Mere Brother Ki Dulhan Review

Just when you think there can’t be a film worse than the one you saw a week back there comes another debacle right in your face making you take back your words. And clearly after having a distorted and hackneyed Bodyguard last week which expectedly created records at the box-office, comes yet another trashy rom-com Mere Brother Ki Dulhan. And this is no My Best Friend’s Wedding or Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai or even Chal Mere Bhai, this is “different”. Come on! Aren’t all rom-coms “different” after all?

The title of the film and the promo give out the entire story leaving very little for you to guess and whatever little ambiguity that was left also got cleared by the repeated reinforcement of the story by the lead cast Imran Khan, Katrina Kaif and Ali Zafar who extensively spoke about the film in its publicity campaign. But for the ones who still couldn’t get it right here’s a gist of the one line plot.

Kush (Imran Khan) goes on a bride hunting spree for his brother Luv (Ali Zafar) and stumbled upon many a wrong girls finally narrowing down to Dimple Dixit (Katrina Kaif). Comes a flashback of five years, Dimple and Kush met each other during their college days and then went out of contact. Back to present they Dimple demands celebrating 48 hours of her live the way she used to back in college days before she gets tied down by marriage. Kush agrees. So there’s song and dance and the twist that Kush falls in love with his brother’s Dulhan! What happens next? Worth a guess?

Having begun his career as assistant director under Yash Raj banner, debutant filmmaker Ali Abbas Zafar (Do not mistake him for being Ali Zafar, the actor) does nothing but rehash some of the popular romantic films of the past and presents a clichéd, tripe story. The film is high on predictability and hence boredom. Each and every scene unfolds in front of your eyes just as you expect. There’s not even a glimpse of novelty in it. So if the bride hunting sequence reminds you of Namaste London, the Choomantar song bears resemblance to Wake Up Sid and I Hate Love Storys. Even the cult romantic film Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge finds itself in MBKD. Throughout the film there are spoofs being made of actors like Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan so much so that there’s a bhaang consuming sequence with a huge Dabangg poster at the backdrop and the dialogue goes like, “You’re Da Bhaang boy!” Funny? Maybe unintentionally!

The character-sketch of Kush is completely awry as Imran Khan definitely falters in pulling of a small towner’s way of talking calling his elder brother “Bhai Saahab”. Both Imran and Katrina meticulously maintain just one expression on their face and that alone is enough for emoting various expressions such as that of happiness, sadness, anger etc. Katrina looks ravishingly beautiful but only if that alone was enough. Her consistent problem of dialogue delivery commendably remains consistent even in MBKD. An actress who finds it hard to enact a sober girl is given a 10 mins long sequence of a drunk girl where she mouths the cult dialogues of Sholay. Funny? Maybe unintentionally yet again!

Katrina Kaif in the film has a brother by the name of Ajju Bhaiya who fills in the role of Tuffy (read the dog in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun) in order to bring Dimple and Kush together. But that’s not all, Ajju Bhaiya’s USP is that he acts exactly like Shahrukh Khan of My Name Is Khan. Funny? Unintentionally once again!

Ali Zafar is the only saving grace of the film and holds the screenplay tight whenever he comes onscreen. However, he alone finds it hard to salvage the badly scripted film. Music of Mere Brother Ki Dulhan is average at best with a song or two growing on you.

Imran Khan’s luck on rom-coms seems to be shining for a while. Katrina Kaif is one of the leading ladies of the industry. Ali Zafar has track of the much acclaimed Tere Bin Laden as his last film. So there are definitely reasons enough in this film other than its story or script to watch it. If the same goes for you, take your pick!