REVIEW: Milenge Milenge (2)

STALE FARE

It may be fair to the makers of Milenge Milenge to admit straightaway that the film suffers inexorably on account of its five-year delay. It was launched when Kareena Kapoor was still experimenting with horrible bronze streaks in her hair and hideous clothes and hadn't entirely shed her chubby cheeks for a gaunt, size-zero look. Shahid Kapoor dressed equally badly, hammed endlessly and struggled to get over his Shah Rukh Khan fixation. 

Having said that, it would have been quite bad even if it had released on time, or if Kareena and Shahid were still a real-life couple. For, Satish Kaushik is a director whose sensibilities are firmly entrenched in the sub-par commercial cinema of the 1990s. Back then, the hero hung out in college with a bunch of complete losers for sidekicks, the heroine had three screechy girlfriends, Satish Shah (or Anupam Kher) played the hero's or heroine's over-the-top father, both protagonists lived in garrish filmy mansions, there was a token sachcha mussalman and a madcap Parsi character on the periphery, and the couple fell in love under the most bizarre circumstances and often didn't know the first thing about each other even as they pledged undying devotion. 

In this case, Priya (Kareena Kapoor) falls for the rich spoilt brat Immy (Shahid Kapoor) while on a trip to Bangkok. Only she doesn't know he's the antithesis of everything she wants in a man. A tarot card reader (Kirron Kher, who else?) has told her she'll meet her man on a beach in a foreign land; he has miraculously found his way to her hostel room, stolen her diary and fallen in love with her. When she finds out he's conned her into loving him, she walks out. As a cruel joke, she decides to test the power of destiny and devices a ridiculous and convoluted plan to do so. 

In the second half, he's engaged to another girl (Aarti Chhabria), she to another man (a poor man's Puru Raajkumar). We all know what's going to happen in the end, but still the narrative must go through its obligatory twists and many leaps of faith. If you started analysing the film's logic, you'd end up with a tome. 

Given that its such a jaded concoction, one wonders why the producers even bothered to drag it out of the cans and poured some more money to promote it.