For those who have loved Saif and Deepika’s ‘Love Aajkal’, ‘Cocktail’ will not disappoint you as it has some shades of the former. The storyline of the movie is gripping and will keep you hooked and booked.

Cocktail is a nice and enjoyable movie for the dialogues, songs and performances. But the second half is a real drag.

Like I said, no fizz, no punch, but a good presentation (read served well in a tall, crystal glass).

As far as entertaining storytelling goes, Cocktail is far from being that. As the clock crawls by, the story goes from nothing to nowhere. Even as the first half with its free-spirit, cheerful vibes, and breezy treatment has you savoring the mix and going hic hic hurray, the second half just like a hangover the morning after makes you feel nauseous and dizzy.

On the whole, COCKTAIL has a fascinating first half, charismatic performances, harmonious music and the trendy look and styling as its aces, but the second half is not as tempting or intoxicating as the first hour. It pales when compared to the attention-grabbing first hour. Yet, all said and done, this one’s primarily targeted at the Gen Next, especially those in metros, who might identify with the on-screen characters.

It helps that the material is directed by Homi Adajania, whose first film Being Cyrus was a dark, twisted look at a dysfunctional Parsi family. Adajania keeps it crisp. He reins in the melodrama, until the last half hour when emotions go ballistic and the plot gets needlessly convoluted, and the actors — Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone and Diana Penty — bite into their roles. Cocktail is a fun, romantic romp.

It’s a pity, and not just because this could have been the great unconventional cinematic threesome we so desperately need. Cocktail has a handful of moments and a few genuine sparks, but finally crashes and burns so spectacularly that it’s hard to focus on the positives. We must thank it, thus, for Diana Penty.

So the story is about a compulsive flirt Gautam (Saif Ali Khan) who gets into a no-strings-attached relationship with the hot-n-happening Veronica (Deepika Padukone). Girl-next-door Meera (Diana Penty) is literally the girl Gautam takes home to his mother (Dimple Kapadia) to cover-up his live-in with Veronica. Until by interval point his heart starts fluttering for Meera. And the rest as they say is ‘history’.

Cocktail has just the right mix of fizz and flavour to allow the occasional and inevitable crinkles of triteness to flow well below the surface. It is definitely worth a visit to the multiplex.

There’s some good stuff in ‘Cocktail’. Adajania who’s made ‘Being Cyrus’ with Khan is a director with style. Here, he joins hands with Imtiaz Ali’s nifty dialogues, and we are made to feel good by seeing these lovely looking people do the stuff that people do when sex is in the air, and love is around the corner.

You can’t hate a film like Cocktail nor can you love it in totality. If you’ve liked Ali’s storytelling before, there’s no harm in catching it at least once. Cheers!

With the right ingredients in the right proportions, this might have made for a smooth concoction. But Cocktail is a mostly flat romance; one that could’ve done with more heart.