Baar Baar Dekho

Baar Baar Dekho: Rewind, Forward, Rewind and Dekho!

Reviewer's Thumb Mark

Nitya Mehra's 'Baar Baar Dekho' is an earnest attempt to tell that life in the 'Here and Now' is more beautiful than in the past and the future; therefore, stay in the 'Here and Now'. And it is the most challenging task for many of us because the past haunt us and the future is too promising and hence, we lose sight of the present. In the quest of making the future 'picture perfect' we avoid 'the moment' in hand that can give us assured happiness than the one in the future.

Nitya Mehra's lead protagonist Jai Varma gets baffled to find himself time traveling and seeing visuals of his life in the future that can make him lose and ruin his personal life. Shuttling from past, future and the present Jai Varma learns the most important lessons of life to stay happy and make it worthy. Through Jai Varma and his lady love Diya Kapoor aka DK we also time travels and tries to pick up possible challenges and mistakes we are committing or may commit. In due course of time in the movie hall many of us may end up realizing the importance of the 'Here and Now' and may also decide to 'Baar Baar Dekho' our life to escape or deal with the impending danger of losing out the subtle happiness present in our life.

The story of 'Baar Baar Dekho' hovers around two childhood friends Jai and Diya who are about to get married but are locked up in a dilemma because Jai wants to focus more on his professional life and career. He doesn't want to lose the most cherished offer of pursuing his research on Vedic mathematics in the prestigious universities like Harvard and Cambridge. And he gets more perplexed and finds himself on the crossroads whether to say yes or no to Diya when he receives one such offer from his most liked university and that too a few days before his marriage. Shattered by Jai's reluctance to get married, Diya walks out of her newly bought fully furnished apartment by her rich father Mr. Kapoor (Boman Irani) leaving behind Jai to deal with his dilemma. A drunken Jai wakes up to find himself in a different time zone that is ten days after his marriage in Thailand celebrating his honeymoon with Diya. This leap of time zones continues from 10 days, two years, 16 years and then 34 years ahead.

The debutante director Nitya Mehra along with her writer friends Sri Rao and Anuvab Pal in the haste of telling us life philosophies forgot or may have missed the importance of entertaining the audience by etching out fully each characters in the movie and creating moments and scenes to get convinced to what they want to convey as a message. For instance, Jai doesn't appear as a selfish and self-centered boy, lover and a husband; there are no sufficient family moments to show their relationship turbulence; the parents and friends are having very less role in the whole happenings shown in the leaps of time zones and there is not a single moment of humour in any of the frames. Unfortunately, the most attempted concept of time travel in Hollywood could have been done much better by the team of 'Baar Baar Dekho' which they missed by a whisker. Sarika (Mom of Diya), Ram Kapoor, Rajit Kapur (Pandit), Sayani Gupta (Common Friend) are good in their respective roles but deserved more space in the plot to justify their roles. When Dharma and Excel join hands it's bound to give a damn good look to their movie and we find it here too with fine production values. Ravi K Chandran's cinematography holds your attention and the locations are very beautiful.

Katrina Kaif as Diya Kapoor looks stunning but doesn't look or act differently from rest of her movies. She has a copycat effect which she may need to work on. Siddharth Malhotra as Jai Varma is handsome and is left with no choice but to remain bewildered throughout the movie because of the untimely and unexpected time zone leaps he encounters. He does age because of the expensive and sophisticated prosthetics but could have supported the same by his acting skills which he fails to pay attention to.

In short, Baar Baar Dekho has lessons for life but very little to entertain. Though, the film ends with the already hit item song 'Kaala Chasma' you walk out with a clear lens to revisit your life with a resolve to be worthy of what you have in your life in the 'Here and Now' and live each day at a time. Go and watch 'Baar Baar Dekho' but not 'Baar Baar' only once!

Movie Rating: 6/10

Cast: Sidharth Malhotra (Jai Varma), Katrina Kaif (Diya Kapoor), Sarika, Ram Kapoor, Sayani Gupta (Chitra), Rajit Kapur, Rohan Joshi, Taaha Shah Badusha (Tarun) Genre: Romance Director: Nitya Mehra Producers: Hiroo Yash Johar, Karan Johar, Ritesh Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar Written by: Anvita Dutt (Dialogues) Screenplay: Nitya Mehra, Anuvab Pal, Sri Rao Story by: Sri Rao Music by: Amaal Mallik, Arko, Badshah, Jasleen Royal, Bilaal Saeed Cinematography: Ravi K Chandran Edited by: Amitabh Shukla Production: Dharma Productions, Excel Entertainment Distributor: Eros International Release Date: 9th September, 2016 Duration: 141 Minutes Language: Hindi

I can't boast of writing many movie reviews in my lifetime, but the IMDb average rating of Baar Baar Dekho as 5.5/10 shocked me, to say the least.

That this movie got such a low rating in spite of having a new concept and beautiful presentation, is what's absolutely WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY (and the star reviewers who have no idea of good movies)!

This movie was relatable, and didn't have boring double-meaning poor comedic dialogues. This movie didn't have MASALA and this irked many Star Reviewers who only felt "kala chasma" was the best part of the movie (which explains their poor taste).

I watched this movie with zero expectations, as I never felt Katrina could act well. But, I was pleasantly surprised to see a new side of katrina. She blended in well with the character and there was no overacting, which other bollywood melodramatic crap movies have.

