Hum Do Hamare Do, Lost Opportunity, Missed  Quarrels

Hum Do Hamare Do(Disney-Hotstar)

Rating: * ½

Hum Do Hamare Do Movie Review: Not even the wonderful Ratna Pathak Shah and Paresh Rawal could rescue this dreary rom-com from sinking so low  into  the abyss  that it’s hard  to  find  one single moment of  joy from the  mirthless mess.

On  the  premise level it  sounds promising. Rajkummar Rao is Dhruv ,an orphan craving for a, awww,  family.  Ever-bubbly Kriti Sanon , the new-age Preity Zinta, craves  for a  Bunty with  a large  heart and  a larger family. So what does Dhruv do? He hires two long-in-love estranged  people  Purushottam(Rawal) and Deepti(Pathak)  to play  his parents.

In Hum Do Hamare Do There is  an unintentional tribute to  Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Golmaal here. In  that film Amol Palekar(who was to  middle-of-the-road cinema  in  the 1970s what Rajkummar Rao is  now to the  romcom   industry) had hired  Ratna Pathak Shah’s mother the great Dina Pathak to play his mom.

That, ladies and gentleman , is where all comparisons with  the  charming rom-comers of the  1970s ends. Hum Do Hamare Do is  a horribly  askew  homage to Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee(with a  spot of Shakti Samanta thrown in, more about that later).The actors do their  jobs well, and not just the four principal prerformers. Even Manu Rishi Chadha as  Sanon’s  father has his amusing moments.

But  the actors and the characters are woefully let down by the dialogues. No matter how intellectually  challenged  you may be, you wouldn’t be caught saying the things Hum Do Hamare Do show makes its characters say.

Sample this: At a wedding the  demented  wedding planner(Saanand  Verma)  says, “Mere ghar mein koi parag nahin hai issil liye maine paan se hi mehmaanon ka sawagt kiya.” Don’t even try to make sense  of what these people say to one another. There is  a whole big joke between  Paresh Rawal and Manu Rishi Chadha about a copper toothpick. And at one point Rajkummar  Rao who should have known better, actually mouths these three words, “Whiskey? Kisski? Risky!”

Towards the end when  our feisty heroine Anya(whom Paresh insists on calling Ananya all through, ha ha) is  all set to marry  the  wrong man,  Wrong Man tells her he plans to have no children,put his parents in an old folks’ home, and  wants to migrate to  Canada  .

Making him a serial killer would have been an easier cop-out. Subtlety is not one  of the  strong points  of  the plot. When  a big revelation is made at a wedding, a suddenly switched-on microphone comes in handy. Eavesdropping is passé, I  guess.

Why oh why have  all the talented actors in this bland broth of  soggy  jokes and  imbecilic pranks agreed  to be part of  this monstrous mirthless misfire? Is  it a kind of Covid compromise ? A hastily  assembled  rom-com meant to give  the  cast and crew work during the pandemic? How could a film featuring Paresh Rawal  and Ratna Pathak Shah playing   a fake couple  be so  fake?

Not even a passing glimpse of my all-time favourite Hindi film Shakti Samanta’s  Amar Prem  made me feel any kinder  towards Hum Do Hamare Do.