Riding high on 8 blockbusters, Rohit Shetty and team bring you their latest offering, this time on Christmas, with Shahrukh Khan, Kajol, Varun Dhawan & Kriti Sanon in the lead. Does he continue his winning streak?
Shahrukh and Kajol, the leading pair loved by the entire NRI generation, come back after almost 6 years in this latest Rohit Shetty offering. They do manage to rekindle the old flame in bits and pieces. Somehow in the pre-interval love portion, Kajol and Shetty try to relive the K3G version of Kajol and fall flat outright. It is in the post interval mature version where she shines, but fails due to not even a half baked role in this, hole-ridden, sorry attempt of a movie script.
I had mentioned it for Singham Returns too, Rohit’s writing department is failing him. it has been proved yet again. The law of averages had to catch up with him sometime, and after ruling the Bollywood roster for around 10 years, finally comes his disaster (barring the 2008 flick Sunday).
The only person to be blamed here is Rohit Shetty and his team. Everything that we had begun to love in his films, comedy, witty one liners, decent music, mind blowing stunts and fast paced action, it seems all these departments decided not to give any creativity to Rohit and team this time and he fails in each and everyone of them. So much so, that whilst in Singham he had copied stunts from a contemporary RED, in this movie he lands up copying the 15 year old stunt from MI2.
There are barely 4 scenes in the full film, which will make you laugh your guts out, unlike the earlier full films which left you gagging for breath. The if there has been any decent writing done, it has been for Mukesh Tiwari, Pankaj Tripathi, Varun Sharma and Sanjay Mishra.
Varun Dhawan fights, dances, cries and makes you laugh, just like he did in Main Tera Hero & Humpty Sharma. His involvement in this film would be the second least, cos he aint gonna lose anything if this film tanks. The least involved character is that of Kriti Sanon. Besides looking nice, dancing to Varun’s tunes and a scene here or there, the poor girl seems to have got a very raw deal in her second outing.
Shahrukh, playing dual role of lead and producer, does his best to carry the film on his shoulders completely and to a great extent does a fine job. But he has no back up support from his regular areas i.e. poor music, no direction and a joke of a script. Unlike Happy New Year, here the bearded look does suit him at times, but unfortunately, only his looks wont be enough.
The film, if watchable is only due to the supporting cast of Johnny Lever, Sanjay Mishra, Mukesh Tiwari, Pankaj Tripathi and Varun Sharma. Vinod Khanna and Kabir Bedi are a joke, completely wasted. Nawab Shah along with Boman Irani are again put to little use.
The problem is the intent. I firmly believe that if you ever do something with the intent of harming someone else, then somewhere it will backfire. Rohit has been making fun of Sanjay Leela Bhansali via his jokes throughout his movies and all were taken in fun by the audiences too. But here, announcing this film after Bhansali had announced his magnum opus, was in poor taste. It only wreaks of negativity and just like Karna lost all his strengths at the crucial time of the Mahabharat, all Rohit’s strengths seem to have deserted him. Let me tell you, I am a big Rohit Shetty fan and have always enjoyed his films. Even today if you sit halfway through any of the Golmaal, All The Best, Chennai Express, Bol Bachchan or the original Singham, you will enjoy those films. But this Dilwale has neither Dil nor soul. It only has a big budget, trying to encash on a big star cast, with a rehash of HUM & Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi, but failing miserably.
Bade afsos ke saath kehna padh raha hai, Dil to sabke paas hota hai, par har koi Dilwale nahi hote, vaise hi… picturein to Rohit Shetty kaafi banata hai, par har koi acchi nahi hoti.
Save your money, skip this one.
RATING : 1.5 / 5
By: Yusuf Poonawala
