Will You Marry Me? Review

Business rating: 0.5 /5 (Half star)

Star cast: Shreyas Talpade, Rajeev Khandelwal, Muzammil Ibrahim, Mugdha Godse, Tripta Parashar, Manoj Joshi, Paresh Rawal.

What’s Good: Hardly anything!

What’s Bad: The juvenile script; the poor performances.

Verdict: Will You Marry Me? will lose the box-office battle.

Loo break: Several.

Watch or Not?: Watch it if you want to know how things can go wrong with a film.

Ikkon Productions’ Will You Marry Me? (UA) is the story of three very close friends – Aarav (Shreyas Talpade), Rajveer (Rajeev Khandelwal) and Nikhil (Muzammil Ibrahim). The trio as also a group of more friends invest money to buy 1 lakh shares in a blue chip company with the express understanding that all the shares would finally go to the person who doesn’t get married. As the friends get married one by one, the competition narrows down till finally, only Aarav, Rajveer and Nikhil remain bachelors. Nikhil believes in love and marriage, Rajveer is a playboy and Aarav can never come around to wooing a girl although he is quite straightforward and respects women.

One day, Nikhil announces his intention to marry girlfriend Anjali (Tripta Parashar), leaving Rajveer and Aarav as likely candidates to win the shares which have, over the years, increased in value. Even as arrangements for Nikhil’s marriage are underway, Rajveer invests a gutkha baron’s (Paresh Rawal) money – Rs. 5 crore – which he holds in trust for a few days, in the shares of another blue chip company with the intention of making quick money for himself and returning the principal amount to the gutkha baron. As luck would have it, the value of the blue chip company’s shares nosedives in the share bazaar and Rajveer can’t recover anything of the Rs. 5 crore invested, leave alone making a huge profit. The businessman now threatens to not let Nikhil get married if Rajveer doesn’t return his money within a week. Alternatively, he would make any one of them eat his gutkha till the over-consumption killed him.

Rajveer and Nikhil are tense but don’t reveal anything to Aarav. Meanwhile, Sneha (Mugdha Godse), a friend of Anjali, has arrived for the wedding. Both, Rajveer and Aarav, are mad about her and, in a bid to woo her, do everything to win her attention and to keep her away from the other. Just a couple of days before the wedding day, Anjali’s father gives Rs. 2 crore in cash to Nikhil to pay for the hotel expenses, if the need arose, as he has to go out of town on an urgent business call. Rajveer’s manipulative mind starts ticking on seeing the cash and he forces Nikhil to let him bet on the ongoing cricket matches to multiply the Rs. 2 crore so that they can pay off the gutkha baron. Again, to their misfortune, they lose the Rs. 2 crore rather than multiplying the money.

The only alternative left to them now is to get Aarav married to Sneha so that the shares of the first blue-chip company would come to Rajveer; he would sell them and return the monies of the gutkha baron as well as Anjali’s dad. But there’s a twist there too as it is not so easy to get Aarav and Sneha married. As the wedding date is nearing, the tension is mounting. Nikhil and Rajveer stand exposed in front of Anjali’s father who then calls off the wedding. Aware by now of the chain of events, Aarav decides to act.

What does Aarav do? Does he succeed in ensuring that Nikhil gets married to Anjali? Or does Anjali’s father not let the marriage happen? What about Sneha? Does she marry Rajveer or Aarav? What happens to the shares of the blue chip company – do they go to Rajveer or Aarav? Do they come in handy to pay off the debts? What about the friendship of Aarav, Rajveer and Nikhil?

Shreyas Talpade does a fair job, Muzammil Ibrahim is wooden & Rajeev Khandelwal is strictly average in Will You Marry Me?

