The only fairytale here is how this film got made. How else do you describe a story of a not so good-looking, not too talented guy getting a big candyfloss movie release opposite Priyanka Chopra. Also, the only feel-good aspect here is even you can write a film better than this. Of course, it helped here that the guy who wrote this film was born into the family that runs one of the country's largest film production companies. The very first frame of the film has a bikini babe holding a surf-board with the sea in the background and as you half-expect Pamela Anderson to come running in slow-motion, superimposed text helpfully informs us that it is Ankert University (that probably has specialised courses in surfing). A few moments later, as part of a song montage, we learn it is, in fact, Assumption University. Frames later, it becomes Ankert University again! When the universe of the film itself has an identity crisis, then you can imagine the plight of its inhabitants.
Now, Jugal Hansraj, just because you could make animated characters act (in “Roadside Romeo”) does not mean you get more adventurous and try that with Uday Chopra. Chalk and cheese, pixels and wood.
We don't mind beefy Chopra in a film like “Neal n Nikki”, especially since there's always a lot else in the frame thrown in to titillate. Honestly, he wasn't too bad in the “Dhoom” films either. He was playing the fool and having a little fun with bikes. But here, he wants us to buy that he's smart enough to invent a platform that can run “Mac, Windows, Ubuntu, Linux, Palm and Symbian through a common interface called Unity!”
Umm… a casting problem right there. Wearing metal braces and glasses does not make one a geek. On the contrary, it makes one seem stupid enough not to wear transparent braces and contact lenses. Doing other people's assignments does not indicate you are smart either.
Yes, we know Uday's trying to come across as a door-mat and this would've been okay if the character redeemed himself by the end.
Chopra's character graph is a horizontal flat line. He begins as a wimp, becomes a Nanny and is pushed around by the six-year-old bratty kid of the girl he has had feelings for (for seven years, by the way) and is serially taken advantage of… till the very end. How sweet of the girl (now a divorced, attention-seeking, lonely single mom with a ringworm infection and a disturbingly neurotic kid) to stick with the guy who is soon going to be super rich millionaire!
Seriously, what do you call a film that's trying to be wannabe-geek?
The makers certainly don't have the smartness to figure out that a high security zone in a high-profile software company housing servers, especially in a tech-savvy country like Singapore, would have surveillance cameras and that a mere-hack job does not prove you own and created the application. That's as stupid as saying that the next guy to hack into the official website or server of Yash Raj Films owns the whole company because Whoa! He's managed to password-protect access.
For the love of Gates or Jobs, geeks are not stupid enough to enable copy permissions to a software they have created even if they are silly enough to leave it unattended to make a phone call. Yes, they might go to the Apple store when they are depressed but they sure know about a product launch at least months before it actually hits the shelves.
Looking at what Priyanka wears or not wears to work, this film should've just been called PR Impossible or The Secret Diary of a Call Girl.
As for Uday, he should stick to making more Neal n Nikkis or just Nikkis alone. If he has further acting ambitions, Chopra junior should hire a real writer like his brother instead of ripping off moments from Hollywood romantic comedies and getting his family to produce a film with him in and as The Invisible Man. But Drats! That Tusshar Kapoor guy already beat him to it. But that went “Gayab” in no time too.
Genre : Romance
Director : Jugal Hansraj
Cast : Uday Chopra, Priyanka Chopra, Anupam Kher, Dino Morea
Storyline : Geek loves hot girl and waits seven years, till she's a single, divorced, lonely mom with a ringworm infection and a psychotic kid and he's a super successful inventor, to win her over.
Bottomline : Forget “Mere Paas Ma Hai”… As Uday Chopra shows us with another criminal waste of money: “Mere Paas Papa Hai”
