Himesh Reshammiya’s largely self-funded experiments in front of the screen have seen him live out his fantasies. In Teraa Surroor, Reshammiya, unlike his sardonic 1960s actor of The Xpose, is a sulking gangster. Simply put he is no fun. He is in the picturesque Dublin but all he does is lean against whatever he can find and peers into oblivion or walk among crowds and look like he could do with a hug. That’s because Dublin has imprisoned his bae Tara, who unknown to her was trafficking drugs. At 1 hour 46 minutes Teraa Surroor is shorter than most Hindi features but it is such a drag because sentences often are repeated both in Hindi and English, everything is spelt out by Raghu the narrator and director Shawn Arranha believes that this wafer-thin, very lethal love story will seem opulent and stylish if it was presented in slo-mo.
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Teraa Surroor is Himesh telling the world that he can be a gangster with swag and a one-man army like his mentor Salman Khan. Desperately missing is the charisma. He has built a body which he flaunts by wearing vests when everyone else seems to have a jacket on in Dublin. He holds a gun as if he is promoting some piece of jewellery. Even when he walks, he wants one to know that he has made an effort to make himself stand out from the crowd. If Raghu intends to be conspicuous, then he isn’t doing a good job. Raghu comes to Dublin to get Tara out of prison and to find some chap called Anirudh Brahmin, whose only claim to fame is that he is perhaps Bollywood’s first multi -instrumentalist villain. Raghu Romeo has some people to help him in his noble endeavour.
There’s Shekhar Kapur, as India’s ambassador and almost ex-husband to Tara’s lawyer Monica Dogra. Kabir Bedi steps in to be some high profile police official who recruits Raghu to be an undercover assassin. And above all - according to the credits - there’s Naseeruddin Shah as Santino aka The Bird who has fled from prison 14 times. Santino is still in prison, albeit in the fancier Dublin, but Raghu recruits him to help him in his mission to free Tara.
For all its intent to be a slick action flick, Teraa Surroor is desperately short on novelty and entertainment. This is another yarn of a hero on a rescue mission facing an enemy with vengeance on his mind. It is the sort of film in which all the goons Raghu fights in Dublin are Indian and it is blatantly obvious that all the action sequences are shot in India with no attempt made to even disguise it. If anything Teraa Surroor of not keeping your girlfriend entertained and the perils of friending unknown people on Facebook. Barring a few whistle-worthy scenes which amp up Reshammiya’s quest to take himself seriously so much so that it borders on hilarious, there is nothing remotely engaging about this very listless love story. Kapur sums it up with his apt line: I hate love stories.