This is about spoilt coconuts and cow dung. It is further about how practice
makes a man imperfect. It is also about terrakota horses and laughs about guys
urinating on another. It is about messing up with Nuvvu Ostanante… and in a
rather contrived manner establishing the credentials of Sid as an actor and
about how translations can get lost in the context of changing milieus. It is
also an awful debut for an actor who seems to have rushed to acting without
honing his skills. Prabhu Deva is over the hills loud to a fault and is
obviously carrying his luck as the remake maker too too far.
To the uninitiated it is about a millionaire couple Poonam Dhillon and Randhir
Kapoor from Australia. The couple are at logger heads and she is projected as
the shrew. Their spoilt brat son Ram (Girish Taurani) comes to India for the
wedding of his cousin, the daughter of Mama (Satish Shah). The gal has a friend
Sona (Shruti Hasan) a glam doll tucked away in the village with a brother
fixation. The flash back has it that the siblings Sona and Raghuveer (Sonu
Sood) were orphans early when mama dies of spousal rejection. Cared for by the
local station master (Vinod Khanna) and exploited by the local Lalaji (Govind
Namdeo) the siblings over do their commitment bit.
Now at the sets of Sooraj Bharjatiya (read family wedding) the hyper Ram and
sober Sona fall in love. But Mom – the – Terrible (Poonam) wants her son to
marry rich and silly bimbo Dolly (Pankhuri Awasti) with a crazier dad (Nasser)
to boot. The rich poor divide read alongside rural urban fracture finds Ramu in
the village with the challenge thrown at him by Bhai looking Bhiaya Raghuveer.
Of course everyone in the audience which includes the wailing three year old
knows that Ram is going to win. You also have the customary village Lalaji and
his stupid son who want Sona in the family. If all this were not dumb enough,
you have this character whose only role in the film is to drop whatever she is
holding on hearing the word Sambahal ke.
The film is simply out of gear and loud to a fault. The Telugu version was not
just a big hit but also pleasant on the eye. This is not. This time it seems
too contrived and in any way while the original worked largely because of Sid,
Trisha and the support cast including Prakash Raj, the replacements simply lack
the wherewithal to carry the narration with any degree of conviction. While
Randhir looks faded, Poonam Dhillon continues to be the non-actress she is. Shruti
who seemed to be coming into her own is a mess yet again. She is simply too
excogitated. The major failure in the film is its central character Ram played
by debutant Girish who obviously has made it this far thanks to Dad. Money bags
can help with a good launch but the deliverables and with the actor and here
the lad is unpretentiously wanting. A six pack and nimble foot do not an actor
make. Vinod Khanna is his usual dignified self. The one guy who is worth
noticing is Sonu Sood who is not the evil he is often made out to be, but yet
ends up in jail. He does a calm and under played loud in an otherwise olud
chaotic world. Ramaiya Vastavaiya is better titled Ramaiya Ravodiya.
L. Ravichander.