Genre : Romance
Year : 2014
Running time : 2 hours 15 minutes
Director : Habib Faisal
Cast : Parineeti Chopra, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Anupam Kher
Gulrez Qadir aka Gullu (Chopra) is tired of the marriage market, and of the outrageous dowries demanded by the parents of eligible grooms, while the grooms sit spinelessly by. She decides to take matters into her own hands and comes up with a harebrained scheme to cuckold these dowry demanders. It is a pity then that the first person to walk into her neatly set trap might be the man of her dreams.
Frankly I wasn’t expecting much from this movie, because it didn’t do too well on release. And it seemed kinda wishy-washy, and suffered from low wattage star power. So I am pleasantly surprised to report that this is a decent film. Habib Faisal, who gave us the lovely Do Dooni Char, directs this too. Parineeti has proved that she is here for the long haul, but I am always surprised to see Aditya in lead roles delivering hits; I kind of see him as another Kunal Kapoor, interesting, yet not charismatic enough to anchor a film.
Here Chopra is her effervescent self. Kapoor is in his scruffiest avatar yet as Tariq Haider, all surma-eyed and tradesman-like, quite different from his suave city boy roles. Anupam Kher plays Gullu’s hapless dad. The film is set in the lovely city of Hyderabad, and Gullu and her dad have long conversations in Hyderabadi Hindi.
The film starts off with a good anti-dowry message, and we see the smart Gullu sending prospective greedy in-laws packing. And it seems like Faisal knows what he is doing because the characters are well-drawn, there is humor and everything’s kinda good-natured. However somewhere along the way, this film gets a little too contrived, and the plot-line a little too shaky. Some songs appear forced in.
The romance angle works because Parineeti and Aditya share good chemistry and make a charming pair. And since this is basically a romance, the film turns out all right, although this is a bit of downer coming from Habib Faisal. Faisal’s film’s stories are about everyday people and seem natural. One has come to expect organically growing story lines from him, but DEI throws us for a loop with it’s outlandish plot twist. With this film it appears that Faisal is underscoring the “commercial” aspect, to the film’s detriment.
To sum up, this is a pleasant watch. I only hope Faisal ups his game with his next venture.
Kidwise : Clean. As family-friendly as Bollywood gets these days.
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