The story? A mix of Pyar Tune Kya Kiya and several others.

Krish, a painter and fashion photographer (Saahil), goes to Mauritius for painting and photography leaving his fiancée, a fashion designer (Sneha Ullal), behind. He lands up at the fantastic residence of a blind colonel (Rajesh Khanna) whose daughter Kiya (Sanna) gets besotted with him. This motherless child practises some supernatural activities to harm those who come in her way! The end is predictable.

So much has gone into promoting Mauritius that all songs pop up scanning the country’s scenic and architectural beauty but provide no aid to the story. A professional painter is not seen painting even in one scene. He just dances “In the rain….” and shoots nature! Why did director B. H. Tharun Kumar forget that driving a sleek-red open car, sporting designer wear, cycling on the beach and dancing in skin-fit costumes doesn’t make heroes and heroines! Rajesh Khanna does justice to his role as a blind man but is irredeemable when it comes to delivering dialogue that demands the character’s skin.

Unnoticeable songs and music, juvenile attempts to create horror through “spirited” corners of a godown, murder of two people close to Kiya…. what was the need?

Johnny Lever is forced in as an element of humour. He portrays Inspector Danda who wears danglers and imagines himself as Aishwarya Rai. The caricature is on the infamous Inspector-General of Police D. K. Panda who had declared that he had turned “doosri Radha” some time ago. Praises of Aishwarya weren’t needed to remind people of Sneha’s resemblance to her.

Thumbs down! Go if you want to savour the innocent charm of Sneha, else save your money for a better film.

Was veejay Gaurav Kapur out of a job? What desperation for visibility through the 70 mm that he decided to “show up” himself in this banal film! One Varun Khanna is all in all of the film: producer, director, story, screen play and dialogue writer! By the way, who is Varun Khanna?

From the word go, the film is a soft-porn – innuendoes, crude camera angles, rudimentary locations, conceited body language and offensive gestures are the hallmark of the film.

If you are still willing to know the story, well, it is about an orphan, Govind (Gaurav Kapur), who is raised by his relatives and lives alone. He is an obsessive, compulsive, down-on-his luck man who has a major disconnect with God. So whoever comes near him gets adversely affected by his “shadow” and suffers a loss! He keeps on switching jobs because of his “bad luck” and lands up in an underworld camp that counts bookies, politicians and henchmen as its members. It is here that a political leader, Mahalkar (Govind Namdev) “utilises” his “shadow” to combat his opponent! In between he meets a nurse, Anu (Hrishita Bhatt). Ughh!

With a mediocre storyline, poor situations, corny dialogue and lacklustre lyrics and music (Anu Malik), the film has nothing to offer even to a front row audience. Hrishita Bhatt looks more of a seducer than a nurse, so what if she doesn’t sleep before chanting ‘Namyoho Rangekyo….’?

Kapur fits a “forlorn” look with his skeleton figure and a dreary face, Hrishita is a filler, and Archna Puran Singh in a guest appearance of a newsreader declares a war against decency – through words and wardrobe!

The direction, nonetheless, is powerful. All actors, especially Parmeet Sethi as ‘Kapoor’, a henchman for Mahalkar, impress. His ‘chamchas’ such as Syed (Yogesh Joshi) and many others are loud but spontaneous.

Bad Luck Govind. Don’t watch this one even if you were paid for it.

A pertinent question: What would you do if you got to know that the President of America is looking for a young Indian to shake hands with on his visit to India?

Would you rush to apply, or give it a damn?

Director Kunnal Roy Kapur knows what he would do and hence made this film. Its said to be India’s first “mocumentary” film shot on 2K digital camera! Loosely based on President Bush’s visit to India in 2006 wherein he expressed his desire to “shake hands” with an able, young Indian, the film brings forth the mayhem that the PR agency creates in frantic search for an Indian who is “capable”’ of getting that honour!

From six million people in India, a few young Indians are “selected”. A novelist and NGO worker Maya Roy (Konkana Sen), a stock exchange expert Ramesh S. (Namit Das), a hep daughter of businessman Archana Kapoor who runs a cosmetic shop (Ira Dubey), an educated young man Ajay Karkekar (Satchit Purnaic), and an Indian turned fake American with his accent Rohit Seth (Vivek Gomber). Now they must undergo “a training session” a day before the golden shake-hand so that they don’t falter before the President in their communication skill, physical ability, general knowledge, humour, personal status, accent, body flexibility and so on….

The trainer is Samantha (Shernaz Patel) and Ritu Johnson (Shivani Tanksale) of Zenith PR Agency has bagged the contract for “organising” the sessions. Now the “competitors” must outdo each other to be the winner – by hook or by crook!

A satire on an average Indian and everyone for whom America is the destination to be, the film deserves three cheers for packaging humour, greed, pun, hypocrisy and much more, very smartly. A laugh riot, the film’s laudable cast consists of most theatre actors who have earlier done it as a play. Be ready for an unexpected climax. A song-less wonder, the film has animation and computer graphics as added attractions.

Go for it. It’s sheer fun with substance.

Predictable is boring. Unpredictability is the seed for excitement. If you are a supporter of “surprise” giving or loving, this film is for you.

It doesn’t have an out-of-this-world story to bind you, but the treatment! It’s a simple tale of falling in love of an “awkward”, cute loving man Patrick (Jeffery Dean Morgan) – capable of shocking you with his unpredicta ble moves – lovely nonetheless. It may be dipping a piece of cake in milk in a posh restaurant at a cake-tasting session, or a sudden invitation for a traditional, gala Indian baptising ceremony full of colourful Indian dresses, stylised chariot, mehendiwala, live foot-tapping dance and song, or ditching just before marriage! Author Emma Lloyd (Uma Thurman) undergoes all that and decides to marry a predictable but respectable gentleman Richard (Colin Firth), only to encounter shocking surprises in store.

It’s a very fast moving film with two songs by A. R. Rahman, crisp dialogue, tricky situations, a few symbolic scenes. You don’t need to be intelligent to understand it, but insightful yes. That you don’t have to be right all the time. It is all right if you make a couple of mistakes is what it tells you.

Uma Thurman sweeps you off your feet with her beauty and “haste”, Jeffrey Dean Morgan never fails to charm you with his dimpled smile.

Soak in the joy – watch it for the feel-good factor.

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