Paying Guests

The moment you hear about a film that has a title which goes as Paying Guests and stars a bunch of youngsters creating some ‘dhamaal’, you know that it is going to be a full on fun ride all the way. For a movie like this, a score isn’t really required to stand out per se. It has to primarily complement the narrative of the film and be a spicy ingredient to the scheme of things. With Sajid-Wajid at the helm of affairs, you know that there would at least be a tune or two that would definitely make its presence felt in this fun outing. Jalees Sherwani, Wajid, A. K. Upadhyay and Rashid Firozabadi are the men in charge of writing the lyrics. First to arrive is the fun number ‘Jack & Jill’ where each of the eight leading protagonists of the film (Shreyas Talpade, Ashish Chaudhary, Celina Jaitly, Neha Dhupia, Riya Sen, Sayali Bhagat, Vatsal Sheth, Javed Jaffrey) are dressed up as school kids. Sung by Shaan, the number is a clear take off from Lakshmikant-Pyaarelal school of music. Nothing wrong with that as Sajid-Wajid bring in modern day sound (with rap by Earl D’Souza) to fuse well with the old-age music style and come up with ‘Jack & Jill’. The song, which also comes in a racy ‘remix version’, belongs to the genre of music that has been witnessed earlier in ‘Golmaal’ series and should keep the fun quotient alive. 

Paying Guests Sajid-Wajid continues to get inspired by the composers from the past as they pay homage to Bappi Lahiri with the title song ‘Paying Guests’. There is not a single moment in this four minute song which gets on to the job from the word ‘Go’. Wajid, who was extremely impressive in the poignant ‘Tere Bina’ [Kal Kissne Dekha] a few weeks back makes a complete about turn to come up with a holds-no-bar rendition when it comes to Paying Guests. The purists searching for that ever elusive new sound may be in for a disappointment but if you are in mood for some foot tapping number that is in a mode similar to that of ‘Dil Mein Baji Guitar’ [Apna Sapna Money Money], then this is the one for you!  What works in the favour of Paying Guest music is the consistency factor that ensures that you get what you would have expected from the score to begin with. This time around it’s the turn of yet another catchy number ‘Ya Rabula Rabbi’ to find a place in the album. Primarily a Sonu Nigam number with rap by Earl D’Souza and Amrita Kak chipping in two minutes into the song, ‘Ya Rabula Rabbi’ is a number that Salman Khan would have loved to have in his repertoire. Can we expect Pritam to look at Said-Wajid and say – ‘Et Tu?’ Reason? The base rhythm of ‘Nazar Se Nazaria’ has a liberal take off from the sound of ‘Crazy Kiya Re’. Never mind the similarity factor because ‘Nazar Se Nazaria’ in any case hardly makes an impression and doesn’t have much to offer. Yet again, this number too tries to be all fun and frolic but at the end of the day doesn’t rise above an average item number category. Sung by Sunidhi Chauhan, it’s a surprise that the song also finds a ‘remix version’ for itself! Avoidable!
 
Overall, in Paying Guest we are not looking at a number that could rewrite history or make you head for those music classes. However, what can be rest assured is the fact that while songs like ‘Jack & Jill’, ‘Paying Guests’ and ‘Ya Rabula Rabbi’ are played on the big screen, there won’t be a single dull moment for the audience.
 
OUR PICK(S) ‘Jack & Jill’, ‘Paying Guests’