Remake of Meri Biwi Ki Saadi, Shaadi Se Pehle is engaging, but in parts
Akshaye Khanna plays Aashish, a poor man in love with a rich girl Rani (Ayesha Takia). Aashish suffers from hypertension. Any situation of slightest tension leaves him with frayed nerves. Aashish’s love for Rani is not approved by her parents who think he is far beneath their daughter to match her as a husband.
The story begins to roll when Aashish mistakenly starts believing that he has cancer after overhearing his doctor’s conversation on the phone.
Suddenly the hypochondriac in Aashish comes to the fore. Resigning himself to his fate, Aashish decides he would not let Rani bereave over his death. He loves her too much to bring her any kind of pain.So he decides that he will make her hate him. And for this he begins to flirt with Sania (Mallika Sherawat).
Sania is an uninhibited girl who is all over Aashish at the slightest provocation. She is also the doted one of her elder brother Anna (Sunil Shetty), a belligerent goon who can’t bear to see any wish of his sister unfulfilled.
Aashish’s gameplan works and Rani begins to hate him. She agrees to marriage with Rohit (Aftab Shivdasani), Aashish’s friend who has always harbored a crush for Rani.Just in the nick of time before Rani’s engagement, Aashish comes to know that he doesn’t suffer from cancer. Now he has to undo what he has done.
Will he be able to get out of the mess he has created for himself? Will Sania, who has now grown strong affection for Aashish, let him go?
The first half has several enjoyable moments, specially the Rajpal track and his drunken act. Even the placement of songs is perfect here. But the pace gets uneven in the second half, which is the main drawback of this enterprise.
The trouble with the screenplay is that in the post-interval portions, the pace drops at regular intervals. It gets slow, picks up again, turns slow yet again, but gathers momentum all over again in the climax.
Director Satish Kausik has developed the drama well, but he should’ve avoided those double meaning dialouges. Himesh’s music is easy on the ears. The mundeyatrack and ’gal kar’ are well-worded and decent compositions. The picturisation of all the songs is first-rate.Cinematography is excellent.
Akshay is extremely competent. Aftab plays to the gallery and gives a good account of himself.Mallika is just about okay, mainly because her characterisation is subdued. Ayesha is fantastic as ever.
All up Shaadi se Pehle is a mediocre film .