An amazing light-hearted movie with such a good and novel concept, is quite comparable to good Hollywood movies.

We can't always expect an Inception-like movie, but what Bollywood offered in this movie was wonderful.

Debutante Nitya Mehra juxtaposes elements that are generally associated with science fiction, fantasy, and romance, and carves out a story that looks and feels very familiar to the audience at large.

Jai (Sidharth Malhotra) is a Mathematics professor who is in a ridiculously long and maintained relationship with Diya (Katrina Kaif), a modern art painter who is never shown using a paintbrush, even once. Jai wants to continue the relationship with his childhood sweetheart, but considers his career more important. Since he is also slightly unorthodox and possibly agnostic, he kicks up a storm with the pandit (priest) regarding the "saath phere" ("seven rounds around the holy fire which generally bonds marriages in Hindusim"). And we are told that this might be the cause why he dozes off after a life-changing tiff with Diya later that day and ends up waking up on his honeymoon, ten days later.

Baar Baar Dekho is essentially NOT a time travel flick. Rather, it is a partly science fictional and fantasy narrative involving a man who is partially cursed by a Hindu priest to teach him a lesson why the "saath phere" is important and why he should also focus on the small things in life. Jai flip-flops between his life, specifically touching the years 2023, 2034, and 2047, which makes him realize what he's been missing out and how his life would turn out to be if he continues to "not focus on the small things in life." Science fiction kicks in in terms of swanky, modular cars, sleek architectures, and good-looking technology. Having said that, it is also a romantic drama in part where Jai and Diya romance, and engage in matrimony, also unsuccessfully trying to embrace realism.

The film starts off very jubilantly, with a ballad-like, tuneful song serenading the audience to the lives of the protagonists as they grow up to be the bearers of the story. It is a delight to watch Malhotra and Kaif maneuver their characters effortlessly, supported by well-directed co-stars whose primary attribute is an all-smiles, if not exaggerated, faces. Ms. Mehra writes the romance well, but falters in the second part when Jai has to learn lessons and apply them in his life to make things right. While the story is definitely inspired by Frank Coraci's Click (2006) and Harold Ramis' Groundhog Day (1993), one wonders if it reaches any of the levels broken by those two classics. Conclusively, the story is neither novel nor awe-inspiring.

Malhotra is clueless throughout the film despite being a Mathematician who was last seen watching Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind (2001). His character is half-baked, while Kaif gets into a type of character that she is evidently very comfortable in. She is charming in the first half. Ram Kapoor and Sarika both are pleasing. Shout out to Rohan Joshi for debuting, and Sayani Gupta for laddering up.

The film, if at all, teaches one to consider the small things in life and take merry in them, rather than working toward the big things, which may be too elusive and unworthy. Family is important than one's job as our Jai finds out the hard way, even though he knows how much 546 multiplied by 48 is. I know, that's what Mathematicians in Cambridge do, right!? Multiplication!

All in all, Baar Baar Dekho will work for an Indian viewer because there is enough dance and romance to get him through the first half. Even if he understands the concept, the second half is slightly boring and formulaic, with no importance given to his patience level, who may be forced to think why he didn't go for Sohail Khan's Freaky Ali (2016) instead.

BOTTOM LINE: Nitya Mehra's Baar Baar Dekho is a film about a man's fantasy which is caused by his ignorance to make him understand what life is. But, you know, one man's fantasy is other man's... Wait for DVD, and then rent it.

Can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES

So refreshing a movie, it was almost a surprise!! To the folks who have dismissed it as a TIME TRAVEL movie have obviously not understood it. It is NOT time travel but mind travel, or, simply speaking thought travel that makes the main character realize the value of his real love and what all he would want out of that relationship. Never in Hindi cinema has this concept been tried. There is no scientific explanation given to the fact as to why and how, and it is not even relevant, IF you try to understand and grasp the story line. Hats off to the new lady director who decided to take this one as a challenge, and has done a brilliant job. Watch this one with your girl/boyfriend, or even family, totally worth your time. I loved every minute of it. The songs and dance sequences are awesome too.

Truth be said I was nowhere interested to see this movie after watching the trailer because this concept has been done many times and there is nothing new to it. Then came the video song for "Tere Khair Mangdi" and Siddharth Malhotra's expressions hooked me in and I was interested to see whether he has done something different. So I just went it with very low expectations but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Now when I came to rate this movie I was shocked to see such a low rating so I think I should give in my input for people who haven't seen it yet. Story wise the movie is what you are expecting if you have seen Hollywood movies where a love-story is mixed with time travel. The highlight of the movie is Siddharth Malhotra. He gives a surprisingly emotional and soulful performance depicting each age in the time-line. The cinematography is brilliant. Every bit of the chaos called marriage is shown brilliantly and the confusion which Sid's character, Jai is having is shown articulately. Now with such amazing direction and camera-work the one who fails and had so much room to work is Katrina Kaif. She is still short on how to emote and she is absolutely not at par with Siddharth. Ram Kapoor and Sarika stroll through their roles. Rohan Joshi gets his Bolly debut. Though a bit stiff, he does his best. My honest suggestion is to give it a watch because it is a refreshing change to the already beaten down formula of Bollywood's take on romance and love.