Mahesh Bhatt wrote this film by proclaiming that this Mohit Suri directed venture, would be a screen rendition of the love story between his father Nanabhai Bhatt, his mother and stepmother. That did make it an exciting idea. Add to that Mohit Suri, with 2 super hits (Aashiqui 2, Ek Villain) behind the megaphone and Emraan Hashmi, Vidya Balan and Rajkumaar Rao in the cast, did make it an exciting option. Did they live up the expectation?
This 131 minute long venture, actually seems to be a never ending exercise… in futility. The movie starts off on a very strong note, with Rajkumaar showing his skills as the mentally ill Hari, who comes to his doctor to seek counsel about his separated wife visiting him in the morning, only to be shooed off, met by his estranged daughter in law, taken to Mumbai only to realize his wife died. The only thing which matches is that she was wearing a red sweater and her last words, ‘Radha kisme jaayegi, marne ke baad’. The estranged father and son (Namit Das) disagree with the treatment of her last remains, which leads to Hari stealing them and leaving a story book behind, taking us all in flashback.
The film has its high points, but they are hardly there. In an attempt to show quite a few things, practical realities go for a toss. Long drawn sequences with high worded dialogues which might have been nice to write but too heavy to bear slow the proceedings down considerably.
Add to the fact that the music trio of Ankit Tiwari, Mithoon and Jeet Ganguly has now replaced Tiwari with Ami Mishra. This seems like their failing point, because the music somehow never took off at all. Inspite of having Arijit Singh sing the title track, rest of the songs don’t hit any note whatsoever, again a point which works against Mohit’s film, which had chartbusting music the last 2 times.
In terms of performances, I guess someone has to tell Vidya Balan that she should stop taking herself seriously. In an industry which judges you every Friday, her last hit was in 2012 with Kahani. Followed by duds like Ghanchakkar, Shaadi ke Side Effects and Bobby Jaasoos, in the past 3 and a half years, she seems to have lost her mojo. Just doing women centric roles for the sake of doing makes no sense. Seems she is becoming like Naseeruddin Shah, who started to take himself so seriously that only he felt frustrated (in one of his own interviews) and the audiences could care less.
Rajkumaar Rao in a sort of a cameo in terms of screen presence, does an excellent job. Simply brilliant. His chauvinism, 2 steps higher than his performance in Queen and his madness make him rule the screen whilst he is there.
Amla, in her cameo as Emraan’s mom, looks much younger than Vidya, but is cast again in an inconsequential and ill written role.
The film, if it could, livens up only due to Emraan. He looks stylized, confident and more so, it is only and only his performance which makes the film worth watching for. His anger at the minister, sadness at Vidya and happiness at finding his inner peace, all showing yet again, what a brilliant and underrated actor he is.
Mohit goofs up big time here and only has his story to blame, credited to Mahesh Bhatt. I’m really surprised that they couldn’t see this a mile away. But then again, they missed Mr. X also.
RATING: 1/5
By: Yusuf Poonawala
