`Ek Main aur Ek Tu' established Kareena and Imran as a bankable pair so it doesn't come as any big surprise that the twosome have been cast again by the same banner (Karan Johar's) in yet another romedy of sorts. This light-weight saga of love traverses between Delhi, Karnataka and interior Gujarat before it fulfills it's happily-ever-after promise. Dilli kudi Dia(Kareena) works in an NGO( we don't know the name of the organization so she might me freelancing) and Sriram Venkat ( Imran Khan) a Tam-brahm educated in the US, settled in Bangalore, is an architect who has his father's mall development business to fallback upon. They bump into each other at a traffic snarl and soon enough tidily sparks begin to fly. In fact that sequence where Dia impersonates a pregnant woman about to deliver, and gets Sriram to stand-in as anxious hubby is the most interesting comic thrust of the film. Thereafter the two bump into each other at the opening of a mall where Dia uses her very own brand of activism to garner attention for the plight of children without playgrounds.
Sriram, the Tamilian who does a fine job with Punjabi-speak, just cannot manage a decent word in Tamil. Never mind that. Soon we see him engaged to another girl, Vasu(Shradha Kapoor) who is in love with a Sikh but doesn't have the guts to go against her parents' wishes. So we now have Sriram and Vasu reminiscing about their respective trysts with romance and eventually by half-time they go their separate ways. Vasu disappears from the screen while Sriram follows Dia to the interiors of Gujarat. A bridge is in process of being built but will the misunderstandings between the two lovers get straightened out by the time it's done?
It's of course predictable and a little too artificially poised to be comforting or entirely likable. The comedy is a little too light and mostly ineffective to be entertaining. The twosome look good together no doubt but the fragile threadbare narrative that keeps setting them apart and bringing them together does come across as overly manipulative and unconvincing. The songs and dances are performed with casual engagement. The music is as lightweight and frothy as the film is forgettable. Even the eye-pleasing playful chemistry between the two leads, the sincerely rendered performances by Kareena , Imran, Shradha and Anupam Kher do little to lift up the narrative from it's morass of indifference. Punit Malhotra manages fairly well to temper the emotions down to a level close to subtlety. But the poorly constructed script and the fascination with gloss and glamour even when the backdrop is dusty, rural and entirely rustic, makes for an unacceptable contrast. The costumes, styling and make-up are also way off base especially seen when the couple are slumming it in the village. Can't figure out why these Bollywood filmmakers find it difficult to stay true to milieu and subject?
The lack of a strong conflict is also quite damning. There is also not much scope for great drama here. In fact the film is entirely dependent on the Kareena-Imran chemistry which is palpable but not one that can catch fire altogether. This film is certainly cute but nowhere close to memorable!
Rating: * * 1/2
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