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Mercy Mercy
Popping in a caramel candy that’s way past its expiry date isn’t exactly an advisable way to pamper your taste buds. Nor is watching a five-year-old mush relic from Bollywood recommended to while away a sleepy weekend.
In all the years Milenge Milenge gathered dust in the cans, a lot has changed - Shahid Kapoor has gained abs and Kareena Kapoor has lost curves, apart from their well cemented careers today, of course. So in a way, this Satish Kaushik-directed film flips time’s arrow and shoots us back to those days when Shahid was cuter and sweeter and his dimples were deeper and his facial fuzz hadn’t met the razor yet.
Appearances apart, the love story of Milenge Milenge is a throwback to the period when the hero and heroine would mouth dialogues like "agar kismet mein likha hai toh hum phir milenge" and would draw a roaring applause from the moist-eyed audiences. Today, thank goodness, we’ve got cell-phones to keep us busy through such romantic mumbo-jumbo.
Care to know the story? Priya (Kareena) is crystal clear about her Mr. Right. He should be romantic and he shouldn’t smoke, drink (alcohol, of course) or lie. Now, before anyone could tell her that such guys don’t exist, enters Immy (Shahid), a head-to-toe personification of Priya’s ideal man. Well, not exactly because Immy in real has all the ‘qualities’ that Priya detests. But he’s come to know about her likes and dislikes from her personal diary and is pretending as a goodie-goodie, truth-speaking teetotaller just to woo her. However, in this game of harmless flirtation he genuinely falls for her, while she obviously is in love with him, until she finds out his truth.
Then what? Even though Immy begs her for aakhri mauka to mend his ways, Priya decides to end the relationship and separate from Immy, but not before telling him that if destiny wants it, they will milenge again.
The rest of the film is about Immy and Priya trying to move on separately in life but never fully being able to overcome their infatuation and love for each other despite having new partners (Aarti Chhabaria and Panini Raaj Kumar) in their lives. Going by the movie’s title, it’s not hard to guess whether the estranged lovers will reunite again.
Satish Kaushik opts for the easiest way to make a Bollywood love story. Instead of letting his own creative juices flow, he - as often is the case - chooses to rip apart a Hollywood blockbuster (Serendipity, in this case), throws in half a dozen doze-worthy songs, abundance of banal dialogues, a bunch of oddball characters, and a very predictable climax to boot.
The lesser written about performances the better, but Shahid and Bebo do come up with a few sparkling moments of passion here and there. Remember, they were still an item back then. A word though definitely needs to be reserved for Kareena’s styling which is again a throwback to the days when glossy lipsticks, gaudy nail-paints and blonde streaks in hair were a fashion rage. Today, they’re fashion disasters.
Jokes apart, Milenge Milenge has hardly anything to keep you occupied for the long hours of its running time. By the time the end credits roll, you’ll feel rather blank and empty within. But then that Himesh Reshammiya tune comes haunting back at you and you croon: ‘Kuchh toh baaki hai’.
Rating: 2 stars out of 5
