‘Lip Sing Battle’ Review: 45 Mins of Sheer Torture on TV
To put it simply, Farah Khan’s new show is unwatchable despite Farhan Akhtar and Arjun Kapoor.
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Let me state it up front - Lip Sing Battle is probably the most tacky, crass and juvenile celeb show that I’ve seen on Star Plus. I love Farah Khan’s films and her flair for humour that we get to see via her writing and interviews, but with Lip Sing Battle, Farah seems to have descended dangerously close to her brother Sajid Khan’s brand of insipidity.
The promos seemed promising, and so I streamed the show on Hotstar only to do a full 40-odd minutes of eye-roll. The show begins with Farah auditioning Ali Asgar for the show who cringeworthily transforms himself from:
Shah Rukh Khan (Main Hoon Na)
to Katrina Kaif (Tees Maar Khan)
and back to SRK (Om Shanti Om).
Once the filmmaker/choreographer has paid a homage to her own films, the real show begins.
A dapper looking Farhan Akhtar brightens the proceedings, making an entry like he’s just stepped in from a GQ cover shoot.
Farhan is followed by Arjun Kapoor, the Ishaqzaada looked well-groomed but his wardrobe was from the, “ he just threw something on” zone.
I need to stop here and point out that the one quick way to make out that a show is decisively tacky is to spot the same cut-away (reaction shot) used repeatedly.
This girl in red reacts the exact same way not once, not twice, but THRICE on the show.
Basic rule of using B-Roll, never repeat the same reaction shot. You just can’t use the same shot of this lady in red going wild when Arjun enters, then again when Farhan says he loves the audience and then again when Arjun performs.
As Lip Sing Battle begins to roll and just when you hope that the actual show with all the challenges and dares will make things better, we get Ali Asgar dressed up as Rakhee doing a spoof with the “Mere Karan Arjun aayenge...” routine, which is now, “Mere Farhan Arjun aayenge...” because...
Yes, the show is clearly aiming for the Lowest Common Denominator (LCD), but I just hope they’re paying Asgar ridiculously well, for ridiculing himself in this manner. Even the viral ‘Karan Arjun Dubstep’ (you can watch it on YouTube) that they use here falls flat.
While all this tamasha goes on Farah adds next to nothing to make the antics funny, and both Arjun and Farhan almost look embarrassed to be on the show (I could be wrong).
The first challenge has both Farhan and Arjun lip-syncing to the popular Jumma chuma de de... track. The pace of the song switches from normal to slow-mo to fast and the actors keep up. Nothing extra-ordinary here. Who scored on this challenge? How was it judged? No idea.
Round 1 on the Lip Sing Battle has Farhan lip-syncing to Shankar Mahadevan’s Breathless, while Arjun performs to Asha Bhosle and RD Burman’s foot-tapping number Duniya mein logo ko... from Apna Desh. Again, how are these actors being judged here? What’s the criteria? Who cares?
Round 2 has Farhan in costume dancing to Om shanti om... from Karz a la Rishi Kapoor. Well, Farhan does keep you interested, he’s not as nimble as Rishi was but going by the standard of entertainment that the show has set so far, you can’t complain.
To counter Farhan, Arjun puts up an act as Sanjay Dutt in Khalnayak, dancing and lip-syncing to Nayak nahi khalnayak hoon main... and it’s just passable fare.
The audience chooses who the better contestant here is via a dopey measure called the ‘Cheer-o-Meter’, the louder the cheer for a particular star, the more points he scores.
At the end of the torturous 45-mins Farhan wins, gets a winning “belt” that looks borrowed from the nearest Maganlal Dresswala store. Farhan promptly lets Arjun have the belt after displaying it for the audience. Both the stars look relieved that the show has wrapped up and so are we. Farah on her part, plays the good host and tries to entice us for another episode of Lip Sing Battle, but I am not sure anyone’s going in for seconds.
If Farah had just sat down and had a chat with Farhan and Arjun about the movies, I would have happily watched that.