This week’s big release Baar Baar Dekho is nothing short of a new product launch, displaying the technology of the future. Siddharth Malhotra time travels from the present day to 2036 to 2047 – and what catches our attention are the sleek phones, smart cars and virtual reality.
Not just this, but Malhotra is sporting enough to flaunt some wrinkles, disheveled hair and an unkempt beard. Katrina stops smiling as she ages and her character is given a firang mother so we don’t question her accent wali Hindi. Logic, you see!
But the fact is that no matter which year we jump to in the foreseeable future, the components that make for a good film are unlikely to change. Great set design cannot compensate for a shoddy screenplay and no amount of rehashed super-hit songs can camouflage bad editing.
In an ideal time zone Baar Baar Dekho should have been 20 minutes shorter!
So in its present avatar, it is a mild cocktail of prettiness and feel-good emotions. Sidharth Malhotra plays the hottest ever Mathematics Professor researching on Vedic Math – an interesting concept that is not once explored.
We just know him as being an ungrateful jerk who is in a maniacal hurry to live his dreams. His love interest is a pretty painter played by Katrina Kaif. He is further surrounded by prettiness in the form of his mother Sarika, and friend Sayani Gupta. Each time Jai wakes up from his slumber, he has time travelled into the future and quizzically looks around to understand where he is.
It is a feeling that the viewers share with him!
Confusion is our constant companion as we try and decode the curious case of the time-travelling hero and the film’s convoluted message of living each moment to its fullest. The concept might be interesting, but director Nitya Mehra takes the longest route possible to reach the point!
The last 10 minutes of the film along with the Kaala Chashma song is what, to some extent, redeems an otherwise bland affair. Baar Baar Dekho can be tolerated, but only once – and that too keeping the high expectations in check.
I give it a very generous 3 QUINTS out of 5.
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