Will You Marry Me? Review: Script Analysis

Aditya V. Datt’s story and screenplay are so juvenile that it’s a wonder, anybody could green-light a film based on it. Why would friends invest money in a blue chip company with the express understanding that only one of them – who did not get married – would be the beneficiary? It is not as if people generally don’t get married, so why would anybody play a game in which his chance of losing was 99%? And what if everyone got married? Just like the silly game they play, the friends have also, quite stupidly, not been shown to be bothered about other eventualities.

The angle of Rajveer and Aarav trying to woo Sneha is kiddish. Also, it is strange how Aarav never thinks of the investment when he is planning to marry Sneha. For, if he had thought of the blue chip company shares, he’d have instantly understood why Nikhil was literally pushing him into the marriage. But as things stand, he keeps wondering why Nikhil is keen to get him married so fast. Also, once Aarav comes to know about the problem Rajveer has landed himself in, he goes to the gutkha baron to become the guinea pig for his gutkha. Instead, why doesn’t he simply sell off the company shares after taking Rajveer’s signature on them? Rajveer surely couldn’t have had any objection to the sale. Instead, Aarav is shown to be fighting with Rajveer for not having let him into the problems he had landed in, saying, he could easily have encashed the shares. But why, after learning of the problem from whatever source, did he not encash the shares?

The love triangle of Aarav, Sneha and Rajveer is weird. Also, it is not clear whether Sneha loves Aarav or Rajveer. The bond of friendship of Aarav, Rajveer and Nikhil is also quite strange because although they are supposed to be best buddies, they behave otherwise. For instance, Aarav and Rajveer can’t stand each other and call each other names. As for Nikhil, he even asks Aarav and Rajveer to get out of his house when his girlfriend’s parents are due to come home. Also, why Rajveer and Nikhil hide the fact about the loss of the Rs. 5 crore first and the Rs. 2 crore later is unexplained.

Another silly twist is about Rajveer trying to multiply the money of Anjali’s dad, given by the latter to Nikhil for a particular purpose, after burning his (Rajveer’s) fingers in a previous case (money of the gutkha baron). How Nikhil could allow him to try his (terrible) luck is a wonder.

All in all, Aditya V. Datt’s screenplay has so many holes in it that it is disturbing. Jay Master’s dialogues are as ordinary as ordinary can be.

Will You Marry Me? Review: Star Performances

Shreyas Talpade does a fair job. He is good in the scene in which he fights with Rajeev Khandelwal towards the end. Rajeev Khandelwal, looking terribly awkward in the wig, is strictly average. He should either take lessons in English pronunciations or avoid using English words! Muzammil Ibrahim is wooden. Mugdha Godse performs ordinarily and, like Rajeev Khandelwal, she too needs to greatly improve her English pronunciations. Tripta Parashar is poor; her English also leaves plenty to be desired. Manoj Joshi fills the bill, again pronouncing English words as if he were speaking in Sanskrit. Paresh Rawal fails to impress and looks completely disinterested in the drama. Celina Jaitley doesn’t have much to do. It appears as if her role has been cut short. Nishigandha Wad (as Anjali’s mother), Deepak Dadwal (as Nikhil’s father), Neeta Jhanji (as Nikhil’s mother), Bobby Darling and the rest of the cast provide ordinary support.

Will You Marry Me? Review: Direction & Music

Aditya V. Datt’s direction, limited as it is by his own script, is dull. His narrative style fails to involve the audience. Music (Sachin Gupta, Sharib-Toshi, Amjad-Nadeem and Gaurav Dagaonkar) is okay. No song stands out, neither for the compostion nor for the lyrics (Turaz, Kumaar, Shabbir Ahmed and Gaurav Dagaonkar). Song picturisations (choreographers: Remo D’souza, Shabina Khan and Pony Verma) are routine. Sachin Gupta’s background score passes muster. Stunts (by Javed Karim and Hanif Sheikh) are commonplace. Camerawork (Dwaraganath Rangaraj) is average. Sets (Sanjay Dhapade and Anjan Gajurel) are okay. Editing (Irfan Shaikh) needed to be much sharper.

