One By Two

One By Two is a romantic-comedy without the usual syrupy melodrama. There are no saccharine-sweet dialogues or the usual hero-heroine song-dance sequence. The movie is about two people living two different lifestyles. Despite its flaws, the movie genuinely is a break from the recent torturous bombardment of loud and over-the-top Bollywood movies.

...an out of the box film like ONE BY TWO has some engaging moments, but they are few and far between. The excessive length and the slow pacing also play a spoilsport.

The film takes too long to set sailing. First half has very little substance and most of the scenes look like fillers put together to battle the reel length. Preeti Desai is easy on the eyes but fails in staying true to her character. She plays a dancer who competes in a TV show, but her lack of dancing skills is something that kills any little chance of us being interested in her character.

This is a captivating cinematic risk on paper. It is the story before the love story, about how destinies possibly intertwine in a big city. Will their individual lives be interesting enough to hold out on us for so long? Not quite.

The intention is to bring something unusual to the table, and the film does occasionally succeed in offering a few interesting moments, particularly the shifting equations between Samara and her mother. But otherwise it cannot keep you interested in either the characters or their lives. Sadly in the end, it turns out to be more clutter-inducing than clutter-breaking.

Debutante Devika's concept might look good on paper, but onscreen it dissipates like diarrhoea. Strung with a few laughable scenes, it scrambles around with too many plots crafted like episodic sitcoms. It intends to reflect the psyche of the 'wuzdat' generation but quickly crumbles like an out-of-love, casual sex relationship. Abhay is good in his part, but after his super performance in 'Raanjhanaa' he's not at his peak here.

There are movies that entertain you and gladden your hearts, there are movies that make you sad and weepy, and then there are movies that well, evoke only one emotion. Boredom. One by Two is that movie. It made me want to sleep not only while watching it, but even as I write its review.

At interval you realise that One By Two is not going anywhere. And by the end the story just about takes shape. But by then it has already lost any attention that it may have managed to grab. Because midway through all you have is this song banging into your head and it continues - I am just pakaod.

One by Two is as tedious as driving with the brakes on...While there is an attempt to give background stories to the characters, it falls flat. Take the Samara's parents problem for example, we have seen that countless times before. So what is the point in going down that same old road? And even that reality show dance contest angle is a crashing bore.

It has a chic, Hollywood rom-com feel to it, except that it is Indianized with songs, etc. - See more at: http://wogma.com/movie/one-two-review/#sthash.YZDK7xC9.dpuf

Incurable romantics should certainly not watch One By Two, 'coz they will be in for an unpleasant surprise – it has very little romance or comedy in it. Deol's fans should choose his previous films instead, at least to admire his dimples, 'coz after this one all the love 'n' lust that you may feel for the hunk are likely to disappear.

...it is inexplicable to figure out, what forced Abhay Deol to not just act in a film like One by Two, but also produce it? But since he has done it, let's put this on record that the film, which also stars his real life live-in partner Preeti Desai, could prove to be Abhay's biggest mistake in his career.

...is experimental cinema. While those involved seem to be having a gala time, the audience becomes the guinea pigs.

The stretched screenplay is tiresome, the lead actors are awfully boring, the dialogues were a flop show, the story was futile and utterly pointless and mostly even after a good first half of the film finished up, I was clueless about where the film is heading. I have admired Abhay Deol since Socha Na Tha but this was his most sub standard performance till date.