REVIEW: Mere Baap Pehle Aap

Cast: Akshaye Khanna, Paresh Rawal, Om Puri, Genelia D'souza

Director: Priyadarshan

I've always known that my threshold of pain is fairly high. But sitting there in the cinema this week watching Priyadarshan's new film Mere Baap Pehle Aap, I felt like I was being tested. Pushed to the wall, really. To see just how much I could take before I finally snapped. Let's just say another ten minutes of that drivel and I'd have probably stood up on my seat and hollered.

Like most of Priyadarshan's recent films, this one too is a loud, crude comedy in which characters don't 'talk' to each other, they yell out their lines to each other. Like most of his recent films, this one too is a remake of a successful Malayalam film — a film called Ishtam which I must confess I haven't seen. I don't know if this was true of the original film, but Mere Baap Pehle Aap has an absolutely idiotic premise, and it's a film whose screenplay has been stretched way beyond one's tolerance level.

I could sit here and recount the plot of this film, but that would mean having to jog my memory back to the travesty that I had to endure. So let me just sum it up for you in short — when Akshaye Khanna learns his father (Paresh Rawal) is still holding a torch for an old sweetheart, he sets out to hook his dad up with his former flame, even though everyone else thinks it's ridiculous that the old man should be contemplating marriage at this age. It doesn't help that Paresh Rawal's best friend Om Puri is an oversexed fogie who's got his eye on his best mate's girl.

Juvenile to the point of being plain stupid, the script of Mere Baap Pehle Aap is what I'd hand out as an exercise to students in a script-doctoring workshop. I understand it's probably unfair to expect logic and common sense from a mindless comedy, but is it really too much to expect even a coherent and cohesive screenplay? Why must we endure up to an hour of ridiculous distractions before the actual premise of the film kicks in? Why waste so much time on all those foolish pranks that Genelia D'souza plays on Akshaye? It's got nothing to do with the film's central plot so why bore us to death with all that unnecessary back-and-forth?

And somebody please explain what such talented actors are doing in this ridiculous film? Paresh Rawal and Om Puri ought to be embarrassed — one only hopes they were paid handsomely for participating in this film because I can't think of any other reason why they'd actually wake up every morning and go to work on such a film.

Akshaye Khanna is just wasted, it's impossible to believe this is the same actor who's delivered such heart-felt performances as Border, Dil Chahta Hai and even Gandhi My Father — why would he put himself through this? But the one my heart really went out to was Shobhana, the lovely and graceful Shobana who looked like she'd been threatened at gunpoint to work in this movie.

It's such a shame. Not only does Priyadarshan deliver one more big fat disappointment, he also makes good actors look like complete idiots for agreeing to be a part of such a pointless film.

If the terrible acting and the third-class jokes don't kill you, be warned the never-ending length of this film certainly will. I'm going to go with zero out of five for Priyadarshan's Mere Baap Pehle Aap, it's easily one of the worst films you're likely to see this year. And remember we're only in June.