Will You Marry Me? Review: Komal Nahta’s Verdict

On the whole, Will You Marry Me? is a dull fare with very little to entertain. Given the poor start on the one hand and lack of merits on the other, it will meet with unfavourable results at the box-office.

Will You Marry Me? releases in India on 2 March 2012.

Will You Marry Me? Trailer

Komal Nahta, the Editor of Koimoi.com, is Bollywood’s most trusted trade analyst & film reviewer. You can follow him on Twitter and check out his Video Blog.

Will You Marry Me? Preview

Will You Marry Me?: Box-Office Expectations

The cast of Will You Marry Me? does not have the star power to command an opening. Thus, the film will have to depend on post-release word of mouth publicity.

Will You Marry Me?: Star Cast

Rajeev Khandelwal, Mugdha Godse, Shreyas Talpade.

Will You Marry Me?: Plot

Will You Marry Me is a fresh, youthful story of three friends, Aarav (Shreyas Talpade), Rajveer (Rajeev Khandelwal), and Nikhil (Muzamil Ibrahim). All three boys have one thing common; their love for their bachelorhood. So much so they place a bet amongst themselves; whoever decides to marry first will lose a huge amount in shares that were contributed by all three friends and their gang of friends. All was well until a few years later; Nikhil decides to marry the love of his life, Anjali (Tripta Prashar).

Rajveer and Aarav cannot believe their best friend Nikhil is getting married however they put on a smile to attend his beach wedding in Dubai. During the wedding festivities, Rajveer and Aarav coincidentally fall for the bride’s best friend, Sneha (Mugdha Godse). To make matters worse in this love triangle, the kidnapping of Nikhil takes place by the powerful business tycoon (Paresh Rawal).

From there everything turns up-side down completely at Nikhil and Anjali’s wedding celebrations. Will Nikhil even make it for his own wedding? Who will Sneha choose; Rajveer or Aarav? Who will marry who; come find out in Will You Marry Me?

Will You Marry Me?: Release Date

2 March 2012

Watch Will You Marry Me? Trailer

Komal Nahta, the Editor of Koimoi.com, is Bollywood’s most trusted trade analyst & film reviewer. You can follow him on Twitter and check out his Video Blog.

Gali Gali Chor Hai Review

Business rating:  1 / 5 stars (1 star)

Star cast: Akshaye Khanna, Shriya Saran, Mugdha Godse, Satish Kaushik, Annu Kapoor, Murali Sharma, Vijay Raaz, Amit Mistry.

What’s Good: A few satirical scenes; the entertaining dialogues; the acting.

What’s Bad: The small-town feel of the film; the lack of real entertainment for the city audience of today; the over-stretching of the drama; the lack of a proper climax.

Verdict: Gali Gali Chor Hai will not get the appreciation of the audience. Given its poor start, it cannot hope to pick up, due to lack of positive word of mouth.

Loo break: Not really.

Watch or Not?: Watch it if you want to see a well-intentioned film which also boasts of good performances.

One Up Entertainment Pvt. Ltd.’s Gali Gali Chor Hai (UA) is about the problem of corruption in India and how the common man’s life is affected because of this menace. Bharat (Akshaye Khanna) lives in Bhopal with his wife, Nisha (Shriya Saran), and father, Shivnarayan (Satish Kaushik). Bharat, a straightforward and principled guy, works as a cashier in a bank and also doubles up as Hanuman in the local Ram Leela stage-play because he loves acting. Playing Lord Ram in the play is Tripathi (Amit Mistry) whose elder brother, Manku Tripathi (Murali Sharma), is the local MLA. One day, Tripathi comes to Bharat’s home, asking for a room in his house to be allowed to be used as the election office in the area for his MLA-brother because elections are just around the corner. Since Bharat’s wife is not in favour, he refuses to let Tripathi use the room. Bharat has a paying guest in Amita (Mugdha Godse).

