Nobody's Darling

After the Bhatt camp, it looks like Ram Gopal Varma is the latest to have lost his marbles. With the atrocious RGV Ki Aag failing to ignite even the slightest flame, Varma has come out with a second film hardly a week later - curiously titled Darling, the film somewhat recasts Fardeen Khan in his Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya role, only with Isha Koppikar and Esha Deol forming the other parts of this deadly love-triangle.

The beauty of Pyaar Tune Kya Kiya, however, lied in Urmila's superior performance in the Hindi version of Fatal Attraction. This time, we are relegated to watching Esha amateurishly resort to smirks and glares while she makes Fardeen and Isha's married life a living hell...only, this time, the stalker is a ghost whom Fardeen accidentally killed in a scene very reminiscent of Anil Kapoor's My Wife's Murder.

What works initially is the 'different' nature of the film. You are curious enough to watch the proceedings and see how long the Fardeen-Esha love affair will last, most importantly when the murder will occur and subsequently when the stalking will begin. The first reels post-Esha's death, where Fardeen is aware of her presence even though she is invisible, are intriguing enough to make you think this may be a worthwhile endeavor after all. Things take a turn for the worse, however, when Esha actually begins to stalk the married couple.

The first scene or two are handled with aplomb, before the entire act gets repetitive, to say the least. The concept is amusing at first, but then it starts to drag to the extent that you are anxiously awaiting the end credits.

The performances are also not strong enough to save the film. Fardeen tries extremely hard but ends up hamming his way through the second half in particular. Esha, as mentioned before, is given about two main expressions and a couple of scenes where she can shout a la Ankahee. Isha Koppikar is the one who trumps the rest of the cast with a restrained performance in a role that is very uncharacteristic of the work she has done in the past.

Zakir Hussain as Fardeen's co-worker/friend is perhaps the most annoying of the lot. One wonders what Varma was thinking when he let Zakir overuse the emphasis on the word 'yaar' in just about every sentence he speaks. The cop and his assistant are all right, but Varma has the silly tendency to leave things unexplained. Why does the assistant stare at Fardeen without ever saying a word? It's almost a mockery, after a certain point.

There are only two actual choreographed songs in the film. The opening credits number, Aa Khushi Se Khudkhushi Karle, subjects us poor and unsuspecting viewers to another RGV insertion of...Nisha Kothari. We get it, Varma, she's your new muse...the casting couch indeed exists...blah blah blah...but there is no need to place her in every film.

Tadap Tadap is slightly better, if you are willing to tolerate some more Himesh Reshammiya.

Overall, the initial plot may be original but after all of a half hour the entire exercise seems rather stale. Barring a surprise climax - that almost makes the entire film pointless - there is nothing particularly fresh about Darling.

Verdict? Not worth the effort.

Lock this Cash in a safe, will you?

Now, let me get this straight. Anubhav Sinha, a director who showed a decent amount of talent in two (albeit contrived) films, Tum Bin and Dus, manages to pull off a cast reading Ajay Devgan, Ritiesh Deshmukh, Suniel Shetty, Zayed Khan, Shamita Shetty, Esha Deol and Dia Mirza. Or I'll take that back and say Sinha manages to pull off a cast of Ajay Devgan and Ritiesh Deshmukh, because it's no secret that the other five probably do not know themselves how they have managed to persist in this industry for so long.

Then Sinha gets the music-duo Vishal-Shekhar to create a racy, borderline annoying but irresistibly catchy musical score. Sinha gets the foreign locales, he ropes in the high-speed chases and nail-biting stunts. He even brings to the table a cartoonist who bestows upon each character his or her very own animated introduction!

And yet somewhere, perhaps in the middle of all these "important" (?) details, Sinha turns around and realizes that neither he, nor anyone involved in the project, seems to know what the bloody film is even about. Moreover, Sinha surprises us and decides to continue narrating - no, not anything resembling a story - but a chain of more stunts. And lo and behold, there is Cash for you.

The actors, for their part, sing and dance and make a huge fuss about how they've got cash on their mind, making money all the time. What no one seems to have on his mind is how to give a decent performance. Ajay is the biggest miscast here - he looks bored, rather bewildered if you will, and quite uncomfortable romancing the considerably younger Shamita. He also looks far too old to appear in the title song at the opening credits, almost making a mockery of himself. Ritiesh is another talent wasted. Needless to say, the guy has a flair for comedy. Sadly, you see very little of it here. For some reason best known to the animator, cartoon Ritiesh seems to have blond hair. The cartoons, as an aside, are superfluous and obnoxious.

That Zayed is a lousy actor is no secret. Here his hair makes him a step more intolerable than usual. Suniel throws around his fake American accent like his life depends on it.

Of the ladies, Esha comes across insipid and hardly looks her best. She also decides to remove her shirt and fight off the villains in her sports bra, most probably because Ms. Shetty fighting alongside her threatens with her superior abs. Shamita, for her part, actually manages to look convincing as a hot home security official. What's sad is that her character is probably the most clueless security official you will ever see.

Dia looks stunning and is conspicuously absent from the title track (instead we are relegated to Esha's absurd facial expressions). She manages to do a decent job, pity there is so little of her.

The songs are shot with aplomb and are where most of the style is evident. Yes, they all contain English. And no, none are meant to be taken seriously. You will find yourself singing Cash, Naughty Naughty and Rehem Kare whether you like it or not. Mindblowing Mahiya, on the other hand, would have been best left unrecorded (I personally would have shredded the paper it was originally written on, but those are minor details).

Verdict: Isn't it obvious?