Mere Brother Ki Dulhan (2011)

"Mere Brother Ki Dulhan" is different from the many other Indian films I have seen. It's MUCH more self-consciously hip and is clearly designed for an audience younger than 30. And, unfortunately, I think the film is a very hard sell for anyone older.The film begins in London. An Indian guy and his girlfriend break up. Then, he asks his brother back in India to find him a bride--to arrange a marriage. This is VERY unusual, as usually this is the father's job--but somehow Kush is chosen for the task. The search for the right bride is pretty funny and most of the marriages he considers are pretty awful. However, the last choice, Miss Dixit (the pronunciation of this name is priceless) turns out to be a very surprising one, as the girl turns out to be someone he met five years earlier. In a flashback scene, you see that she is loud, brash, free-spirited and rather self-absorbed---VERY self-absorbed. And, slowly you see that she really hasn't changed very much---yet you know that she and Kush will fall in love and the arranged marriage will not take place as this is a HUGE cliché in Indian pictures. Considering that Kush seems like a nice guy, you really have no idea why he eventually falls for her and he just seems too nice for such a firecracker of a girl--a girl, incidentally, that seems as un-Indian as possible. This inconsistency is a major problem I had with the movie, though there were other problems--most importantly how incredibly self-consciously hip the film was--as if it only wanted to appeal to a very narrow audience of people who like clubbing, loud characters and pop music. I also wonder if perhaps Indians see westerners as being like this girl--who was supposedly raised in the UK. Well, even in the UK she would be considered obnoxious and annoying--and possibly mentally ill! Westerners are NOT like her...thank God! To sum up the movie best, I hated it.

MERE BROTHER KI DULHAN is doing well at the box office, I have no intentions to hurt its fans, but there was a lot of BAD here, I hardly rate movies less than 5 as I realize the effort behind even every movie, but here the audience was literally betrayed..So how we believe that:MBKD in short is a story of a flirt ALI ZAFAR in ENGLAND who has family in India, his brother is party guy IMRAN, after a break up with his GF, ALI asks IMRAN to find an eastern girl for him as he wants to settle down, the rest that follows forms the backbone, but the movie goes in multiple directions , not following a single path...*The trailer of the movie shows KATRINA slapping IMRAN and all other trailers too give the impression that Imran will fall in love with his brothers fiancé, though we all knew he would get KAT at the end, but here everything was very very predictable, in 10 minutes its shown that IMRAN and KAT know each other before, in 30 minutes, they are in love, so when ALI ZAFAR comes in scene, all sense of surprise is lost as you know there will not be any WINNING or ONE-ON-ONE confrontation, this really detaches the viewer from the movie..*What really bothered a lot of audience was that how DUMB and OBLIVIOUS ALI ZAFAR is to the situation, at one hand he is ultra-smart BANKER and has history of multiple GF'S, still under his nose, IMRAN and KAT are openly involved and indulged in a full fledge affair, yet till the end he doesn't know at all about this, here also the movie becomes relatively boring, as either as I said I expected a WIN-MY-BROTHERS- Fiancé type of theme or at least BROTHERS-IN-COMPETITION, would be really different..*As I mentioned before, the predictability of the plot detached me so much that I could not get back in the movie, I am a basically Hollywood GUY but India has really made some great movies recently which bring me back to theater to my Maternal Language..Namely MUNNA-BHAI-DUO, 3 IDIOTS had the audience rolling in laughter, also the comparable low budget BAND BAAJA BAARAAT had more applause from audience because of its VERY BELIEVABLE premise, TERE BIN LADEN was another UNDER-RATED effort from this great movie loving country but MKBD is none, the director is highly unaware of what he wants to make, its sometimes a SPOOF, sometimes a ROMANTIC COMEDY and at others SLAPSTICK, though all of these cakes are HALF BAKED..Now to the movie performances, ALI ZAFAR was the most inexperienced of the trio as an actor, he was given least dialogs but he really ruled the scenes he was in, his CUTE UNAWARENESS and GESTURES really worked, I really wished, he had some more scenes..Equally captivating and excellent was KATRINA KAIF, she really