Feeling slighted, Manku Tripathi and his younger brother seek revenge. They tell police officer Parshuram Kushwaha (Annu Kapoor) to teach Bharat the lesson of a lifetime. Kushwaha involves Bharat in a robbery case by convincing him and his father about a table fan having been stolen from their house. He says, the thief, Chunnu Farishta (Vijay Raaz), had been arrested and had confessed to the crime. He asks Bharat to come to the police station the next day so that he could take him to court to have the table fan restored to him. Although no table fan has been stolen from their house, Shivnarayan and Bharat realise, it would be better to follow Kushwaha’s instructions because he threatens them with dire consequences if they do not obey him. Bharat and his father are unaware till quite late in the day that this entire drama had been scripted by the Tripathi brothers to seek revenge.

From here begins Bharat’s nightmare as he keeps bribing the policeman, thief, lawyer etc. to get the table fan which, in the first place, never belonged to him. He spends Rs. 31,000 to finally get the fan.

Bharat’s tale of woes doesn’t end there. He tries to discard the fan because his father feels, it is unlucky. But the corrupt system won’t even let him do that. As one thing leads to another, Bharat is imprisoned for alleged terrorist activity.

What happens thereafter? Is Bharat able to prove his innocence? Does he fight the corrupt system or does he simply forget his tryst with corruption like a bad dream?

Gali Gali Chor Hai Review: Script Analysis

Mumukshu Mudgal’s story may be topical because the fight against corruption in India has gained momentum in the last one year, but the incidents he has chosen to highlight the menace are so small and often so farcical that the drama seems fit for a television serial rather than a film. No doubt, the story is about the common man in free India but in an age when every youngster aspires to be a Dhirubhai Ambani, it is doubtful that many would care to spare a thought for Bharat and his embroilment in a corrupt society. And even if they did, the incidents would not give them reason enough to feel motivated – even momentarily – to raise their voice against corruption, so necessary for such a film to succeed. In other words, Bharat’s problems are not inspirational enough. Probably, the worst part of the story is that it keeps talking about corruption and keeps stretching the drama with similar incidents but hardly addresses the problem. In effect, the solution, if it can at all be called so, comes through in the last five or seven minutes of the film. By that time, the audience has already gotten bored of the never-ending tale of travails of Bharat. In fact, the more impatient among the audience will simply not approve of Bharat’s lack of heroism for so long!

Mumukshu Mudgal and Rumi Jafri’s screenplay is also more suited for a TV serial. Simply by basing the story in a medium-sized town like Bhopal, the writers have not been able to convince the viewer of the suitability of the subject for a film. Also, the meandering screenplay about a few thousand rupees blown away in the name of corruption affords little entertainment for the youth which is exposed to scams of hundreds and thousands of crores of rupees! As is well-known, the youth comprises a good chunk of the audience today. Furthermore, the small-town feel of the film would further wean away the city-bred audience from the cinemas. Unfortunately for the filmmakers, the major share for the distributors comes from the big cities. It is for these reasons that in spite of some scenes being entertaining for their satirical value and notwithstanding the fact that Mumukshu Mudgal and Rumi Jafri’s dialogues are very enjoyable, the drama fails to have the desired impact for the majority of the audience. The audience in the interiors may identify with the predicament of Bharat and his family but it is certain that the big cities will simply not care for the drama.

Climax is so short that it hardly serves to exhilarate the audience. In fact, the entire film looks like a build-up to a problem waiting to be tackled and then, the tackling part, which ought to have been of at least an hour’s duration, gets over in merely a few minutes.

