The story appears cobbled together without much logic or realism. As far as performances go, it’s Kishori Shahane and Krutika Gaikwad who stand out with their sincerity. Aditya Pancholi appears a little awkward at first and then gets into his own stride mouthing Marathi invectives in his effort to redefine mean. The only real reason then, to bear with this opportunistic exercise are the clutch of hit classic numbers

Luc Besson’s attempts to re-energise the franchise with an entirely new cast and tech team doesn’t do anything to make the experience memorable. This fourth installment can barely get its jollies on track, leave alone the stunts, the assorted action or the car chases. ‘Game of Thrones’ star Ed Skrein’s Frank Martin fails to measure up in Statham’s shoes. Neither his driving skills nor his athletic kicks and chops can make an impression here.

The situations thereof are whacky enough but the humor is a little too obvious and mitigating. There’s no originality in the screenplay either. Clichés abound while cloaked rambunctiousness can only keep you tickled for a brief while.

Karan Anshuman had impressed many with his critiquing skills but the same cannot be said about his directorial or scripting ones. The script gets decrepit in the middle section. And the climactic one delivered in sermonizing fashion just doesn’t cut any ice. The blundering terrorists angle was a great ploy but to have them intentionally turn in the slog overs, appeared too far-fetched. Also the subplot that involves a goat that Pravin is forced to adopt, doesn’t go anywhere near fruitful.

Themes of migration, loneliness in a big city, greed, aspirational lifestyle, environment degradation, alienation, adaptation to new and alien ways, attitudinal shifts, parental neglect and many more jostle for space in a narrative that lacks focus and prefers to get frequently waylaid by unnecessary song and dance.

I just couldn’t figure out what this movie’s main agenda was. The plotting went all over the place before it came full circle on the happily ever after. Though the film had a short runtime of 98 odd minutes, the entire run was tedious and off-putting. With 40 plus actors, Tejwani and Yadav donning the mantle of much younger 25-30 year olds, running amuck in shorts and garishly color coded clothes, the sight was even more distressing. There were other odd players like Sanjay Mishra playing the bride’s father- a comic politician and Sushmita Mukherjee as Jhumroo’s mother. Despite all that talent in store, there really wasn’t anything worthy of holding your attention here.

My biggest peeve with this film is the manner in which the characters are drawn- too cartoonish and derived from mainstream Bollywood/Hollywood to curry favor with a discerning audience. Shiva prances about emulating Hrithik and scales mountains and precarious waterfalls a la Tarzan. He is a little too childish to be impressive. The CGI looks fake and for most-times quite unbelievable. the scale of the mounting may be huge but it just doesn’t measure up to reality.

The end result is an entirely unconvincing attempt to make the odd couple look the part of die-hard romantics. The writing is unoriginal, the costuming is ridiculous and the dialogues are pretty much unintelligent. The locations and the music are the only saving graces here. This film is bound to tank – no second guessing on that one!

…if the objective of the film was to put forth that radical idea then the exercise itself was futile. The strappy narrative goes back and forth trying to delineate past and present without much success or class. The treatment is clueless, amateurish, uninventive and tedium inducing.

A little inventiveness and craft combined with some smart writing would have been enough to make this a sharper more gratifying experience. But alas, Kapri is just not up to the task. His idea of satire is entirely situation based and loses efficacy because of it. Good solid performances by Annu Kapoor, Rahul Bagga, Ravi Kishen, Sanjay Mishra go a little way in ameliorating the incredulity experienced here!