Wedding Pullav Review {1.5/5} & Review Rating
Almost every week, Bollywood sees a new face making his/her debut on the silver screen. While there are a handful who make it on their own merit (read 'minus any proverbial godfather'), there are others who have their 'illustrious' parents' to help them take their baby steps into Bollywood. While a few 'star-kids' make their parents proud by their achievements, there are others who soon realize that they are not cut for this job. This week sees the release of WEDDING PULLAV, a film that marks the debut of Anushka Ranjan, the daughter of the illustrious parents Shashi Ranjan and Anu Ranjan who are known names in the entertainment circles. Will Anushka Ranjan make her parents proud with WEDDING PULLAV or will WEDDING PULLAV turn out to be a sour dish at the box-office… let's analyze.
The film starts off with the engagement ceremony of the 'affordable dream bike engineer' Aadi (Diganth Manchale) alongwith Rhea (Sonalli Sehgall). Despite being his engagement day, Aadi is not completely happy, as his eyes yearns to see his London based best friend 'Lambu' aka Anushka (Anushka Ranjan), who had promised that, come what may, she will attend his engagement ceremony. Merely a few minutes before the ring ceremony enters Anushka in a typical filmi band-baaja style. Rhea, who hails from an estranged family (with Parmeet Sethi as her father and Kitu Gidwani as her mother) gets introduced to Aadi's 'best friend' Anushka. The grand wedding is all set to take place in Thailand. Seizing the right opportunity, Anushka announces to Aadi and his gang that she is dating a London based painter Jay (Karan Grover), who does nude paintings of women for a living. Even though Aadi pretends to be really happy with the news, deep down he starts yearning to be with Anushka. Thanks to a sudden brainwave by the elders in the family, it then gets decided that Anushka and Jay also should get married alongwith Aadi and Rhea in Thailand. The film then shifts to the foreign shores of a grand hotel in Thailand, whose manager is (ironically called as) Luv Kapoor (Rishi Kapoor). The 'USP' of Luv Kapoor is that besides being the hotel's manager, he also doubles up as a 'situational psychiatrist' cum 'love counselor' cum 'a healer to the broken hearts'. While everyone is busy with the wedding preparations in Thailand, Aadi listens to his heart and starts spending more and more time with Anushka rather than his fiancée Rhea. This puts everyone in a suspicion about the relationship status of Aadi and Anushka, as both are on the verge of getting married to their different people. Seeing Aadi's proximity towards Anushka, he almost gets confronted by Jay… only to be saved by Rhea, who arrives at the nick of time and whisks Aadi away with her. Despite all this, Aadi's proximity towards Anushka (and vice versa) keeps on growing multifold, so much so that they (mentally) start regretting their decision of not realizing their love for each other in time. It is here when Luv Kapoor acts as a counselor to Aadi and tells him to listen to his heart and not to his mind. Will Aadi gather the guts to confess his profound love for Anushka and vice versa in front of everyone, will Anushka be courageous enough to speak about her love for Aadi when her marriage is just a few hours away and what ultimately happens to the love stories of Aadi, Anushka, Jay and Rhea… is what forms the rest of the story.
First things first. The very title 'WEDDING PULLAV' has absolutely zero relevance to the film and its story plot. The film's screenplay (Shashi Ranjan, Pooja Verma, Rahul Patel) is totally amateurish and has been done in an extremely haphazard manner. There are hardly any moments (of glory) that the film can boast about. The same applies for the film's storyline (Pooja Verma) as well. As far as the film's direction (Binod Pradhan) is concerned, one really feels sad to see such a veteran person's talent being wasted in such a senseless film. Binod Pradhan, being a veteran in the industry for many years, makes his debut as a director with WEDDING PULLAV. Despite having a weak script, Binod's directorial skills just do not go unnoticed. The film holds spark purely due to his direction. At the same time, one is forced to think that Binod Pradhan could have chosen a better film for his directorial debut rather than WEDDING PULLAV.
As far as the performances are concerned, the film's hero (debutante) Diganth Manchale fails to leave a strong impression on the audiences with his performance. There are a few scenes in the film, when he actually starts sucking up to the film's heroine Anushka Ranjan, which only leaves the audiences confused as to who is the 'real hero' of the film. Despite hailing from a filmy family, Anushka Ranjan fails to impress as a debutante actress. She has miles to go and lots to learn as an actress. There are a handful of scenes when she tries to put up a tomboy act, but fails miserably. On the other hand, Sonalli Sehgall, does nothing substantial than trying to look good on screen. The film sees another debutante Karan Grover, who tries his level best to get into the skin of his character as a painter, and succeeds to a certain extent. While the other actors like Satish Kaushik, Parmeet Sethi, Kitu Gidwani and Himani Shivpuri bring nothing new to the table due to their poorly written characters. The most shocking thing about the film's casting is Rishi Kapoor. One really wonders as to what on earth was Rishi Kapoor thinking while signing this film that has no head or tail.
The film's music (Salim-Sulaiman) is the saving grace and boasts of two hummable songs in the form of 'Party Karni Hai' and 'Oh Jaaniya'. On the other hand, the film's background music (Rohit Kulkarni) leaves no impact on the audiences. The film's cinematography (Gopal Shah) is decent. The film's editing (Sayyed Sameer) is very clumsy and could have been better by leaps and bounds. The film's poor script and screenplay, doubled up with sloppy editing lands up making a 'khichdi' of the dish called 'WEDDING PULLAV'.
On the whole, WEDDING PULLAV is a dish that is best avoided as it is bound to leave a bad taste.
