After some of Yash Raj film’s latest offerings, I was not planning to watch this movie before reading some good reviews but it so happened that I was out with friends and suddenly we decided to catch a movie. Between BAH and GTGH we chose BAH. I went into the movie hall with zero expectations but was pleasantly surprised.
Story:-
Its a story of a casanova Raj (Ranbir) and three girls who come into his life from the age of 18 to 30.
Mahi is a teenage girl from Amritsar who believes in Mils & Boon kind of romance and is completely in love with the charactor of SRK from DDLJ. She is on a holiday to Europe with her family and dreams of meeting her prince charming on Eurail (like Simran of DDLJ). 18 year old Raj is also on the same train with some of his friends and is looking for a good time. He realises her obsession with DDLJ and uses it to make her fall in love with him. The next day she catches him boasting of his ’conquest’ to his friends and is heartbroken.
Cut to Mumbai 6 years later and we find Raj living in with Radhika (Bipasha) for the last one and a half years. Radhika is a small town girl who aspires to be a film actor in Mumbai. Raj works with Microsoft. He and his best friend Sachin (Hiten Paintal) get an opportunity to relocate to Australia. Raj is ectastic and breaks the news to Radhika hoping that since she is an ambitious girl, she will refuse to go with him and he will be free to have a good time in Australia. But he is shocked when Radhika decides to give up her career and marry him so that she can go with him. He tries his best to make Radhika change her mind but when she does not, he leaves for Australia without telling her on their wedding day. Radhika is completely shattered.
Cut to Australia 5 years later. Raj is rich and successful. Along with his friend Sachin, he frequents nightclubs, picks up girls and is having the time of his life. One night he takes a taxi with a girl he has picked up at a nightclub. But this girl gets annoyed at some remark of his and walks out of the taxi in a huff. Its then he realises that the taxi driver is an Indian girl called Gayatri (Deepika). Gayatri is a hard as nails, extremely independent girl who drives a taxi at night and works at a departmental store during the day to fund her MBA. They keep meeting and gradually fall in love. This time Raj is truly in love and proposes marriage to Gayatri. But she turns him down saying that she does not believe in the concept of marriage and dumps him.
This time its Raj who is heartbroken and realises how bad it feels to be dumped. He sets out on a mission to find Mahi and Radhika and apologise for the way he treated them. How he meets these two women and gets them to forgive him is the rest of the movie. I don’t want to give away the end about who he ends up with.
Performances:-
Out of the four main leads its Bipasha who stands out. She looks absolutely stunning and acts very well (check out her eyes in the second half). Second comes Ranbir Kapoor. He gets into the role very comfortably and is convincing as a Casanova without a conscience in the first half. In the second half too he is good though not very convincing in the emotional scenes and the ones that require him to look sincere. Overall he is quite good considering its only his second movie. Third comes MInisha Lamba. Her role in the first half of a romantic girl with stars in her eyes could have been an irritating one but she managed not to irritate. Her performance in the second half is good. Yes, Deepika comes last. Not entirely her fault - her role is very short and poorly written. In fact she get the worst deal among the three girls. Performance-wise she is okay - not good not bad - just okay. But she has amazing screen presence.
Among the supporting cast Hiten Paintal as Ranbir’s sleazy best friend is outstanding. In fact in their scenes together he outshines Ranbir. Kunal Kapoor is excellent in a small cameo.
Technically:-
Direction is brilliant in some places and plain average in some. Dialogues are good. Cinematography is outstanding. This movie has been shot in Mumbai, Australia, Switzerland, Italy, Venice, in fact all over Europe and its pure visual seduction. Music is not great but hummable. Editing could have been tighter.
My final verdict:-
Its not a great movie but a good time pass. The comedy scenes make you laugh but the emotional scenes do not touch your heart. Its light on the senses, the kind you forget the moment you step out of the movie hall. Can be watched once (preferably with friends).