In Hollywood, every now and then we see movies targeting special festivals – specially Christmas, light hearted simple yet sensible movie catering audience of all ages. In Bollywood Karan Johar is trying to bring that trend, targeting youth for this Valentine. Well, Dharma Productions have nailed this Valentine season perfectly with Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu.

Rating:

Before divulging more into the pros and cons, as usual let’s make a statement of truth. The stroy of the movie is heavily inspired from many Hollywood movies and sitcoms, but the first time director has been able to make the collage of those clips into a perfect rom-com for this Valentine season. Hats off ! to the director, script writer and above all Kjo for attempting something new, once again.

Ek Mein Aur Ekk Tu is not completely a path breaking movie as such. But the movie definitely brings some relief to audience who are bored with regular Bollywood dose. In 1998, Kjo gave us KKHH a love story, then in 2003 his production house churned another love story Kal Ho Na Ho and now in 2012 with Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu he has already made a rom com of the year.

Within first 15 minutes you get an idea of whole movie and where it is heading, but still the narrative is weaved so nicely that it doesn’t bore you at all. The movie stands upon three major legs; Strong performances by lead characters from Kareena till Ratna Pathak, Well scripted story and dialogue with urban lingo and superb glossy presentation backed by technical and financial experts of Dharma production.

Youth story is hard to tackle, especially when you have known faces. Remember the fate of ‘Anjana Anjani’, where makers tried to do something different with never used youth combo of ‘Ranbir-Priyanka’. Over the top performances by both actors each trying to outdo other in a flawed script sank their ship without a trace. Same was the first perception of Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, but writers here has been careful enough to balance the characters; Kareena being loud and Imran the sober one. Plus the actors playing these characters have done their job superbly; Imran has underplayed his role as required restricting all his vigorous inhibitions in the movie.
Well, about Kareena, I can say is she didn’t do all those over the top things that Priyanka did in ‘Anjana Anjani’. Her character seems bit like extension of ‘Geet’ of Jab We Met, but she had acted in bit different tone and manner. You will understand what I meant while you watch the movie.

Well, by now everyone knows the story of the movie but still for the sake of this review lets rewrite again;

There is a boy called Rahul Kapoor (Imran Khan), an architect who always looked up to his parents (Boman Irani and Ratna Pathak Shah) and never want to let them down. Recession hits and he loses his job in Vegas. He is more sad and worried to face his parents as jobless as actually losing the job. He tries to hide the truth by working out some odd jobs. One fine day due to twist in the tale he meets Raina (Kareena Kapoor), who will change his life forever.

Raina is a vibrant, bindass and carefree. She not just says but does things that Rahul can not imagine to do in his wildest dreams. As usual opposite attracts. On the Christmas night they party hard with lots and lots of booze and when they wake up in the morning, they find themselves as a married couple [cf. Friends: Rachel & Ross in Vegas ]. Rahul is now much more worried and gets impatient to face his parents he is not just jobless but married jobless man. Rahul and Raina decide to get their marriage annulled, but fate had something else for them. They will have to wait for 10 days before their marriage gets annulled. The second half of the movie revolves round those 10 days where Rahul and Raina laughs, fights, cries and finally fall in love.

While watching the movie, for once you won’t feel you are watching Imran and Kareena, but you flow along with Rahul and Raina. Their characters have been so well defined you immediately connect and relate to them. The first difference from ‘Anjana Anjani’ is this strong character introduction and keeping them real and grounded unlike whacky and unrealistic of ‘Anjana Anjani’.

In terms of performance, Kareena gets edge over Imran not just because she is senior or fine actor but her character portrayal is in such a way that she gets to do more of talking and action while Imran is left to provide reactions. Apart from leads supporting actors Ranta Pathak, Boman Irani and Ram Kapoor have done their part aptly. Thanks to editing department to cut short their roles as required and not elongating the sub-plots.

Another important aspect of this movie which I have already mentioned before is its lavish presentation. I wont say larger than life, but the movie has rich look and feel. Some scenes are also shot like ‘Delhi Belly’ style to give you realistic feeling. It’s not just the good story that works, but also how you present that story to audience that matters. With Dharma house with maverick Karan handling the presentation, you can’t get fooled with cheap and rusty presentation.

Though, music of the movie isn’t its strongest point, but songs have been placed and trimmed aptly to progress the story as required. Choreography kept down to real, nothing much of Dance India Dance or Hrithik level.

Box-office wise the movie should hit gold on its opening weekend. Will connect with youth and romantic couples easily, plus even the couple hitting mid-life crisis might get ticket to see what they are missing in this Valentine week. According to some sources, the movie has already recovered its initial production cost with various brand endorsement and satellite/music rights. But it’s ultimately, the audience who will decide the box office fate of the movie. As per musicNmovies prediction goes, the movie deserves to be at least a hit.

So, all you love-brids, its time to come out of your nest and enjoy this warm valentine.