Gali Gali Chor Hai Review: Star Performances

Akshaye Khanna portrays Bharat effectively and conveys the helplessness and frustrations of a common man in a corrupt country very beautifully. Shriya Saran gets little scope to perform. She is good. Mugdha Godse is more ornamental than anything else. Satish Kaushik lives the role of Bharat’s father and shines. Annu Kapoor also delivers a first-rate performance as a police officer who eats, drinks, breathes and sleeps corruption. Vijay Raaz has his moments of entertaining the audience. Murali Sharma is effective. Amit Mistry leaves a lovely mark. Akhilendra Mishra stands out. Rajat Rawail is quite good as Bachchu Gulkand. Shashi Ranjan (as Mohanlal), Arun Verma, Mushtaq Khan (as constable) and Jagdeep (as policeman Munshi) provide fair support. Javed and Dilip Kabra are natural to the core as the goons. Veena Malik sizzles in the Chhanno song-dance number.

Gali Gali Chor Hai Review: Direction & Music

Rumi Jafri’s direction, limited as it is by the script, is just about fair. Not just the script but the narrative style also would appeal to the audience in small centres and not to the city folk. Anu Malik’s music is quite alright. The Chhanno song, written by Swanand Kirkire, is mass-appealing whereas the title track is quite inspirational, more so for its lyrical value (Rahat Indori). Song picturisations (by Ahmed Khan) are functional, the ‘Chhanno’ number being the only one which stands out. Kailash Kher appears in the title song. Gururaj Jois’ camerawork is mediocre. The choreography of action scenes by Bhiku Verma is okay. A. Muthu’s editing is alright.

Gali Gali Chor Hai Review: Komal Nahta’s Verdict

On the whole, Gali Gali Chor Hai may be topical and well-intentioned but that’s just not enough. It lacks the entertainment for today’s audience and will, therefore, go largely unnoticed except, perhaps, in smaller centres.

Gali Gali Chor Hai Trailer

More Reviews by Komal Nahta

Agneepath Movie Review

Ghost Review

Chaalis Chauraasi Review

Sadda Adda Review

Players Review

Komal Nahta, the Editor of Koimoi.com, is Bollywood’s most trusted trade analyst & film reviewer. You can follow him on Twitter and check out his Video Blog.

Anna Hazare with the star cast of Gali Gali Chor Hai in Ralegaon

Anna Hazare, whose anti-corruption movement received plenty of support from Bollywood stars, seems to be returning the favour. Hazare, who came into the limelight after leading the Jan Lokpal movement late last year, watched Rumi Jaffery’s Gali Gali Chor Hai along with scores of villagers at Ralegan Siddhi village in Maharastra, India, on January 24 night.

The film, which portrays a common man’s hopes to see a corruption-free India, is set to release on February 3, 2012. On the occasion Hazare was accompanied by producer Nitin Manmohan, director Rumi Jaffery and star cast of the film – Akshaye Khanna, Shriya Saran, Mugdha Godse and Anu Kapoor.

The social worker praised the cast for the effort and appreciated the film. “It supports my message and movement. Every youth, every child, all age people in India should watch this film as it motivates the depth of being a common man and it motivates every individual to be a good citizen and have a corrupt free country. This Republic season every Indian should be corrupt free from within first and then work towards fighting corruption,” said Anna Hazare.

Akshaye Khanna and rest of the Gali Gali Chor Hai cast

Producer Nitin Manmohan said , “I was thrilled to see Anna’s reactions watching my film. Two thousand villagers stood up and clapped and that was my reward.”

Director Rumi Jaffery called the occasion as a proud moment for him. “I was sitting next to Anna and every gesture and expression of his was making me feel happy,” Jaffery added.

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Mugdha, who once was a hard-core meat eater, has started practicing the art of Ashtang Yoga which has caused her to make such a drastic switch.

As a Marathi mulgi (girl), the actress used to indulge in delicious home cooked non-vegetarian dishes on a daily basis. But for Mugdha, health was always a priority. Hence, she decided to give up meat for good!

The actress, who was last seen on-screen in Help, also religiously practices Ashtang Yoga every morning and makes sure that she sticks to this routine.

Well we definitely encourage anything that helps keeping this gorgeous bod in shape!