Mush ado about a runaway heiress in a rom-com

[1]

Image Thumbnail: 

movie1.JPG [2]

It’s as old as the hillocks. Filthy rich girl — as extroverted as those ziddi bouffant ladies from the 1960s — meets a wimp, and gets herself kidnapped. Why why why? Now don’t moan, it’s to escape an arranged wedding, complete with silk pillows and satin bedding.
Truly, Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya directed by Mandeep Kumar could well be a harkback to those Asha Parekh movies in which the dear lady was constantly fleeing Prem Chopra-type of grooms. La Parekh played the runaway heiress to the hilt in Caravan and Kati Patang. Come to think of it, so did Nargis in Chori Chori and Pooja Bhatt in Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin (inspired by It Happened One Night).

Now the snag is that the plot about a self-willed kidnapee is as familiar as all the checked shirts donned by the I’m-so-goofy hero. By the way, in our movies guys who aren’t in the upper-income bracket are frequently made to wear checks. How square is that!
Okay, so the script may belong to your grandma’s era but redeemingly there are some breezy segments which prevent you from committing harakiri over the frantic antics of Riteish Deshmukh and Genelia D’Souza.
He dreams of driving his own cabs some day, she dreams of nothing special — except settling in Canada. She even has a Canadian passport and a green card (how come? Specially created for her or what?). And her dad is Tinnu Anand (resurrected) who pops out one of those Sunny lads for her to wed. Screech, scream, yell, howl, !**%, she won’t have any of this. Sad.
Incidentally, no one has really cared to linger on what happens to the rejected one, as if he wasn’t human.
No time for the interesting ancillaries in the script. Anyway, post-intermission, the “roam-com” wanders off into an entire different stratosphere, in the vein of Jab We Met (Walk in the Clouds). Only difference: it’s the hero’s khaandan of pehelwans-cum-professional-kidnappers that you have to grapple with. That means Om Puri and Smita Jaykar belting out some smart one-liners and ethnic chic comedy. Our wimpy hero continues to look wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, whether his girl is getting punch drunk (ugh, embarrassing scene this one) or adapting to the hurly burly milieu. C’mon guys cut to the chase.
Inevitably both fall in love with each other and all that mush ado, but will have to make goo-goo eyes before admitting their feelings to each other. Directed competently — except for the garish colours and costumes — the result doesn’t offer anything distinctively appealing in terms of entertainment. Music is serviceable.
All said and endured, it isn’t a shudder fiesta. If you have some goodwill for the Deshmukhs, it’ll help considerably.
Of the two, Riteish Deshmukh appears to be stuck in a time warp; he hasn’t evolved as an artiste, making the same woebegone faces. Quite clearly Genelia D’Souza has a sparkling screen presence but has gone way over the top this time, much too loud as if she was addressing a political rally.
To see or not to see, then? Flip a coin. Heads you go, tails you don’t.