(IO)DARKNESS LOOTERS#35 #PendulumOfTheMindOscillatesb/wSense&Nonse - Page 99

A love quadrangle based on "My Best Friend's Wedding" template, "Wedding Pullav" is a stale, over-cooked and spiceless tale, with predictable romance tropes from the very first frame to the last.

Motorbike designer Aditya Sodhi aka Aadi (Diganth Manchale) is all set to get engaged to Riya (Sonali Sehgal), an industrialist's daughter, when he guiltily realises that his childhood friend, Anushka aka Lambu, is missing.

Lo and behold, Lambu announces her entry with the bang of the band!

As the friends reunite, we learn that Aadi's latest designer bike is to be launched by his prospective father-in-law and Lambu has a boyfriend Jay (Karan Grover), an artist who specialises in nudes, stowed away in London.

On the mention of Jay, Aadi's resentful antennae perk up, but he does nothing about it.

The friends, excited that Anushka too has a boyfriend and that they plan to get married soon, propose that Anushka and Jay should get married at the same time as Aadi and Riya.

So together with their respective partners, they decide to marry at Aadi and Riya's pre-planned destination in Thailand.

So far un-convoluted but cliched, the entire coterie, family and friends land up at the wedding destination to cook the Wedding Pullav!

The only novelty in this overture is the fairly competent performances by Anushka Ranjan, Diganth Manchale and Karan V Grover. While Anushka is confident, dimple faced Diganth with his well-chiselled physique is self-assured and charming. Karan V Grover seems a bit lost among the lot and Sonali holds her stead competently.

Of the supporting cast, it is the young coterie Ali Khan as Batli, Neha Tomar as Niky and the character Peta who are worth a mention.

The rest of the senior actors, ham their way through.

Satish Kaushik and Upasana Singh as Aditya's parents Ravinder and Sweety are stereotypical Punjabis. So is Himani Shivpuri as Gulabo, Anushka's flirtatious "Dadi" -paternal grandmother.

Parmeet Sethi and Kitu Gidwani as Riya's parents; Kumarshaab and Amrita are perfunctory.

Rishi Kapoor as Mr. Lovinder Kapoor aka Luv Kapoor the ever-obliging, General Manager of the wedding destination is a big disappointment. He walks through his role dispassionately.

With verbose expositions, the undoing of this elaborate Wedding Pullav, is the fraught with "tell and show" scenes that are incorporated in the lazily drafted script. Evident among the few are, "Aadi aur Jay, ki bajegi band in Thailand" and "Itne saare balloons, solid drama haia"

Humour is forced and the dialogues are shallow, frivolous and lacks class.

The classification of the families too, seem grossly mismatched making the entire Pullav hackneyed and difficult to digest.

Actors Sharman Joshi and Zarine Khan, who will be seen cosying up in directorVishal Pandya's "Hate Story 3", say that they were "extremely comfortable" shooting the love-making scenes in the film.

"I was extremely comfortable. Also, due credit should go to Zarine and the rest of the crew because it's part of the job and we're professionals. We are here to enact our parts and if it requires a love-making scene, we've gone out and done that as any other scene that one would've approached," Sharman said at the trailer launch of film here on Friday.

"I'm glad there is such hue and cry about love-making scenes in India because that ensures a good opening for the film. But apart from that, in my mind it's no big deal," he added.

"Veer" actress Zarine reiterated Sharman's views and said: "We shot the song towards the end of the film, and by then we knew each other and were quite comfortable with each other. We're actors and this is part of our jobs. It's mechanical."

Sharman also clarified about reports that he was going naked for the film.

"I was speaking to a journalist and I had mentioned that if a film of certain aesthetics comes my way and if I feel it requires to be done, then I would go to the extent of going butt-naked. And the highlight of it was made that, 'Sharman was going butt-naked'. But even that suited me as people might have read the article effectively," he said.

"Hate Story 3", which is slated to release on December 4, also features Karan Singh Grover and Daisy Shah.