Cast: Arjun Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Ileana D'Cruz, Athiya
Shetty, Neha Sharma, Ratna Pathak Shah
Director: Anees Bazme
Rating: Two stars
Twin trouble capers come preloaded with a certain degree of comedian
verve. So does Mubarakan, directed by Anees Bazmee of No Entry and Singh is
Kinng reputation. But in trying to squeeze every ounce of hilarity out of its
scrappy screenplay, the film goes overboard with its unnecessary cheeriness and
swerves into the realm of inanity. In the bargain, it loses its way finally
after delivering a fairly gusty first half.
Mubarakan is generally puerile, sporadically fun, and always
unabashedly over the top. It is just the sort of mix of song, dance, comic gags
and unchecked lunacy that Bollywood's mass audience so loves. So, there is
superhit written all over the film, but this puffy potion simply isn't for
those with a taste for more subtle and easy-flowing humour. Mubarakan tries too
hard to tickle our humorous bones and the effort show.
Its songs and comic gag are of the routine variety. It seeks
to drive itself on the back of the seductive power of familiarity, manages to
do a tolerable job pre-interval but, taken as a whole, Mubarakan is neatly and
niftily package crap that never stops reeking of stupidity. If there is
anything positive in this attempt laugh riot, it is its refusal to take itself
seriously - an attribute that stand the film in good stead when it begins to make
bigger beyond the plausible and the drivable.
Mubarakan is a comedy that revolve around two weddings and a
whole lot of confusion. Before the lovebirds can have their nuptials solemnized
in a gurudwara, they boast to fly though two-and-a-half hours of turmoil caused
by familial pressure and mistaken amorous liaison.
The twins alienated at birth are played by Arjun Kapoor.
One, Charan, grows up as a turbaned Sardar in the home of Baldev (Pavan
Malhotra) in Punjab. The other, Karan, is raised by Baldev's elder sister Jeeto
(Ratna Pathak Shah), in London. In the film's notch sequence, the two boys lose
their parents in a road mishap. Their bachelor uncle Kartar (Anil Kapoor), who
has bowed a rustic part of the UK into a mini Punjab, divides the orphans sandwiched
between his two elder siblings and then profits to fuel the chaos that ensues
when the duo is ready for dalliances.
The clumsy Charan, five minutes Karan's junior, loves Nafisa
Qureishi (Neha Sharma) but lacks the guts to let his conservative folks know
his feelings for the girl. As a consequence, his minister and his London-based
aunt decide that he is a suitable boy for Binkle (Athiya Shetty), offspring of
a wealthy Punjabi (Rahul Dev).
Charan turns to uncle Kartar for help in order to scuttle
the in the near future wedding. At the uncle's behest, he passes himself off as
a drug addict. Binkle's father and her brother Manpreet (Karan Kundrra) throw a
fit and humiliate Charan's adoptive father Baldev. The latter and Jeeto end up
fighting so violently over the imbroglio that they stop talking to every other.
The slighted Baldev asserts that he will find a bride for Charan within a month.
He foliage for Chandigarh without exchanging goodbyes.
In Punjab, Baldev chances upon Sweety Gill (Ileana D'Cruz)
and plumps for her as Charan's future wife. The trouble is, unbeknownst to the
world, Sweety is Karan's girlfriend. She has had the worst possible brush with
Jeeto, calling her probable mom-in-law names that the latter doesn't forget in
a hurry. The next thing that the cocksure Karan knows is that he is currently
the chosen one for Binkle. He, too, seeks the involvement of Kartar in order to
wriggle out of the hole he has dig for himself.
The rigmarole is pleasurable up to a point but once the
idiocy quotient peaks, the overlong Mubarakan goes rather haywire. Yet, if it
isn't as insufferable as other usual Bollywood romantic comedies, a part of the
credit goes to the actors. Anil Kapoor, who is as wild as ever, lends some
lustre to the proceedings with his impressive energy level and funny
one-liners.
Arjun Kapoor is far less dependable in his double role, but
he does strike a few purple patches along the way, demonstrating a comic flair
that cries out for a better pictures than this one. The script gives Athiya
Shetty the rough end of the stick. Her character, as Kartar says at one point,
is like a tennis ball being lobbed back and forth among Charan's side of the
court and Karan's without being allowed any agency of her own. Mubarakan, nevertheless,
gives Ileana D'Cruz far more space and she make the most of the opening.
Neha Sharma, in a particular appearance, is allowed little
that could be described as special in a role that definitely deserved more
attention. She plays a harsh Muslim girl with a successful law job who does not
fit into the mainstream Sikh brood's scheme of things and has to settle for a
hurried, last-minute adjustment, which entails jumping into a new bond with
Binkle's brother. That's a copout of the worst kind. But to expect nuanced and
mould-breaking shared dynamics in a film like Mubarakan is to take it more badly
than its makers themselves do.
