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Star cast: Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Ashutosh Rana, Siddharth Shukla, Gaurav Panday, Sahil Vaid.
Director:Â Shashank Khaitan
What’s Good: A refreshing take on DDLJ and Alia-Varun’s individual rendering to their characters. Though the chemistry attempts to be palpable, the desired spark was clearly missing between them!
What’s Bad: The film’s screenplay is too coherent. Though the time transition from DDLJ till now was infused brilliantly, the film post interval remained loopy and weak with a convoluted ending.
Loo break:Â Too many, more in the second half.
Watch or Not?:Â Rehashing DDLJ is venturing into the cult holy space and when the same doesn’t fructify even into half-good cinema, it’s a heart break. Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania puts on no airs about giving novelty a miss but that isn’t the prime concern here. It’s a familiar film that makes you queasy because of a bad second half. Blame my expectations but the film’s second half was a tirade that even gave me a headache. It wasn’t DDLJ butchered! I quite enjoyed the viridity of the first half but the second half went so miserably wrong. Even if the end didn’t make any sense with ‘Jaa Jee Le Apni Zindagi’ coming back to haunt you, I am glad it was over and I could go home and take an aspirin.
User Rating:Â
Kavya Pratap Singh (Alia Bhatt) is a firecracker from Ambala whose heart is set on buying for herself a designer lehenga. Her father (Ashutosh Rana) wouldn’t relent on the exorbitant cost but daddy’s little girl takes off to Delhi to buy for herself her dream lehenga. All set to marry an NRI from America in a month’s time, Delhi escapades are her only shot at having a gala time. She befriends a bloke in Delhi named Humpty (Varun Dhawan) who is shown to be to blown away by the hump-ing activities. Humpty and Kavya cross paths and somehow keep getting attached to each other. Things lead to more and in no time, the two are in love with each other.
Humpty cannot let himself lose to a superman of a guy that Angad (Siddharth Shukla) is. He is a perfect guy: doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, matured, smart. Varun observes correctly that Angad is a superman and he, not even a Mowgli.
So can Humpty beat Angad and win his lady love is where lies the fun of this story!
Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania  Review: Script Analysis
Probably the script on paper was a thrilling one and it terms of just the story, I quite liked the concept. I am no DDLJ-freak like a lot of my friends who swear by the film. I like it a normal amount but treat it with respect. So, when I slash Shashank Khaitan, it is because the debutant director did not value valid reasoning much and not because I am one of those traditionalists who are incapable to being plaint.
For plusses, I loved the character of Alia. The firecracker version of Simran, she is headstrong, tattoo flaunting, beer burping, zestful woman who is essentially a good person at heart. The bottoms-up scene between her and Varun is fun to watch. Varun’s Humpty, however, doesn’t make for a flattering Raj. Atleast this time, there is more realism to the character but somehow the character doesn’t have enough power to woo you or sweep you off your feet. He incurs sympathy more than winning hearts and therein lies the problem of the story. I felt sorry for him but couldn’t woot for him!
It cannot be blamed on faulty chemistry but more on the faulty and cracked story line. Minutes before the interval, we suddenly stumble upon Kavya and Humpty making love, out of the blue. Not only do you not see this coming, it seemed a very desperate crowd-pulling measure. And from then on, it is another level of bad film. Varun chases his lady love all the way till Ambala, fighting it out with her boisterous dad. While there is nothing evidently wrong with the Superman of a guy, Kavya’s father has chosen for her, the reason why Varun is still the love of her love was unclear to him. And given the fodder of materialism we live on, I buy it.
The first part of the film focuses too much on the lehenga and a father who has no issues with the daughter who will beg, borrow, steal or more for an exorbitantly priced Manish Malhotra lehenga! I understand that logic should be last thing in mind in a love story because logic and love don’t go hand in hand but this film is preposterous to another wrong level. I think Bollywood is the only place in the world where a Mowgli would score over a Superman, a staunch father will have a sudden change of heart so that they could write ‘happys endings’ all over it and heroines will randomly quote cheesy proposal lines from cult films only to up their film’s lovability factor!
Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania  Review: Star Performances
Varun Dhawan is impeccable as Humpty. He delivers his dialogues effortlessly and somehow there couldn’t have been a better cast for the role. If the same character was played by another actor, probably he wouldn’t be half as endearing or adorable. The script ditches him but the actor scores!
Alia Bhatt is charming in the fiesty role of Kavya. Somehow with each film, Alia is getting a better command over her acting skills. In another five years time, this young lady will be a reigning Bollywood superstar! From her first film till now, she has become more zesty with her roles, her acting has matured a lot with experience and in a mediocre script Lady Bhatt shines.
If there is anyone in the film who had DDLJ’s intensity, it was Ashutosh Rana. In a caricaturish role, he brings vigor.
It is the supporting actors Gaurav Pandey and Sahil Vaid who are brilliant in their roles as Shonty and Poplu and you can’t help but love them and their wicked one liners.
Siddharth Shukla lamentably has very little to do in the film besides flaunting perfect abs. Donning the role of super-dulha Angad, he is great at what he does but his role was needlessly left undefined.
Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania  Review: Direction, Editing and Screenplay
Director Shashank Khaitan doesn’t invest too much heart into the film and that is probably the only reason why the film came out fractured. It wouldn’t be a harsh statement to make that this one turned out to be a dull film only because of the lack of soul in it. There is so much of ‘big-heart’ talk going on in the film that the director found it unnecessary to apply to himself what he preaches! Shashank probably used up all his time trying better ways to rehash classics like DDLJ and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and eventually missed the point that the story wins because of its heart. The plague of a bad second hour is common, but I haven’t seen a truer and more dismal example of it.
The film’s editing is bad because the climax seems too efforted. I wish we knew what happened of Angad in the film or how Ashutosh underwent a change of heart but alas, Khaitan thought it was needless to waste time in trivialities like detailing! The gay gag irritated me to the core. Though the last shot of Alia proposing to Varun using SRK’s lines of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai appeals, it was the director’s final attempt at winning rom-com loyalists on his side. This homage tale is heartbreakingly bad and blame Khaitan for the convoluted mess!
Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania  Review: The Last Word
Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania is low on froth, zero soul and an absolute bore of a film! My review might seem like a polemic but the reason for it is: don’t tamper with classics and take pride in butchering them. This lehengey wala love simply didn’t work for me. Only Alia and Varun save this film with their energetic rendering and the dialogue writers get a pat on from me for trying their best to keep it zesty but this film doesn’t rise above a 2.5/5 for me. I expected too much and too little was meted out to me – #storyofeveryfilmcritic’slife!
Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania  Trailer
Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania  releases on 11th July, 2014.
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