Dulha Mil Gaya

Mudassar Aziz's maiden venture Dulha Mil Gaya has finally been completed. It's always important to give first-time directors a little leeway for errors. Direction may not be rocket science but debut projects often has some raw edges.

Mudassar was lucky enough to cast Sushmita Sen and Shah Rukh Khan together. These two nearly set the screen on fire with their sizzling chemistry in Main Hoon Na.

DMG also stars Fardeen Khan and veterans like Johnny Lever and Parikshit Sahni. With such a talented cast the least one expected was a fun, watchable film. Unfortunately, DMG reminded me of a film which keeps taxiing down the runway but never really takes off.

The film opens in Trinidad with a spoiled brat son, who hopes to inherit millions from his deceased father's estate. But Tej Dhanraj, also known as Donsai (Fardeen Khan), is in for a rude shock. He has just a few days time to marry Samarpreet Kapoor (Ishitta Sharrma), a girl from rural Punjab.

This is a theme which was hugely popular in romance novels and movies in the 1960s and 1970s. The director could have kept us engrossed by taking the story to a new level. But Mudassar Aziz sticks to the tried-and-tested. Samarpreet remains the 'sati savitri' type, who will go to any lengths to woo her husband.

But this Herculean task cannot be managed single-handedly. So Samarpreet receives help from Shimmer (Sushmita Sen) and Pawan Raj Gandhi (SRK). Shimmer is ashamed of Donsai's behavior. She hopes to reform him but fails to realize that she is equally commitment phobic. Mudassar in text-book fashion introduces his characters in the first 30 minutes and then for the next two hours, the film keeps plodding its way towards a dreary, predictable end.

All the characters in the film are flat and one-dimensional. Fardeen Khan, the playboy, has fared well in comic situations with his earlier hits such as Heyy Babyy and No Entry. But his performance here can't be compared to those. He has gained a lot of weight and appears bloated in most scenes. The weight gain hasn't just affected his appearance; his gait too is more suitable to that of a middle-aged man rather than a dashing playboy.

Newcomer Ishitta Sharma appears convincing as the soft-spoken rural Punjabi girl. Unfortunately, she lacks the oomph factor which is so necessary for her character in the second half of the film. Despite this obvious flaw, she remains one of the most convincing characters.

Sushmita Sen seems to be earning more and more flak for herself these days. This is probably her worst performance till date, maybe with the exception of Zindaggi Rocks. The verve and the zest, which has always been such an intrinsic part of her personality, seem to have disappeared. The same eyes, which oozed sensuality, now emanate a sense of fatigue and boredom.

Watching Johnny Lever on screen has always been a treat for his fans. But he appears in a blink-and-miss role here. It seems such a waste for an actor of his caliber. But obviously, the director thought differently.

Shah Rukh Khan is a man who has always obliged his friends. Producer Vivek Vaswani had helped SRK find his feet when the latter was a struggler. But SRK is completely wasted in the film even though he tries hard to liven up the screen with his presence.

SRK plays a millionaire whose only desire is to see Sushmita smile. There is one sequence where he jumps off a cruise liner to rescue a toy dog. In one word: absurd.

Even to the untrained eye, it's obvious that the film took many years to be completed. There are scenes where Sushmita Sen and Fardeen look slim. And in the very next sequence, their physical appearance changes drastically. An experienced cinematographer can easily avoid these pitfalls; this is not the first film which took over three years to be completed. But the lighting and cinematography is easily the tackiest one has seen in recent times.

The West Indies and Trinidad are scenic and breathtaking. These locations haven't been used too often in our films. But no film has ever managed to sustain itself on the basis of its locations.

Watch the film if you can't think of any other way to spend your weekend. Or else just avoid.

A rich jerk who is completely unlikable is forced to marry a woman he doesn't like in order to inherit a huge fortune. He does marry the woman, but pretty much lives his own separate playboy lifestyle. So, according to this film, it's apparently up to her to convince her jerk of a husband to love her by tricking him.

"Dulha Mil Gaya" is not so much a movie and more an assault on your senses. The first 20 minutes is like a giant music video...with even less depth. It's so self-consciously hip that it doesn't matter that there are folks who might watch the film who are older than 25 and who don't want to watch such a loud and brash story...and so when the story begins, you find you just don't care. This is because while it's supposed to be a romance, it's hard to build a romance atop of such shallow, obnoxious and rich young jerks....and the film abounds with jerks, not real people. In fact, I found myself hoping against hope that the music would stop and folks would act like REAL people...and after a while I just gave up. Overall, a film designed for a 16 year-old with severe ADHD....loud, brash and unlikable.

By the way, do NOT assume I hate Bollywood films. I've seen hundreds and adored most of them. But I have found one style that is very off-putting (much like this film) where the characters are just so shallow and annoying and cocky that you tire of them very quickly. It's a shame that Shak Rukh Khan, a very good actor, got involved in this dopey project...he's just better than this.

A complete waste of time. Where you want to see your stars to surprise you and you get greatly disappointment in return. I don't know why SRK accepted this script but we know about Fardeen Khan as he get very little in good roles. On the part of Sushmita, she has once again disappointed the audience. Because people love to see her but at the same time we would love to see her acting, at least some inprovements in it. The story line is really weak. Having no surprises no thrill at all. Actually the movie is a mixture of some previous Bollywood movies. After watching the movie I thought the whole team just wanted to make a movie for fun with no expectations and they were quite successful in their try. I hope everyone in the Bollywood learn something from the real King Amir Khan to pursue perfection.

Shah Rukh Khan and Sushmita Sen are fun to see together again, but this movie has an abysmal script with inept direction and a hodgepodge of superficially presented topics. We went to see it only because of the SRK "special appearance," which makes the second half entertaining when he is on screen. Take him off screen, however, and the movie falls into the holes the director digs for the cast with slapstick taking the place of subtlety in scene after scene. Sushmita Sen surely deserves a better vehicle for her talents. As always, SRK generously does his best with his role, but we wonder if he had any regrets after seeing the final product, a movie that we bet will be out of theaters soon.

Since I discovered Bollywood when I arrived to Holland, found out they were subtitled in English,, so over the last 13 years I have been collecting them, last weekend I stumbled over a huge box full of Bollywood DVDs so hubby bought them for me, among the DVDs in the box was this film I am reviewing,I found it delightful, I am a huge SRK fan, I think he gets better with age LOL But to be honest the "leading man" was a disappointment, the young actress that played his Punjab wife was lovely and quite good ..I look forward seeing more of her. I loved the costumes that Shimmer wore, she had such beautiful clothes. I am a bit confused,I thought the movie took place in Miami Florida, but some one said Trinidad. I rate this a seven, it was a perfect movie for a rainy day.