had excelled as actress after BOOM, even her criticized accent is now much better and eastern, the only scene she felt short were when she is drunk but I don't complain, no one does a AMITABH in this theme, its very tough to portray a drunk and be funny and not over-act, in short MKBD is a great addition to KATRINA'S CV as an ACE actress, as far as her performance is concerned..IMRAN KHAN is just average, he hasn't come out of JAANE TU YA JAANE NA, and he really needs to revolutionize like Ranbir Kapoor is or he will lose the FUTURE-UNO post..The Rest of cast is totally bad decisions and miscasting, why cast PRAKSHIT SAHANI in a comedy when you have much better actors playing fathers, for instance ANUPAM KHER, OM PURI...There is not a single memorable performance by the side cast when in BAND BAAJA BAARAAT, a really smaller movie, unknown actors did a better job (I compare this to BBB because of the same production house and comic feel of the movie)The laughs for which the movie is banked on basically are the physical comedy and at some scenes I really chuckled, especially KATRINA'S and IMRAN'S RUNAWAY scene :), the scenes between ALI ZAFAR and KAT are really fun too, there is little spoof thrown, when IMRAN churns out SALMAN'S Dialogs to KAT (sort of hidden humor as Salman-Kat are in news for their relations), there is also a big take on SHAHRUKH KHAN'S role in MY NAME IS KHAN, though a good idea, but the actor playing it couldn't;t master the mimickery, I really thought why not cast RAJPAL YADAV here who mimicks SHAHRUKH perfectly, anyways as I said, the laughs are bumpy and inconsistent, not following a smooth path...I just wish at the end that the movie really followed the great idea, though its doing great in India and in MID-EAST, but there are far better movies of this GENRE to invest here, but, to each his own..In a nutshell, the movie never really gripped me, I watched this in a packed theater, the multiplex had SALMAN KHAN starrer BODYGUARD running simultaneously, some people were saying while exiting, could have seen that, at least would have been better than this, I haven't seen BODYGUARD but I can't agree more...

Yash Raj Films had with this production released two films in a row that are directorial debuts for assistant directors. Talk about a promotion of sorts for writer-director Ali Abbas Zafar who had to suffer a little bit of flak with calls from various quarters that his maiden effort had taken a leaf out of Peter Hedges' Dan in Real Life starring Steve Carell, but the truth is while the premise may be slightly similar with a man falling for his soon-to-be sister-in-law, I suppose that's generic enough as a formula, and its execution is anything but, done to typical Masala style in two halves.Boasting the first time pairing of Imran Khan and Katrina Kaif, Mere Brother Ki Dulhan will probably set the stage for more pairings to come as both shared incredible, exuberant chemistry as friends turned lovers, radiating youthful energy and being in the same age group worked wonders since the big three Khans, all in the 40s, get frequently paired with younger heroines. I suppose with Imran's career getting a boost thanks to the awesome Delhi Belly, he'll probably give Ranbir Kapoor a run for his money as the next big male Bollywood star, with good looks and acting chops to boot. For now he's probably still typecast as the laid back, easy going boy next door as Kush, who's been tasked by his brother Luv (Pakistani actor Ali Zafar, not the director and of no relation) to help him find a wife, given a bad breakup which opens the film, and in some ways the writing was on the whole when Luv tells Kush they share the same taste, and whoever Kush finds, his brother will likely give the thumbs up.It's a huge responsibility, so much so that in a film like this, it calls for a song and dance in the opening credits, spoofing some of the largest shows in recent years such as Dabangg making more than one reference throughout the film, Dil Se... in recreating the dance atop a train, and Jodhaa Akhbar played more for laughs in a later song segment given Imran's less imposing presence compared to Hrithik Roshan in the Ashutosh Gowariker film. What you see in the trailer with Kush going around to meet up with various girls are just about what's included in the film, wasting no time before he gets a call from a diplomat asking for Kush and family to go over to meet his daughter Dimple Dixhit (Katrina Kaif), and in an instant when they meet we get transported back to some 5 years ago when they were still students, and living the