If you decide to watch "Happy New Year", and I suggest you do, then understand that much of it, particularly in the last half hour, makes little sense. It's one of those films you have to suspend your sense of disbelief and simply accept it for what it is...a goofy musical dramedy.

Charlie (Shah Rukh Khan) has an audacious plan to rob a crook of 300 crore (about $8,000,000 USD). It seems that years before, Charan Grover stole millions and set Charlie's father up to take the fall. Now, Charlie wants to ruin Grover....and he proposes to do it through dance!!! Yes, dance! It seems that in Dubai, there's an international dance competition (much like Eurovision) and it's sponsored by the evil Grover. Charlie's plan is to get his gang into the semi-finals so they can break in to Grover's safe to steal millions in diamonds...and leave Grover as the only reasonable suspect. But how can they possibly become India's entry in the competition when they are NOT dancers? Cheat!

At times, this film is like a drama, such as "Ocean's 11" or "Mission: Impossible". But on occasion, the film deliberately breaks the fourth wall in order to make fun of itself...which I think made the film more enjoyable.

So why if I enjoyed the movie did I score it a 7 and not higher? Well, the entire final portion of the film is ridiculous....but enjoyable. Folks instantly change into new costumes, diamonds instantly mount themselves to trophies and folks who are simply too far away to be at the dance competition are instantly there...and they haven't even broken a sweat. But none of this spoils the film too much since it is so enjoyable. So my advice is to just turn off your brain and enjoy it for what it is...silly fun.

The cast was nice, but it was the "Ocean's" musical. I also found the acting too exaggerated. Shahrukh Khan I'm sorry but that didn't happen.

It all depends on what you expect. If rambunctious actors playing horse, wearing 100 different, colorful costumes, enacting a brainless heist is your definition of film, then you will be happy that you watched the film. Otherwise, you are in for a huge disappointment.

It was unwise of me to be in the latter category. The film starts with Charlie (Shahrukh Khan),a nobody with an athletic body who is planning for 8 years now, to avenge his father's wrong incarceration by a hot-shot ignoramus (Shroff). Now as stupid as it might seem, he gathers a group of idiots (aka losers) to execute his plan which consists of many parts. The losers can be seen in the posters, but I will care to itemize them:

► Tammy (Boman Irani) is the most annoying character in the whole film. With a voice improvisation that will make you wanna punch him in the face till it disfigures, he is an elderly stud who overacts and spoils the already botched attempt at making a film. Irani's worst performance.

► Nandu Bhide (Bachchan Jr.) could be termed the most comic character by the audience with whom I watched the film because with every joke (all mindless, naive, and substandard),laughs sputtered as if an original stand-up comedy was being enacted. We aren't expecting much from Bachchan Jr. since after his Guru days, but drooping so low to make his fans to dissolve into laughter? Well, no one can help him. His performance makes his Idea commercials Oscar-worthy.

► Rohan (Vivaan Shah) is a child who was only last month discontinued from breastfeed by his mum. With no acting skills at all or at least the ability to maneuver and make do without it (like Bachchan Jr.),he is a misfit here. Hasn't he inherited anything from his father?

► Jag (Sonu Sood) is an explosive specialist turned body-builder out of the 2003 American hit film "The Italian Job." In fact, the whole film is relative to that film, which I guess Farah Khan didn't know, was brutally remade by Abbas-Mustan as "Players." She should've asked our Johnny-boy Bachchan Jr.. Sood is fine.

Anyways, talk about performances and there is a competition happening among all the actors to come up with the worst performance. Consider Mohini (Deepika Padukone) who is a bar dancer with life values etched on to her. She cannot speak English and her disability is rampant in the film, helped by Bachchan Jr., which is the main cause of humor. SRK is fine, as well, but expecting more from him was my only mistake. He's grown old, but looks young both physically and mentally.

The plot is as unoriginal as it can get. Borrowed from famous heist films, the first half blows. Traction builds up in the second half i.e. in Dubai where the actual heist takes place. The tens of dance performances, one unnecessary fight scene involving SRK, and loads of melodrama makes it a perfect family film by Farah Khan. The final scenes flash a lot of cliché and marks predictability. I have nothing special to say about Jackie Shroff, because he seemed like he played the role with only money (for the portrayal) in his mind.

There are lots of junk comedy scenes that you may want to relish, but not a single sequence that evinces an emotion or a style or a film factor. Editing is hopeless and so is the screenplay. One scene involves a dance, while in the subsequent scene SRK is changing his 71st sunglasses. Music (Scott Choplin's The Entertainer used in a wrong context, Carl Douglas's Kung Fu Fighting, again used in wrong context; the fighters hardly use kung fu) and songs are the only thing that made me rate the film a 3, along with the slight effort that was made for the faintly funny dialogs.

There are massive plot holes that if I start explaining will be longer than the reel of the film at 3 hours. But who even cares about these holes, when you know that the ship has already sunk. Towards the end, it looked like the makers didn't want it to end, slipping in unwanted parts of the film which may have been edited out previously. And the shindig ends with the typical way how a Farah Khan ends her films: the jokers who helped in making the film show their faces to get further embarrassed.

BOTTOM LINE: It all depended on the direction, the torch bearer to bring out the performances in her actors, but after watching this 3- hour nonsense, I believe she was rather sleeping throughout the shoots and let her brother handle the unit. So the stupidity! Watch at your own risk if you are a fan of any of the actors. Otherwise, skipping wouldn't be much harmful other than the fact that all your friends would've possibly seen it, thrice, already.

can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES