Malaal, Movie Review: This Meezaan-Sharmin Pyaar Ki Dastaan Is Purana Maal

Wrote Pyaar Ki Kahaani in the heading, but then changed it to Dastaan. There is no kahaani, so do you want me to lie? Anyway, first things first. Meezaan Jaaferi and Sharmin Segal. Wouldn't rule out their progress, they shouldn't be termed as mere beneficiaries of nepotism a word that is coming out of my ears since a long time. Meezaan is sincere but he needs to do away with his Kunal Kapoor look-alike persona rightaway. Sharmin, his on-screen love, needs to understand that vocal cords are meant to be exerted if and when required in certain scenes.

The long, stretched film (or did it just seem long) has no twists and turns and can ill-boast of any screenplay. The couple, rather the director Mangesh Hadawale, wastes an inordinate time in affirming that Sharmin and Meezaan have an affinity for each other. Hota hain in certain relationships but the preceding parts don't justify the delay in this case.


An adaptation of Selvaraghavan's 2004 Tamil original 7G Rainbow Colony and a film that has seen three previous iterations (in Bengali, Odia and Kannada), I pity the swarm of comparisons (inevitable, some fair, some unfair) that will be drawn. All the more reason why the Hindi version needed to stand out.


I remembered that Sanjay Leela Bhansali is associated with this film as a producer only when I got up from my seat. At the end, not after the interval. Decided to take a short nap in the break which could have thankfully hastened the end had it not popped up. Remembered Bhansali because the music was sort of fine, again nothing that I store in my memory and sing out when I feel like. But wasn't Ae Dil Hai Mushkil the last (complete) album that gifted us that facility?


I really wonder if the maestro SLB was 100 per cent happy with Mangesh when the film was being made and especially when he saw the final draft. Malaal could have been a lot better. I would have loved to see SLB himself wielding the megaphone for this and he would have unarguably rolled out a beauty.

I am going with TWO-and-HALF.




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