Movie Preview : Ajab prem ki ghazab kahani

Raj Kumar Santoshi has directed a bunch of films, “Andaz Apna Apna”, “Pukar” and “Damini” being the better known ones. His most recent film “Halla bol” didn’t do too well. This time he attempts a romantic comedy with the flavor of the month, Ranbir Kapoor, and the actress who’s had a flurry of films lately – the comely Katrina Kaif.

Of course if the Official Website is anything to go by, this film might be a dud. There’s Kapoor doing a Saawariya, with a towel. He’s also in one of the stills, in what looks to be woman’s dress. And in the promos, he’s hamming it up. Not good signs, any of them. This film is a romance, so hopefully there’ll be more to it than him being the President of Happy Club.

There’s Prem (Ranbir) and Jennifer or Jenny (Katrina). Prem is quite “ajab” and this is his “ghazab” ki kahani – you do see the clever punning by Santoshi & Co., don’t you ? OK then, so Prem falls in love with Jenny who’s already in love with someone else. He also inadvertently kidnaps her (not sure how that works) and she now loathes him, while he adores her, and thinks her vanilla ice-cream (hmm… this is starting to weird me out). Somewhere in there he also makes jalebis while wearing khaki shorts, so maybe he’s a halwai-in-training ?

The whole never-do-well, goofy guys cleaning up their act, after meeting the perfect woman thing is getting a tad clichéd. Didn’t Ranbir just play the same role in “Wake up Sid” ? Katrina’s the peppy, young thing – yet again. But on the bright side, two of the songs in the film have been sung by Atif Aslam, in his gorgeously soulful voice, and they turn out beautifully, especially “Tera hone laga hoon”

This film is aimed at the younger crowd, and I’m going by the look of the promos and the Website, and their ‘apparent” desire to be so cool and hip, and narrate in comic form. And everytime they get “comic-y” (remember Hum Tum ?), it ends up looking juvenile and losing appeal. So I do hope that there’s more meat in the film, and they are not so fixated on working the “masala” in that they forget that there’s more to a film than that. Santoshi generally isn’t all fluff so that gives me hope, although which schmuck is behind the silly Website (and OMG, this doesn’t bear thinking about, but will the movie be as silly as that?)