One By Two tries hard to break the mold of Bollywood rom-coms, but seldom offers scenarios or characters that are refreshingly original…
To quote a song from this very film: I’m just pakaoed!

The trouble begins with it not being able to find the right rhythm. The first half, where nothing happens over and over again, is a drag. Once you’ve set the scene, and introduced us to the characters, we need more. It’s only post interval that the film gathers some momentum, and gives us a bit of drama, and reason to see it through.

Abhay Deol shoots himself in the foot by acting in (and, inexplicably, producing) this monstrosity that sucks all the goodwill out of an actor we usually like, and his apparent girlfriend Preeti Desai hands in the kind of atrocious performance that makes vintage Katrina look like Juhi Chawla. True to its name, this is half a film. It’s half-written, half-digested, half-witted.

There is a warm lived-in feeling to Bhagat`s directorial debut. It may not win your heart as unconditionally as Farhan Akhtar`s directorial debut `Dil Chahta Hai`. But there`s a winsome, bubbly bouncy and ebullient quality to this take on urban aspirations.

Mid-way through One by Two, an exasperated ex-girlfriend screams at the still-besotted boyfriend whom she recently dumped: You are so boring. Aur toh aur tumhara naam bhi boring hai. I felt her pain. Boredom weighed me down too as I watched this film.

Halfway through One By Two, one minor character, a poetry-spouting police officer, mentions “inspiration ki hawa”. This little film certainly could have done with much more of that rare commodity.

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.

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.

As if the writing, direction and acting was not bad enough, the film lurches out one gross scene after another-from Abhay Deol’s nonstop farts to his burps, you have to witness it all in this mundane film. The search for the first contender of the ‘Worst Films of 2014 list’ ends right here.

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.

…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.

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.

‘One By Two’ deserves an award for the most uninspired piece of work. This is the kind of experimental film, which should have been probably been a film school project and never made it to the big screen.

There are a few saving graces like Sameer Arya’s camera work and Shankar Ehsan Loy’s compositions in numbers like Khushfehmiyan and Kaboom. But there’s no way the story or its dismal execution is going to impress anyone. Forget one by two; you wouldn’t digest a sip of this amateur concoction.

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

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.

One By Two offers one of the least insightful and most shallow portraits of India’s urban youth. If the upcoming generation of Indian men is really like the ones in the film, I predict a sharp and dramatic rise in the country’s lesbian population in the next census survey.

Devika Bhagat makes a confident debut as director but her narrative style, like her story and screenplay, would appeal to a very limited audience only. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s music score is rather good but it is more class-appealing than mass-appealing.

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.

…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.

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.

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.

Of all the genres that Bhagat dips into for the mish-mash that is One By Two, the gross-out American comedy was an ill-advised choice.

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.

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

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.

Though it seems that the story line of the film is bit complicated, the characterization of every protagonist is perfect. The characters of the film are well-suited and realistic.