Mere Brother Ki Dulhan makes the most of the fresh Imran-Katrina pairing

You, me & us!

Oh what a fresh pair can do to a film! How it can make you believe the unbelievable and digest the indigestible. How it can inspire you to take a leap of faith. Imran Khan and Katrina Kaif do that and more in Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. Coming together for the first time, two young stars at the top of their game — he’s coming off Delhi Belly and she’s just delivered Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara — Imran and Katrina make sure you sit in that plex chair, eyes wide open with a smile fixated on your face, and just let them happen to you. It’s the oldest story ever. Even by Bollywood standards.Ek phool do maali, with the gardeners being blood brothers. But what writer-director Ali Abbas Zafar does wisely is take the basic knotty premise and turn it on its head using references from DDLJ to QSQT. Even during the stickiest of situations, things never get heavy with the single-point agenda being to offer you a good time. The mood and feel of the film shuttle smoothly between life and larger than life. It has got real Delhi street scuffles and also a girl strumming an electric guitar without any cords in front of the Taj Mahal. You don’t mind either. Of course, not everything that happens could have happened. The big leap of faith? “My brother said he will marry the girl I like!” That’s really asking a lot of suspension in the disbelief department. Especially when the brother stays in London, was going around with a girl for five years and is ecstatic after the break-up. Now Luv (Ali Zafar; not be confused with the director) suddenly wants his brother Kush (Imran) to find a suitable girl for him. Hmmm. So in a medley reminiscent of the other bindaas Katrina film, Namastey London, Kush meets a series of psycho girls (the best one: “Main sab kuch see deti hoon!”) before bumping into Dimple (Katrina) whom he had met five years back on a college excursion trip. When she was Dhunki dhunki lage. “You think I’m a bitch? A tart? A slut?” No. The film’s explanation: “Tum itni saaf ho aas paas ki gandagi dikhti nahin hai!” That free spirit and saaf dil are still intact and after a quick webcam chat with Bhai Sahib, Kush seals the Dimple deal for Luv. Then starts the 48 hours of boisterous bachelorhood and one lipsmacking session of drunken dahi-eating that makes Kush go kuch kuch about bhabhiji. By the time Luv is in, love is on. Mere Brother Ki Dulhan’s first half is punctuated with many a tender moment between Imran and Katrina that really make the movie. But in the second half the romance, unfortunately, takes a backseat as the pair is more intent on finding a solution to the family situation. This is where Dilwale... scored so high — Bauji had to be won over but that never put the brakes on Raj and Simran’s prem kahaani. Nothing has changed about the feel-good formula at Yash Raj, though. No one should be hurt and in the last half hour MBKD hurtles towards a perfect feel-good ending. And in the process ends up five scenes and 10 minutes too long. But Imran and Katrina ensure you are there celebrating with them when they finally take the saath phere. Really, there’s nobody who fits the good-natured suitable boy better than Imran. He has almost perfected that irresistible mix of the propah and the puckish. Katrina takes her own leap of faith in this one. Usually seen dolled up in pretty frames, she lets herself go here and also goes overboard every couple of scenes. But she’s graduated to such a major star now, you no longer waste time judging her. You just enjoy her. Also refreshing is Ali Zafar who gets the pitch of the film just right and is the man behind the film’s biggest laughs. And yes, it’s so good to see Parikshit Sahni and Kanwaljeet Singh in action after so long. Even though there is one song too many, Sohail Sen’s tracks work in the film, especially the bhaang-inducedMadhubala which brings the house down. And with Sudeep Chatterjee (Chak De! India, Guzaarish) behind the lens, the frames shine bright. But not brighter than those two young stars in the middle, who know how they make you feel.

Posted in: Bollywood