Dulha Mil Gaya literally breaks new grounds with taking a Bollywood plot to Trinidad and Tobago. But beyond that this marriage miscarriage movie moves east of West Indies to introduce India for the zillionth time as nothing more than a small village in pastureland Punjab. So you are supposed to believe that Tej Dhanraj (Fardeen Khan) is a billionaire-bachelor-playboy and to retain all these adjectival attributes he has to agree to his late father’s will. Ruefully, Randhir Kapoor is resurrected as the late father but is reduced to a retro portrait that does nothing other than subtly suggesting that the story dates back to his 1975 film Ponga Pandit . As per the will, Tej has to marry his father’s friend’s daughter to inherit the assets. That brings the NRI protagonist to Punjab through the regular route traversed by almost every romance flick from Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge to Dil Bole Hadippa and several Namastey London in between. Tej registers a court marriage with gaon-ki-gori Samarpreet Kapoor (Ishita Sharma) for formality sake and runs away, never to return back. The gori takes it on herself to trace her husband in Trinidad only to realize she was conned. Enter supermodel Shimmer (Sushmita Sen) who gives a facelift to Samarpreet revamping her to Samara so much so that Tej doesn’t recognize her real identity. Evidently its Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi revisited with a gender reversal where the girl substitutes shaving-off-the-moustache gimmick with dropping-her-spectacles for an image makeover. Sadly that doesn’t give any new perspective to the narrative. If that wasn’t indicative enough, Shahrukh Khan makes an appearance towards the end of a karwa chauth song and how one wishes at least he could have forestalled the foreseeable resemblance between his two consecutive releases. Candyfloss continues with a tinge of forced patriotism as the heroine counterattacks the illusion of Indian woman not being career-oriented saying, “ India ki ladkiyan sau karod ghar chalati hai ”. New director Mudassar Aziz comes from the old school of filmmaking who puts no lateral thinking in his conventional-to-the-core writing and direction. And though he doesn’t resort to toilet humour, Mudassar (literally) employs latrine thinking in scripting a couple of scenes where cupid strikes when the couple is heading towards lavatory. The characterizations are as much clichéd as their conflicts. The village belle gives way for some standard broken English jokes but the dialogues are far from being funny, forget witty. And when everything else fails to incite emotions, the background score struggles hard to achieve that. Choreographer Howard Rosemeyer almost replicates the ‘ Bole Chudiyan ’ dance steps in the karwa chauth song number. Leena Chanda’s tackily designed set doesn’t pass off as a cruise liner. Lalit Pandit’s music is plain average. Sushmita Sen carries a fake accent, occasionally does an Archana Puran Singh, has inconsistent comic timing but looks absolutely gorgeous. Ishita Sharma shows potential which remains untapped in a hackneyed film like this. Fardeen Khan is passable. Shah Rukh Khan doesn’t rise above the regular in his extended cameo. Mohit Chadda doesn’t get much scope. Tara Sharma shouldn’t act without using a dubbing artist. Or better Tara Sharma shouldn’t act. Johnny Lever is wasted in an inconsequential serious role. Howard Rosemeyer’s acting is more animated than his choreography. “Say yes to a relationship’ reads the tagline of the film. But if you don’t relate to a predictable plotline like this, rather say no to the film.
