Seriousness spoils the fun

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Normally, one would not dwell much on a film like Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji, a middling romantic-comedy that is as passable as it is avoidable. But this Smilie has tumbled out of the crypt of writer-director Madhur Bhandarkar who has till now put his name only to films that have the stink and shame of reality. Three National Awards for serious films warrant some deliberation on his first attempt at the comic. Therefore.
DTBHJ tries to be funny from the word go — credits sit alongside B&W caricatures and the film opens with Paresh Rawal’s voiceover introducing us to three middle-aged men and their pathetic lives.
Naren Ahuja (Ajay Devgn), a bank employee and father of one, is getting divorced from his news reporter wife (huffed and puffed by Rituparna Sengupta). He shifts to his dead parents’ large house and sips coffee in the veranda as Kishore’s sad song Koi hota jisko apna plays in the background. But we don’t feel sadness. This scene is intended as comical because Naren’s life has been presented with irony — the underlying sadness, loneliness resting on the idiocy of all those involved. And anyway, we haven’t spent much time in the past, we are concerned with the present, the future.
Naren decides to get tenants, two. Rules of comedy state that they have to be complete opposites, so there’s Abhay (Emraan Hasmi), a gym trainer who hits on girls not just to get laid but also to get goodies for services rendered, and Milind Kelkar (Omi Vaidya) who works at jhatpatshaadi.com and is a virgin. He’s saving it for his true love and wife-to-be. Milind, incidentally, also writes agonising poetry about love, life.
Naren’s divorce is underway when an intern glides into his office like a breeze of Emami talcum powder. June Pinto (Shazahn Padamsee), fresh, cute and at least 18 years Naren’s junior, gives Naren hope and happy ideas; Milind, meanwhile, bags an award for his poem on love and Tweets, meets Gungun (Shraddha Das), a radio-jockey, and is in love instantly; Abhay loses his job and must now find a rich, lonely aunty to please and squeeze. Which he does, with the help of a harassed stray puppy and a yelping gay man.
Naren sheds his glasses, gels his hair, drinks and dances at pubs; Milind is spending all his monies and energies on Gungun who uses him as escort/waiter/sugar daddy; Abhay is off to South Africa with a former Miss India and riding what looks like a 1,200 CC bike.
All is well with the three men. They argue, drink, joke around. The funniest lines — I recall two — are said by Abhay to Milind. My favourite, “Munne ki maa, chai bana”. Milind reacts, always, defending and cradling his virginity.
But life then takes strange turns. Mr Romantic goes broke and gets dumped; Mr Routine finds himself giving marital advice; Mr Randy is used for sex and discarded. Life comes a full circle, and then it begins again...

When Madhur Bhandarkar put three women in an apartment in Page 3, he gave each one a pursuit apart from a heart and some hormones. He even had a story and a point to make. But in Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji, he gets the three men under one roof only to drill in the message that the real fun lies in pursuing, in desiring, in footsie and foreplay. That you won’t find true love, and if you do, it will bite you hard seven-eight-six-whatever years later. So dude, just cruise…
This could have been interesting, provided the pursuing was fun and not pathetic, and the men were sexy and in control. One is, the other two are not. Also, of course, the objects of their desire had to be at least mildly attractive. Barring Shruti Hassan (who plays Nikki-the-dumper), the women are repellent — Shraddha Das piles on so much make-up that it’ll take a week of peeling to see what she really looks like, and Shazahn Padamsee screeches like a teething child.
DTBHJ is an unsettled comedy. The situations are funny, but feelings of hurt and loneliness are real. Also, it is not free of the director’s innate seriousness. Every once in a while Bhandarkar’s angst at the ways of the world are on full display. Some scenes, in fact, look like a compilation of Fashion, Page 3, Corporate...
It's clear that Madhur Bhandarkar takes comedy lightly and seems to think that he can get away with rubbish twists and turns. His story moves forward on flimsy grounds, and his main characters are all single-note people.
Emraan Hashmi drift along doing the same old, though Shruti Hassan is sexy and stays in character throughout. Milind Kelkar tries very hard and is tolerable.
If there’s one reason to watch DTBHJ it is Ajay Devgn. Watching him pine for a 20-something petite thing and blush every time she smiles at him, in a middle-class, middle-aged way, is hugely entertaining.
Bhandarkar should stick to gory reality. It gets him lots of attention and awards. If we feel the need to watch desperate men chasing skirts, we’ll rent Shaukeen, Pati Patni aur Woh, or better still, Rang Birangi.