Will the real Pahlaj Nihalani please stand up?
Until last month, as chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification, Nihalani was busy upholding the country's morals. Today, less than a month after he was unceremoniously ejected from the position, Nihalani is back in the distribution game, promoting a film that, going by the trailer, is laden with the sort of content he himself would have shot down.
For the record, Julie 2 is the second film in the Julie franchise. Deepak Shivdasani had cast Neha Dhupia, then a newcomer, in the first film back in 2004. For Julie 2, he has roped in popular Malayalam actress Raai Laxmi (earlier known as Lakshmi Rai), who makes her Hindi film debut, and upped the hotness quotient. The film's tagline is 'bold, beautiful, blessed', and it certainly has the blessings of the sanskari Nihalani.
Julie 2 deals with the age-old subject of the casting couch in the film industry. From there, the film veers towards a thriller as Julie finds herself on the hit list of an acid attack gang. A fair story, but the problem is that neither Laxmi nor any of the other characters is impressive. While Laxmi certainly has the look, the trailer does not hold out the promise of any greating acting skills. Save for the bold visuals, there is nothing in the trailer to make you fall in love with this Julie.
While it is up to the individual to decide whether a particular scene is vulgar, some of the scenes in the Julie 2 trailer do surprise you. For instance, the image of a man placing his hand on Laxmi's seemingly bare chest does send temperatures soaring. And to mention the sundry naked and topless scenes. How Shivdasani must be thanking his lucky stars Nihalani is no longer the CBFC chairman but the distributor of his film!
Remarkably, a few days ago, Nihalani had told the Mumbai Mirror newspaper that he wants Julie to be given an ‘Adults Only’ certificate without cuts. “There is no vulgarity, obscenity, or even a language problem,” he said. How times, and people, change.
Julie 2 is set to be released on 6 October. You can watch the film's trailer below. And predict its box-office performance here.