Humpty Sharma ki Dhulania (2014) (Movie Review)



Director: Shashank Khaitan
Cast: Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt

Is it true that love happens at first sight? Perhaps, perhaps not. But this film goes with the former. Rakesh Sharma (Varun Dhawan) a.k.a Humpty, is a numbskull who wears his heart on his sleeve. Coupled with his charm with the ladies, he’s a ‘college hero’ (or so he thinks). His best friends, Shonty and Poplu help him stay afloat in a world he does not fit in. His ‘papa’ runs a stationery shop in the campus and Humpty happily uses it to begin his flirtatious activities.

He and his buds try to get a teacher to pass him in history. While in the act they are confronted by the teacher’s niece, Kavya (Alia Bhatt) who has just come up from Ambala to buy a designer gown for her marriage. Her suavity and feistyness immediately strike at Humpty’s heart and he gets his human ‘google’, Shonty, to get the low down on her. They get to know each other and Humpty and his pals help out one of Kavya’s friends, Gurpreet, to save her marriage. Humpty is determined to win this ‘dhulanias’ heart and against all odds helps her acquire enough money to buy her dream gown. Before she goes back to Ambala, they make love and he pops the question of whether she loves him. She expresses her love for him but knows that her feelings are secondary as her father’s choice of the groom is final.

Undaunted by this setback, Humpty sets out to Ambala to convince her that she should tell her dad about her feelings. She refuses, he persists. Her dad gets wind of it and has Humpty and his pals beaten and sent back to Delhi. They make a return and Kavya is convinced that Humpty loves her. She begs her father to give him a chance. He reluctantly accepts on the condition that, should Humpty succeed in pointing out one reason why Angad (her bethrothed) should not marry Kavya, he could marry her. Humpty fails to do so and the arranged marriage between Kavya and Angad goes ahead (or so it seems). Humpty is mourning his failure to win the hand of Kavya. Her father who is strongly against Humpty, mellows down and accepts him as Kavya’s chosen husband.  The movie ends with a ‘happy ever after’.  

The ending is a bit tricky. Up to this point the movie is more or less believable. Kavya’s dad appears out of nowhere to Humpty telling him of his change of heart. Humpty’s pals and dad are already at the wedding celebration even before Humpty gets there. The wedding celebration is well underway but the groom, Angad is nowhere in sight.

Varun and Alia deliver swashbuckling performances. The dizzying Punjabi dances and not-so-cool music are a drab. The film delivers the message of love and shows us how “what goes around comes around”.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Great Grand Masti 2 (2016) (Movie Review)

Image
Dir: Indra Kumar Starring: Vivek Oberoi, Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani, Urvashi Rautela Dur: 2 hrs 10 mins Genre: Comedy Rating: 1/10 Comment: The jokes, gestures and costumes are sexually suggestive. An absolute waste of time. “What an opening line”, you might think. But to say otherwise would be an absolute lie. This film is in fact, a great grand waste of time. It’s horrible whichever way you look at it. The story is weak and thrives on cheap thrills and sorry jokes. The actresses are no doubt eye-catching but the rest is all a blur. The comedy is in fact tragedy and the film attempts to play on the basest desires of man. It’s unbelievable that actors like Riteish and Vivek would do such a film. I am not a big fan of bollywood but I still feel bad when I see bollywood making films like these. All of a sudden, I see that sex is being propagated through Indian cinema. The views of sex are changing and filmmakers and actors are not hesitating to take on unconvent
Read more

St. Joseph: A Father after the Father's Heart (Book Review)

Image
  St. Joseph: A Father after the Father’s Heart , Hyderabad: Don Bosco Publishing House, 2021, Rs. 150, pp. 240. The book is a compilation of articles from various authors writing about qualities of St. Joseph. They have used the litany of St. Joseph as an index and have put together articles on each of the invocations. All the contributors are Salesians from different parts of India but there a couple of contributors from abroad as well. The book lends itself to be a souvenir of the Year of St. Joseph that Pope Francis declared. Let me start out by commenting on the quality of production. The paper is of good quality and so is the design and layout. It is neat and has an attractive cover. Coming to the content, it gets rather repetitive but that is understandable considering that there is so little Biblical foundation for an exposition of St. Joseph. The articles often reference Pope Francis’ letter Patris Corde and extensively utilize Pope St. John Paul II’s apostolic exhortatio
Read more

A Day with Don Bosco

                              Don Bosco was declared the Patron of Youth by Pope John Paul II in 1989. He received his mission: to be Father to the young, in a dream at the tender age of nine. He nurtured this call throughout his life and never wasted an opportunity to gather boys and direct them to God. He did not do this as a spiritual director, (at least no at first!) but rather as a friend, a companion and a seminarian. As a young boy, he would attract youngsters with his magic tricks, tightrope skills, games etc and then get them to recite the rosary with him or recount to them the Sunday sermon (which he remembered thanks to his prodigious memory). Already then, he had ingeniously found a way to combine religion and entertainment. His entertainment was necer for entertainment sake but rather a façade or an advertisment for religious instruction. Even as a young priest, boys would long for more than just a wekkly encounter with him. They loved him and found in him a friend w
Read more