Click to play videoCast: Ranvir Shorey, Mallika Sherawat
Director: Sachin Khot
It's not enough that we've been stealing every halfway decent action movie plot they come up with, now Bollywood's whacking even romantic comedies from Korea.
Ugly Aur Pagli, this week's new release, is a pretty straightforward lift of the South Korean film My Sassy Girl, which was produced and released eastside seven years ago. I must confess here, I haven't actually seen the original film and chances are you wouldn't have either.
You're probably wondering then, how I'm so sure Ugly Aur Pagli is copied from that film. Well, here's what to do. Get on to the Internet, log on to the search engine wikipedia.com, and punch in the title My Sassy Girl.
Just read the detailed plot breakdown of the Korean film that comes up and you'll understand exactly why I'm so shocked someone was shameless enough to take story and screenplay credit for this desi remake.
Ugly Aur Pagli stars Ranvir Shorey as Kabir, a loveless engineering student whose life changes when he rescues an intoxicated girl at a railway station one night. That seemingly helpless girl Kuhu (played by Mallika Sherawat) turns out to be dominating, opinionated and even sadistic to a point.
Over the next few weeks, she more or less takes over Kabir's life, slapping him around at will, ordering him out on dates, deciding what he can and can't order when he's with her, and demanding that he do all sorts of odd things to please her.
Convinced she's got a pain inside that's manifesting itself in all these strange ways, Kabir decides to go along with Kuhu's mad demands in the hope of pleasing her and curing her of her pain. But it can't be easy for a guy, can it? Wearing her stilettos and walking down Marine Drive; riding around in a petticoat on a bicycle without a seat; and visiting film producers' offices with her ridiculous screenplays.
Ugly Aur Pagli is not your typical romantic comedy in the sense that there's a simmering sadness to the film that is both rare and unique.
It's difficult to understand and empathise with Kuhu's sadistic streak because the filmmaker fails to explore her personality well enough to explain this side. Doesn't help of course that Mallika Sherawat isn't the least bit convincing when she's doing drama.
Watch her in those emotional scenes and you cringe, because the fakeness in her performance is hard to shake off. She's fantastic at comedy though, and keeps you hooked through the film's lighter moments, aided of course by the tremendously gifted Ranvir Shorey who is unquestionably the star of this film.
It takes an extremely intelligent actor to play dumb so well, and Ranvir does it almost effortlessly.
In the end, Ugly Aur Pagli doesn't quite work because it's corny and contrived and it tries too hard. For a romantic comedy to work, you have to like the couple enough to want them to end up together, but honestly there's little to like about either Kabir or Kuhu. He's a doormat and she's an overbearing kid. Apart from a few decent jokes, it's unlikely you're going to enjoy this film much.
I'm going with two out of five for director Sachin Khot's Ugly Aur Pagli, shame on him and his writers for ripping off a film from start to finish and yet failing to come up with something half-way entertaining.
My advice: head to the nearest bar, down a few shots of tequila like Kuhu does in the film, and then go watch this film. Perhaps you'll enjoy it while you're talli (intoxicated) yourself.
Rating: 2 / 5 (Average)
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