Promising enough in the beginning, but slowly the slip ups start, closing to a yawning finish.

To review in detail, the film rolls with Raj, who is on the brink of youth, all set to start on the journey of love and relationships. He akins himself to a ‘ lady - killer’, luring women into his trap, squeezing out some fun from them and moving on carelessly, resulting in a trail of broken hearts that add to his lopsided sense of success. He meets Mahi in Switzerland, a naïve, DDLJ idolizing romantic, hunting for her ideal man who is the Raj of DDLJ. She meets our man Raj (oh wow, what a co-incidence), who woos her with a scooter ride on the roads of Switzerland and a poem. But unfortunately for Mahi, her love story does not have a happy ending. She is left hardened in a way that affects her marriage in the future.

Meanwhile Raj moves on to Mumbai, blissfully unaware of the damage he has done. He bumps into ravishing Radhika, lives in and romances with her, carelessly dumps her and moves to Australia. Radhika is devasted, morphs into cynical Shreya and lives unhappily ever after.

Unperturbed, Raj meets with software success, grows up further and meets independent minded, career driven Gayatri (Deepika Padukone), a part-time taxi driver and Business Management student who impresses him with her views of the futility of marriage. Raj spots Gayatri in a red dress, falls hopeless in love (how deep can the reason be), proposes and is rejected. The harsh dumping wakes him up to his folly.

Raj’s pain proves to be his ex girlfriends’ gain. Post interval, we see Raj determined to seek forgiveness from his dumped girlfriends. After that, the story spins into a very clichéd climax.

Through the film, Ranbir does an honest job holding the audience’s attention through the lack lustre film. He remains talked about even after you leave the theatre. Minisha is bland as a simple high school girl. Bipasha wows and woos not just Ranbir, but also the audience as both the hip Radhika and hardened Shreya. Deepika fails to outshine the way she did in Om Shanti Om. Hiten Paintal does a good job too.

But the trophy for this film surely goes to Kunal Kapur who does a special appearance as Mahi’s Sikh husband and floors us all. The ‘Khuda Jaane’ number from Vishal-Shekhar wakes up the audience from their slumber. The song is simply mind blowing.

 

Perhaps a twist in the end could have saved the story. It begins on a new footing for sure, could have been interesting, but the safe, expected ending spells doom. The creators go overboard trying too hard to win over both the cool dudes and city slickers through the first half, as well as the conservatives through the second half. In the process, the moral of the story remains too simplistic in today’s complex world - ‘Say sorry to end all sins’.

It is time YashRaj banner realized that not all clichéd happy endings make today’s discerning audience happy.

Next: Star Voice of India in Bangkok.