New Delhi:
Dil Dhadakne Do is Richie Rich style drama tagged with multiple emotional trails, relationships, quest for true love and high class social aunties to add the humour.
It is like watching Sachin Tendulkar playing a 100-ball inning in a 50 over match and he scores just 30 runs of good strokes.
Like Zoya Akhtar’s last film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, this is also based on a trip but this time it’s in water which washes trademark image of rich society to improvise a brand new perspective and transform lives of travelers.
Story revolves around the very dramatic and rich family – 'The Mehras', led by self-made business man Kamal Mehra (Anil Kapoor). He wants his 25-year-old son Kabir (Ranveer Singh) to take over his business but Kabir wants to fly with planes and add wings to his life. Elder daughter Ayesha (Priyanka Chopra) is also a self-made woman, but her marriage is acting like barrier in her progressive career and the CEO post of her parental company. Kamal's wife Neelam (Shefali Shah) is that insecure woman who pretends to be an ideal wife just to stay intact with her husband.
Zoya Akhtar is one of the finest directors in Bollywood industry and it shows with the way she has put things in this 171 minute drama. From the very first scene to last frame it’s analogy between humans vs rest of animals.
Brilliantly used dog (Pluto Mehra), one of the members in Mehra family, takes the narration part to his shoulders (voiced by Aamir Khan and written by Javed Akhtar) and unleashes the negatives human pursue despite of the fact that they can do much more to their lives with added benefits of communication.
Kamal Mehra plans a cruise for his wife to mark their 30th wedding anniversary but soon it becomes a business game as he also plans to hook his son with a rich investor’s daughter to save his almost bankrupt company.
The film, scripted by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti, at several occasions builds up the excitement and then leaves you with disappointment as it run flat just like the other normal movie.
On the ship, their lives cruise for a whole new meaning. Ayesha encounters her first love Sunny Gill (Farhan Akhtar) years after they were separated by parents. Kabir falls in love with a dancer Farah (Anushka Sharma). And they both unveil their frustration because of parents' imposed decision.
Dil Dhadakne Do actually never rises to the bar where engagement with viewers becomes an easy task. For most it sets the mood like a high class families have such problems to deal on regular basis and the rest keep on yawning as everything portrayed is unrealistic and hard to digest.
Sitting tight for three hours to watch an effort by Zoya Akhtar to put many things together can be avoided. The problem with the film is that it pretends to be much cooler than it actually is.
Final verdict: Watch it only if you like to see multi-starrer movie with no regrets in end. Zoya’s effort to keep things straight and simple gets overshadowed with people’s expectations.
