Review : Dil pe mat le yaar

This is an excellent film, deftly directed, realistic, and well-told. The storyline is strong, with well-fleshed out characters who behave normally (as normally as filmi characters can behave). A taut screenplay helps this believable tale remain grounded.

Ram Saran Pandey (Bajpai) is a simple, naive, young man from Jaunpur, who comes to Bombay and gets work as a mechanic. Honest and hard-working Ram, has a good friend in Gaitonde (Saurabh Shukla), who is a videographer. Ram one day, meets Kamya Lal (Tabu) a journalist who comes to have her car repaired at the garage where he works. Impressed with his straight-forward manner and honesty, Kamya writes a series of articles about Ram’s honesty. Ram is by now smitten with Kamya and dreams of her reciprocating his feelings. Kamya too seems to value his company, and even gives up smoking on his advice.

Meanwhile Gaitonde’s foreign-returned friend Tito (Aditya Srivastav) comes to stay at Gaitonde’s home for a while, and attempts to sway Gaitonde negatively. Ram tries to steer Gaitonde towards the straight and narrow and away from the nefarious activities that Tito suggests, but things take a turn for the worse. Our boy from Jaunpur in now stuck deep in the quagmire, as illusions shatter and his friends and lover seem to reveal their unfriendly sides. Is it too late for Ram to extricate himself ?

The cast of this film has done a great job. Bajpai is perfect as small-town boy Ram, and his slowly enunciated, vernacular hindi drives home his alienation in modern and superficial Mumbai. Tabu is believable as Kamya, and Saurabh Shukla is very good as Gaitonde.The supporting cast also does its job ably. Direction is crisp, with dialogues in-sync with the character’s definition. The plotline and screenplay flow strong and smooth, fleshing out situations and backgrounds adequately. The background music adds to the suspense of the film’s plot, and is well done. Songs are entrenched in the script and seem to emerge naturally out of situations.

This one is hard to criticise. Enjoy !