Dulha Mil Gaya Movie Review: Romance Mil Gaya

It's the attack of ROMANCE this weekend at the Indian Box Office. If Uday Chopra is aiming for the unattainable with Pyaar Impossible then plain Jane Samarpreet (Ishitta Sharma) in Dulha Mil Gaya wants to win her errant NRI husband's love. The biggest problem with Dulha Mil Gaya is that you watch the proceedings on screen with a strong sense of d?j? vu, as the film has nothing novel to offer, but the music and the proceedings are entertaining enough to keep you engrossed.

Sushmita Sen plays supermodel Shimmer, who likes her independence more than her doting boyfriend Pawan Raj Gandhi or PRG (Shah Rukh Khan, or SRK in a special appearance). Fardeen Khan is Tej Dhanraj, an eternal bachelor playboy who is known as Donsai . If you must know, Donsai is slang for dollar in Trinidad, where the film is based!

A twist in his father's will forces Donsai to marry a girl of his father's choice, Samarpreet Kapoor. He cannot divorce for a decade if he wants to retain the five billion (no less) dollars his father has left him. He dashes across to Punjab (depicted by four trucks filled with Sikhs doing the bhangra), has a quickie wedding and with this technicality now fulfilled, returns to Trinidad minus wife to resume his debauched life.

The mousy Punjabi bride decides to take the bull by the horns and heads to Trinidad to reclaim her husband. Her quip to her concerned grandparents is that "Trinidad ka rasta humein naheen, pilot jee ko pata hona chahiye." (I don't need to know the route to Trinidad, the pilot does). The grandparents buy it and Samarpreet reaches Trinidad.

A quirk of fate has her meet Shimmer, who arranges an express makeover, which brings Donsai to his knees begging for Samarpreet's love. Samarpreet returns the favour by offering priceless insights on women, such as "Indian ladkiyan ghar chalateen hein aur uss se behtar career aur kya ho sakta hai?" (Indian women run the home and what could be a better career?)

This sets Shimmer's priorities straight in life. She literally runs to her boyfriend and proposes to him..

First time director Mudassar Aziz feels compelled to underline every scene and emotion. Pink cushions on Shimmer's couch spell out the action happening on screen with words like "TRAP", "RUN"and "FOOL". Just in case you missed a point, the soundtrack reiterates it to drive it home. Thinking independently (or thinking at all) is generally discouraged. But the film is a visual delight, keeping the romance engaging with the beautiful Caribbean locales as the backdrop.

The moments that provide some relief from the stretched out romance are Sushmita's superb Diva act, something that seems to come naturally to her, and the bits where Johnny Lever's Hussainbhai bond with Donsai. Don't be fooled by Shah Rukh's apparent guest presence credit in the movie; he has considerable screen time for a guest appearance, and his qawwali Dilrubaon Ke Jalwe is a song you cannot miss.

Shah Rukh's grand entry in the film comes with the observation "Hamara Zikr to har pal hua fasane mein, to kya hua jo dair hui humein aane mein." (I am spoken about at every gathering in any case so it does not really matter if I came a little late). All we can say is that in this case, it made all the difference. Dulha Mil Gaya, though three years in the making, comes roughly twenty years too late. See it if you must, probably for the SRK factor, or probably for the refreshing Sushmita, or for the charming Fardeen, and for the performance by Ishitta, who is something to look out for.