There is Bollywood a genre of cinema
that deals with bhais. Often it is opportunity to pan the underbelly of Mumbai:
drug, guns, sex, crime usually in a brazen, brooding pattern. Here the bad guys
are the do gooders. They are invariably sucked into the vortex of the whirlpool
of crime and violence. Often the script is blood drenched, smoke filled, noise
packed. This time we are back on the streets of Mumbai but thankfully without
most of the above. Instead we have debutant Director Vinni Markaan taking about
two hours of your time with a RGV – Raj Kumar Hirani matrix. Stated simply it
fails to work the magic. The idea to deal with the bhais in a comical fashion
is great and actually Raj Kumar Hirani has achieved a slot of fame for himself
doing that, but that requires a lot more than just a few one liners and the
lingua franca of Mumbai.
Simran (Neha Sharma) is on her way to Mumbai in search of a creer and her
dreams. As a preface you are told that if you fail in the city it is not
because of the city but because of a manufacturing defect in you. Simran
therefore has to make it big (disproportionate to what she wears, is what she
dreams). Her trailer is fine, the script sours. So after a good job and nice
set of friends, E. Raja spoils the party with the 2G scam. The market goes
crumbling and takes with it her friends, job and home. She now moves into a
small tenement. She finds a lazy small time Bhai in Jayatibhai (Vivek Oberoi)
for a neighbour. A few chanced encounters and the chemistry blossoms. They are
contrasting persons. She is educated, suave, dreams big, willing to work,
industrious. He is uneducated, crude, realistic, lazy and ever willing to
procrastinate or delegate. Even his group leader Altaf (Zakr Hussain) does not
trust him with anything serious. It would have been delightful to see the
contrasts attract. The script however has no time for such niceties. On the
other hand we have cliché after cliché, where the guys is with the goons trying
to out smart some one or the other. We have the damsel in distress. She is on
an eternal job hunt with scanty clothes and buckets full of hope. The Mumbai
monsoon arrives every time she has a call letter. You know that the two are
bound to make it. You are looking at the pot holes in the luv story and in only
engaging factor in this journey is the one liners – and they are aplenty.
The film lacks sustainable content. The cast lacks conviction. Poor Vivek
Oberoi does everything he can to add credibility. Your heart goes out to him.
He is truly the mainstay – nay the only guy in or about the movie worth talking
about. Poorly edited and unimaginatively shot, this luv story is built just on
anda bhurji. Every time the guy tries a smart one and is caught in the act he
ends up saying: Joking Re. the audience in the collective would well respond:
PJ Re. With a script as convincing as the script of a radio jockey this joke is
truly a poor one.
L. Ravichander.