Dulha Mil Gaya – Movie Review

Thanks goodness, I’m back in the future again. Before I check my pulse and BP, I check the calendar. Well, it’s the tenth year of the second millennium! But why on earth do I feel like I was packed off in a cruise liner and shipped back in time to the early 1990s when Bollywood was awash with cheesy, camp but triumphant romantic dramas, courtesy Johar and Chopras, that raved about rishtey and sanskaar, and where the Indian woman was idolized as a savitri who would follow her pati parmeshwar to the edge of the world (the Caribbean is just a stone’s throw away)? Answer: Dulha Mil Gaya.

An overweight Fardeen Khan plays Tej Dhanraj aka Donsai. An irrevocable flirt, he has to leave his water skiing and bikini babes back in the Caribbean and fly to Punjab to marry a village girl to be able to inherit the wealth of his deceased billionaire father. You see, Donsai’s old man had the good sense of putting a clause in his will that would exclude the young brat from the whopping wealth if he fails to marry his friend’s daughter Samarpreet (Ishita Sharma) back in a Punjab village.

But Donsai’s a fox. He marries Samarpreet and, in no time, doubles back to his philandering ways in Trinidad and Tobago, never to return back to sarson ke khet. Samarpreet, however, ain’t a sheep either. She packs her bags and leaves to find her prodigal hubby in the Caribbean. Find him she does, canoodling with semi-clad babes.

Shimmer (an over the top Sushmita Sen), a model with an attitude, fake accent and commitment phobia to boot, takes Samarpreet under her wing and transforms her into Samara, a svelte, sassy, saucy girl who sends her own hubby leering like a poodle. Now, before we could mumble ‘Shimmer Ne Bana Di Jodi’ we’re introduced to – who else – Shahrukh Khan playing a hotshot tycoon named Pavan Raj Gandhi, who woos Shimmer but is always second on her priority list after her career.

Even as Shimmer guides Samara in wooing her hubby, she gets gyan on Indian sanskaar by the latter, not the least being the one about Karva Chauth. But the dialogue that takes the cake is when Samarpreet wisecracks to a career-minded Shimmer: “Hindustani ladkiyan rishte nibhati hain. Aur 100 crore ghar chalane se better kya career hai!”

Cringe you doubtlessly would on the edge of your seat as many such dialogues and scenes are played out and many oddball characters – including a serious Johnny Lever – zip through ‘Dulha Mil Gaya’ without much reason.

With the exception of Ishita Sharma, there’s hardly a performance to praise about. The gal shows a lot of potential and holds her place in the same frame as the seasoned stars like Sushmita and Fardeen, both of who seem to be in some kind of competition to see who hams more. Shahrukh Khan plays himself. A charming charismatic personality, he, in a scene, even jumps into the sea to save…err…not his ladylove Shimmer, but her poodle.

If the songs (Lalit Pandit) are mediocre, the background score is horrible. Every time Shimmer comes on screen, the background music goes ‘Shimmer! Shimmer!’ Director Mudassar Aziz, though a young man, seems to be stuck in the outdated cinema of the 90s where comedy was deliberately dumb (not that it’s witty now) and where emotions were hyperbolized.

If you have a taste for such regressive cinema, do give DMG a shot. If not, the movie is a true-blue, 24-carat, super-potent mind-rattling stuff. Enter at your own risk.

Rating: 2/10