review
I am Abhay Deol's admirer and I have been following his work from his debut film "Socha Na Tha". I've have watched all of his films.... Ahista Ahista, Honeymoon Travels, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, Road movie, Dev D, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, Shanghai, Chakyavyuh, Ranjhana, Manorama six feet under..... you just name it and I've seen it. I even liked "Road Movie" which most of my peers found boring to death. By now I should have made it clear that my review is going to be biased towards the actor.
So let's begin. The movie's concept is new by bollywood standards. the film's story focuses on the period before the boy and the girl meet. Abhay is a software engineer and the films heroin, Preeti Desai is an aspiring dancer. Abhay is coping with a heartbreak as his girl friend has just dumped him.
pros: 1. Abhay Deol's spirited performance. He is just easy on eyes. 2. The film is not suffering from the "bollywood romantic film syndrome". So, no melodrama and closer to real life. 3. Awesome music by Shankar Ehsan Loy (they are back on track with Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, D-Day and then this film) 4. The seems to be promoting Ubuntu, the Linux based OS (If that can be counted as a pro). Every computer shown in the film shows Ubuntu running, even Apple Mac laptops (I'm not sure why they did that. Mac OS is pretty solid OS and definitely better than Ubuntu).
cons: 1. Low on entertainment value (judging by the kind of films that have been passed out as entertainment recently) 2. Average performance by the leading lady (but still better than the debut performances of other recent foreign imported heroines. Read Katrina Kaif, Jaquline Fernandez) 3. The girls story just didn't hook me up. A reason could be the fact that I'm pretty sick of all the reality shows that are running on TV nowadays. They all seem to be a copy of each other.
Part of the reason for the film's half baked nature might be the film's Lady director, Devika Bhagat (Is she related to Chetan Bhagat ?).Personally speaking, I don't have very good experience with Indian female directors.For example, Farah Khan which gave us the gem Tees Maar Khan and Leena Yadav who gave even more precious (and deadly) gems like Shabd and Teen Patti.
It's not a perfect film but it's definitely not as bad as most of the critics have said. Go with minimum expectations because there are some genuine and identifiable moments in the film.
I'll give it 5 stars out of ten and an extra star for Abhay Deol. That makes it 6.
Excuse me if my review seems a little unstructured as this is my first.
Take Care and See You At the Movies.....
Genre
Romance, Comedy
Studio / Distributor
Anil Kapoor Films Company, PVR Pictures
Music Label
T-Series
One By Two Cast
Abhay Deol
Preeti Desai
Rati Agnihotri
Jayant Kriplani
Darshan Jariwala
Lilette Dubey
Anish Trivedi
One By Two Crew
Director
Devika Bhagat
Producer
Amit Kapoor, Abhay Deol
Story & Screenplay
Devika Bhagat
Dialogues
Devika Bhagat, Manoj Tapadia
Music Director
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
Lyricist
Amitabh Bhattacharya
Director of Photography
Sameer Arya
Editor
Shan Mohammed
Production Designer
Mustafa Stationwala
Sound Designer
Subhash Sahu
Casting Director
Panchami Ghavri
Choreographer
Ashley Lobo
Costume Designer
Eka Lakhani
Hair Stylist
Sher Bahadur Singh