crazy, carefree life.If anyone remains unconvinced of Katrina's acting range, perhaps this role may change their minds a little, where her Dimple takes on the more carefree, cool as ice attitude in her earlier years as a rock chick, before deciding now to settle down, more for a package deal of something quite similar to the 5 Cs which is what Luv can provide, given the large ads Kush and friends had taken out in advertisements. Can't blame a woman for wanting to have it all, especially since coming from a physical pedigree as embodied by Kaif.Director Ali Abbas Zafar utilizes the two halves structure well, with the first getting the leading characters to inevitably fall in love, rekindled from their strong friendship from the past, and the later half to try and untangle the mess they find themselves in, since the impending wedding between Dimple and Luv is moving at breakneck speed over the course of one weekend, and having to solution something that will leave no broken hearts, as well as in the Asian or Indian context, having to keep the honour on both sides of the family intact without a tinge of something scandalous as the cancellation of a wedding, or worst, the ideas of eloping which almost came to fruition.While the romance were left to the many beautiful song and dance sequences to move that emotion forward, comedy comes in the form of the schemes being hatched and executed, and especially with Ali Zafar playing Luv as the typical himbo who has absolutely no idea that the rug was going to be pulled under his feet. While Dan in Real Life had a more emotional, dramatic core, Mere Brother Ki Dulhan played its events out in a very breezy fashion especially when Luv's ex Piali (Tara D'Souza) start to play a bigger role in what would be a win win situation.I had enjoyed the dance scene in Dan in Real Life where Steve Carell took to the dance floor to battle his envy with the rest of the characters, and here that pivotal scene got naturally translated into a large item number. And unique to India and maybe even Asia perhaps, is how parents play such a huge role in weddings, and have significant say whether a union can happen since family honour is still something much to be defended by the clan. This gets played out enough times to hammer home the point, and the older generation's priority in the saving of face every step of the way, while serious in nature, do add some comedy on top of cultural differences to be aware of for someone watching this from a different country.Hollywood romantic comedies don't possess as much spiritedness as the ones from Bollywood if the latter are done right, and in this case, Mere Brother Ki Dulhan scores in all aspects of romance and comedy, being a sheer delight to sit through, with adequate eye candy to boot. Recommended!

MBKD is a pure breed of Bollywood movie. There is a lot of dancing, songs, celebration, over-acting, a few good jokes (again: very few), masala... If you like to watch such movies where you don't have to use too much of your brain after a hard week's work, you might enjoy this.Watching MBKD is insult to intelligence and a boring experience. You know you are in the wrong theater when you get up and see people around you in deep sleep. I just couldn't wait for the movie to complete. Any movie that produces that kind of effect can only be hit because of its stars, great advertising and distribution.The movie is flawed at many instances, but for me the most important thing in a movie is 'the story'. The story has nothing innovative or even interesting. The overall story is predictable and illogical. However, the story has a small twist at the end, which was not predictable (bad news for people who wanted the movie to end soon). You won't predict how unwanted 'the twist' at the end is. For some reason our film industry forgets that making a 'funny story' doesn't mean making a 'stupid story'.The good thing in the movie is Katrina and her dancing skills. She can make any song look good with her size-zero body. Katrina looks good in any movie until she opens her mouth. Katrina's acting in this movie is childish and 'not cute'. Katrina's character was supposed to be of a cute and chulbuli girl, similar to Kareena Kapoor's character in 'Jab we Met'. But a combination of 'Bad acting' and inability to speak proper Hindi made Katrina look stupid.Acting of Imran and others is equally artificial. But Imran doesn't look as bad as the overacting of 'Ali Zafar' who is Imran's brother in the movie. For some reason everyone in the movie have stopped working and are behind getting 'Ali Zafar' married.