The intention of director Habib Faisal is noble, but the route he has taken is long and boring. What Faisal wants to depict is how a woman makes the best from Section 498A of the Anti-Dowry Act. What I gather he was trying to portray, according to what he has been saying in interviews, is that it is ok if a man dupes woman demanding dowry, but when a woman turns the tables, she becomes a criminal!
Gulrez Qadir(Parineeti Chopra), an educated girl is fed up of the dowry demands being made by prospective grooms. She is this upright, hard-working and no-nonsense girl. She works as a salesgirl in a shoe shop and has dreams of studying in the Big Apple and perhaps, one day, have a shoe brand of her own. Her father, who knows the law, is a clerk in the High Court in Hyderabad. He is a sincere and honest man. But it does not take much to lure him to do wrong.
Father and daughter decide to move to Lucknow on fake names with fake documents to interview’would-be-grooms’. In the hotel suite where they stay, they have placed a handycam where the dowry demands are being filmed. Whoever asks for the biggest sum, will be their target.
They will marry in a simple ceremony and the next day will’loot’ them for Rs 80 lakhs and vanish to America. All this seems fine, until an uneducated hotelier Tariq Haider(Aditya Roy Kapur) comes onto the scene. He charms them with his genuine love and after his parents have settled for Rs 40 lakh as dowry, he demands he spend three days with Sania Habibulla(Gulrez’s fake identity). In three days, Sania realizes that Tariq is a good human being and she does love him. He too loves her.
Father gets cold feet before the marriage and Sania wants to go ahead as planned, even after Tariq has given enough evidence of what a gem of a man he is. For me, the film should have taken a sensitive turn here instead of allowing Sania to go ahead with her plan. Why can’t a girl looking for genuine love, when she finds it, not be the same upright girl?
Parineeti shines in the first half hour, but after the plot loses its sting, she fumbles to stay afloat. Aditya as the rugged, uneducated lad from Lucknow too fits the bill. He tries his hardest best but again the script lets him down.
If only Faisal had not been over-excited about Section 498A, I believe we would have had a better feast!