Cocktail- a heady mix movie review!

Cocktail is a romantic, madcap, youthful comedy based on a friendship between 3 people and how it changes their lives.

The first half is a heady mix of happy fun and laughter and zips by but life hits the 3 characters in the second half when x falls in love with y and y falls in love with z and this is where the trouble starts for director Homi Adajania, who seems to be plagued with the same malaise of most filmakers where they dont know when to call it a day. That's when the movie just goes on and on. There is a point where you do wonder whether it's a love story between Veronica and Meera, and if Gautam is just the kabab mein haddi. What starts off as a delicious cocktail ends like a flat-on-its-face cola without fizz.

Cocktail is just as the title insinuates... a movie that has all the ingredients – good looking actors, fatastic locations, laughter, tears, drama, dances, songs, but is let down by the 2^nd half.

The movie will be a sure shot winner with the 20-something crowd, who all wish they had lives like Gautam, Veronica and Meera. Saif Ali Khan as Gautam is effortless but the man should start playing his age. Initially he just comes off as this overage, horny casanova but to give him credit, his character does grow on you. Deepika Padukone is totally immersed in Veronica and seems to have enjoyed herself. Diana Penty is miles ahead in acting when compared to the newer lot of girls we have seen so far in the past few months. Dimple Kapadia and Boman Irani are a class apart. Randeep Hooda is a waste and seems to have done this inane role just to have a holiday in London.

Homi Adjania could have proved himself once again after Being Cyrus and made this Imtiaz Ali script his own, but he seems to have taken a leaf out of Imtiaz and Karan Johar's book on filmaking and given us the old love triangle served in a tall sparkling Cocktail glass.

The music is already a rage and goes well with the tone of the movie. The colours and the cinematography suit the upbeat tone.

To wrap up, Cocktail is predictable and slightly frayed at the edges, but a feel goodish, fairy-tale-ish movie which gets 2.5 stars from us at FOI just for the first half!