Cast: Imran Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Boman Irani, Ram Kapoor, Ratna Pathak Shah
Directed by Shakun Batra
Rating: **
It is the season of love, heart-shaped balloons and diabetes-inducing greeting cards. So when a movie tries to cash in on this circus of affection, you know what you’re in for. But despite being packaged as a V-day extravaganza, this film doesn’t subscribe to every cliché associated with this auspicious day for getting Main and Tu to become Hum. To describe the core of this film without being a spoiler, we can say that all love is friendship but not the other way around. Confused? Here’s a chart.
Like every heterosexual love story, this one has a boy and a girl. And since contemporary love stories have to live up to the new world solution (escapist cinema) of ditching the daily drudgery for chikna neighbourhoods, they will be based in Las Vegas. Our boy, Rahul Kapoor (Imran Khan) is a failing architect by profession, closet photographer and full-time domesticated rat, constantly pushed around by his parents. The girl, Riana Braganza (Kareena Kapoor) is an imported reincarnation of Geet from ‘Jab We Met’ who speaks more than she processes and is annoyingly and constantly happy without reason.
Predictably, Rahul and Riana meet in a situation where they can look beyond their drastic differences to comfort each other on their mutual pain point: lack of employment. The rest, you can script. The free-spirited trains the jailed-spirited to try a new spirit and everyone gets a little too tipsy to pay attention. Luckily, the borrowing from ‘What happens in Vegas’ is limited to the drunken eloping which the notorious Nevada city is infamous for. The ‘morning after’ is casual and melodrama-free and the swift mutual decision to file for an annulment (to call off the wedding) jets the story ahead. At this point, the film could have hit it out of the ground. But unfortunately, they just fumble around with excavating Rahul’s fun side which refuses to surface without consumption of alcohol, while Riana bounces about making merry.
Imran Khan is comfortable in the skin of a one-dimensional person and has surely moved up a rank in the acting department. Kareena, unfortunately, lends only little more than a pretty face here and is tolerable only intermittently (the parts where she isn’t speaking). Boman Irani and Ratna Pathak Shah are apt as Imran’s doting and exacting parents and make their momentary screen presence worth the multiplex ticket. The music is just there to be enjoyed during the movie and probably won’t make it to your CD rack, apart from the deliriously happy number ‘Aunty Ji’.
The lead pair in this film may have negligible chemistry but you would suffer even worse if you use this review to convince your girlfriend for an alternate V-Day plan. So go, fall in love or sleep or munch loudly to drain out the dialogues. Just remember, when you’re walking out of the movie with your hands chained to your partner, it will be worth it. Happy Valentine’s Day!
The lead pair in this film may have negligible chemistry but you would suffer even worse if you use this review to convince your girlfriend for an alternate V-Day plan. So go, fall in love or sleep or munch loudly to drain out the dialogues. Just remember, when you’re walking out of the movie with your hands chained to your partner, it will be worth it. Happy Valentine’s Day!
