle Meera (Diana Penty).  Color the canvas with the lush staging of London and Cape Town and yeah, put some ravishing Pritam’s numbers and this trendy dish is all set to be catered for the urban masses.  But when everything was going hippy for our trio and you started believing that you’ve got a cracker flick at your hands, (Alas!). Cupid strikes, and well, things do not end up so well.

Let me rewind a bit and talk about the threesome living together under one roof.  Hands down! It contains one of the funniest scenes I’ve seen in my recent memory, scenes which you actually care for taking home.  The pre interval spell of Cocktail is without doubt, unabashed fun.  With amusing one-liners and hilarious situations, not a glance goes towards your wristwatch or the dumb neighbor sitting beside you (in my case).  It is after that, when we get ourselves full of refreshers, expecting a roller coaster extravaganza of raw emotions, the movie starts to groan and ends up as a whimper.

One area in which the movie soars is the acting of its cast. Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone as well as the beautiful new-comer Diana Penty score brownie points for their roles of ever so confused lovers caught in a web of intermingling emotions.  As mentioned above, music is overall brilliant and not a single track disappoints, though they do hinder the chronicles especially in the second half.

Not taking anything away from the brilliant first half direction of Homi Adjania, it is the dumb script that punches the director straight in his guts.  Gasping for his breath, he pushes in way too many gloomy songs (though dazzling they were), hero kicking bins (Who in his right brains do that??) and chasing the damsels in distress.

With equal proportions of claps and grunts sprawled across this chic background, Cocktail ends up being a rusted formula.  Although, its cast draws upon many magic tricks to save this sinking ship of love versus friendship, but, who can save Titanic from its own fate!