Time generally stops when the
projector goes on. Sometimes it stops for the better, sometimes for the worse.
Mere Brother ki Dulhan falls in the latter category. At 145 minutes, it was not
supposed to be a tiresome effort to watch; it is... Believe me, it is!
Legend has it that during Mithun da’s
heyday in 1990’s, he used to make 35-37 movies in a year and didn’t mind using
some footage from one of his movies as a stock for other movies. Yash Raj Films
(YRF) doesn’t make 37 films in a year (Thankfully!) but I get a feeling that
they are using the same ploy. Every
character and sequence in MBKD gives you a feeling of déjà vu.
Kush Agnihotri (Imran)
saunters into the movie as if it were ‘I
hate luv storys - part 2’. Same characterization, same limited set of
expressions, same eyebrows (eyebushes, actually).. even his profession remains the
same! Imran better invoke some divine (read: uncle) intervention before he gets
typecast as a Jay or a Kush.
Dimple Dixit (Katrina) is like
a daily-wager in this movie. I think she must have sauntered out of her vanity
van every day and the director, Ali Abbas Zafar, must have told her “Okay, you will be a
hippie rockstar today”, “You will be a demure prospective bride serving some
tea today”, “You are gonna be drunk today” etc etc.. The thing is there is
absolutely no continuity in her character... She looks and acts like a confused
mix of Jab We Met’s Geet, Band Baaja Baaraat’s Shruti and Love Aaj Kal’s Meera.. Her mood,
expressions and personality changes as often and as inconsistently as her
earrings... okay, I might not be right about her expressions; they pretty much
remain the same..
Luv Agnihotri (Ali Zafar) is a
pretty face but that prettiness goes unnoticed in comparison to the ethereal beauty
of Katrina. I have, unfortunately, not seen ‘Tere Bin Laden’ but, from what I’ve heard, it must have been a much
much better effort than MBKD’s Luv.
Every other supporting cast in
this movie is a caricature. Kush’s friends remind me of the fantastic Deepak
Dobriyal’s Pappi of ‘Tanu weds Manu’
(unfortunately, they are nowhere as great as Deepak). Kanwaljeet and Parikshit
Sahani as Dimple and Kush’s respective dads start off well but then settle into
their respective caricature molds. Even the wedding decorator/contractor looks
straight out of ‘Band Baaja Baaraat’.
Like all YRF projects, MBKD boast
of sound production quality and the works. But everything goes down the drain
as soon the script and the story (or the lack of it) is talked about. There are
so many pot-holes in the plot that they remind me of an average Indian road
after monsoon. For eg: Where was the family when Kush takes Dimple on a 24 hour
Dilli-darshan just two days before her engagement? How come no one notices that
Dimple and Kush had run away from the Delhi farmhouse? Would Kush have still
thought about Luv’s well-being and love interest, had he not fallen for Dimple?
Parikshit Sahani is a retired colonel and Kanwaljeet is an IFS officer, so who
the hell is paying for the extravagant Delhi farmhouse and the convenient shift
to Agra at the drop of a hat? Let me guess, Yash uncle?...
Oh by the way, did I
mention that Ali Abbas Zafar worked as an assistant director in ‘Tashan’, ‘Jhoom Barabar Jhoom’ and ‘Badmash
Company’? I guess that answers most of my questions stated above.
I can go and on about what is
wrong with MBKD but I fear that my review will end up looking longer than this
film’s script. In the end, I can only feel sad that the flicker of hope that
YRF showed in ‘Band Baaja Baaraat’
has been mercilessly extinguished by MBKD.
