Locations in Europe: England
Storyline
Star(s): Akshay Kumar, Chitrangada Singh, John Abraham, Deepika Padukone
Songs/Dance/Action: London, England
Indian/ International Crew: Kerry Koprivlenska (Casting), Mary Cooke (Hair Stylist), Simon Cook (Dressing Props), Toby Riches (Standby Art Director), Katie Scopes (Production Buyer), Jeremy Braben (Aerial Director of Photography), Sarah Li, Sunny Surani (Extras Casting), Bill Hayes (Location Manager), David Chambers (Asst. Location Manager), Sam Johnson (Location Assistant), Bruce Patel (Transportation Captain), Garry Marriott (Unit Medic), Maria Uebele (Security Detail), Raj Surani (Dance Coordinator)
Language: Hindi
Line Producer/Executive Producer/Associate Producer: Chris Martin (Line Producer)
Director/Producer: Rohit Dhawan (Director)/Krishika Lulla, Jyoti Deshpande (Producer)
Film Location Analysis
By Kaushik Bhaumik
The film is mostly shot in England. It takes place in a period of recession that leads to many people being sacked from their jobs, with the ‘Brown’ NRIs being especially targeted. As is the general trend with Bollywood films abroad, most of the footage takes place indoors with certain key strategic sequences shot outdoors, highlighting the landmark locations. This is especially true for song sequences.
The film begins with a contrast with one of the male protagonists on a road runner in Northwood—a suburb in northwest London—a relatively downmarket area of the city, and the other male protagonist zooming through the swish business district in London’s Canary Wharf-Docklands area on a Mercedes bike, in a designer suit. An aerial shot captures the new architecture of global London, designer high-rises, home to banks and corporations (we see the HSBC and Citibank buildings). We realise the earlier protagonist works as security personnel in a mall. But even the Northwood High Street is shot in various sequences to highlight stores selling branded goods, notably electronic goods.
The three protagonists—the two men and the girlfriend of one of the men—live in the industrial ‘cool’ of ‘loft living,’ leading neo-boho lives. As is must in England, the friends meet at various pubs to banter. Around the 23-minute mark, the couple dine outdoors with the London Bridge towering over their heads, as they discuss relationships. London seems to be shot from low angles, as a colossal solid giant that presses down on the simple lives of these ‘brown’ folk. The nightclub the men work at as escorts is shown as being located in an area gridded by the Big Ben, the Parliament, the St. Paul’s Bridge, and the London Eye. However, the actual nightclub sequences were probably shot in Thailand.
The song ‘Make Some Noise for Desi Boyz’ starts in a mansion with grounds, and the men cavorting with a huge bevy of bikini-clad girls. Water sports seems to be a theme of the song, probably a metaphor for a sexed-up liquid-squirting fest that the men’s jobs are about. There are inexplicable splices with sequences shot atop a corporate high-rise building in Thailand. The men are in white corporate suits and the metaphor of ‘high flying’ is literalised by the height they are dancing at, and the fact that the roof of the building serves as a helipad. The metaphor of flight is maintained as the song veers back to London—first with the group dancing and cavorting in what is supposed to be a cricketing dressing room (it has to be cricket since these are Indian men in England), followed by a sequence of them dancing inside the RAF Museum in Edgware. We see them dancing on the grounds, surrounded by models of famous airplanes—like the Spitfire that won England the Second World War. Sequences inside take place amidst actual preserved planes, some of them hanging from the roof. The group is here dressed as ground crew for airplanes. Now we have moved into the territory of fantasy fetishes about glamour and speed. The song’s penultimate sequence is in a warehouse with the fantasy of hot and sweaty hunky working-class labour bodies desired by the women. The song finishes again in Thailand with the men now actually standing on the helicopter skis of a craft that is flying above a business district. The women on the roof of the building part their cloaks to reveal their bikini-clad bodies. Champagne squirts up into the blue skies leaving us in no doubt what the song has been about. There is an interesting discourse here about the intersection of service sector sex work, quick money, and an easy access to corporate goodies (something that Instagram today actualises on an industrial scale). One may lose a corporate job but have all that such a job can buy via sex work.
The film then moves to Oxford, where one of the male protagonists has been sent to reform himself by studying at Trinity College (whose signage is very American indeed!). Various scenes emphasise the classicism of Oxford architecture, a contrast to the nightclub scenes. Quads with baroque fountains and trimmed hedges, and well-mown lawns dominate the scenario. The song ‘Allah Maaf Kare’ takes place across various locations in Oxford—the college itself—classroom and grounds, the New College Lane leading up to the Bridge of Sighs, the Radcliffe Camera, and the Bodleian Library. The song begins with an aerial shot of the Camera, a domed building that anchors the shot in a conspicuous landmark of Oxford. Director Dhawan said that he wanted to infuse youth into the film through the Oxford sequence. The message was clear—the struggle to subsist for the NRI had failed due to the recession, the jaded body now needed to go back to school. This sequence is probably modelled on Farah Khan’s Main Hoon Na, where an older Shah Rukh Khan is shown as a student in a ‘college’. There is a brief Oxford sequence at the end with the Bodleian, standing in for a courthouse, where the climax of the film involving the restitution of paternal rights to one of the protagonists takes place.
The song ‘Jhak Maar Ke’ is a romantic serenade song with the hero trying to woo back his irate heroine. The film starts at home in Northwood, moving on to St. Katharine Dock in the London East End. Then the spectacle opens up with the hero riding his Mercedes bike through the iconic old Arcades-style Leadenhall Market, still East London (around since the Roman times). Now home to American brands, the lanes of the market are now aptly filled with extra dancers dressed in cowboy costumes, dancing to the rhythm of the hero’s song. The song goes back to Katharine Dock, this time to the front of the Dickens Inn, a warehouse turned into a tavern. It seems the location is quite a favourite haunt for South Asians in London. The song ends at the iconic Brighton Pier on the Channel. Now a bevy of Scottish bagpipers, whom the hero has paid, bugle away as the serenade winds down. There is some kind of upward mobility from the London East End Katharine Dock and the ‘desi’ Dickens Inn to the historically internationally cosmopolitan Brighton beachfront, from the river to the sea.
The final showdown between the warring couple takes place on the Thames bank as they argue and walk on the promenade—the tracking shot taking in the Big Ben, Parliament House, and the London Eye ferris wheel. The hero is masquerading as a busker on the embankment, quite a regular type found there. The girl wears the poppy badge of Remembrance Day, the day commemorating those who died in the First World War. The day is overcast and cold, a ‘typical’ London day to metaphorically convey to us the dark mood of the situation. But soon all is resolved.
Additional Information & Links
‘Make Some Noise for Desi Boyz’ song video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyWHtKq1PcQ
‘Allah Maaf Kare’ song video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm2hNJ9c8M8
‘Jhak Maar Ke’ song video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5CxtjmrIE4
