Dream Girl 2 movie review: Despite Ayushmann Khurrana’s sincere drag act, this film fails to make your heart go ‘ring-ring.’
Cast: Ayushmann Khurrana, Ananya Panday, Annu Kapoor, Vijay Raaz, Paresh Rawal, Seema Pahwa, Manjot Singh, Abhishek Banerjee, Rajpal Yadav, Manoj Joshi
Director: Raaj Shaandilyaa
Writers: Raaj Shaandilyaa, Naresh Kathooria
After a major revelation, a character in Dream Girl 2, dejectedly, tells the other two, “Mazaa nahin aa rahin.” Well, Ayushmann Khurrana’s latest release does make you utter similar words when the script runs out of juice.
What’s Yay: Ayushmann Khurrana, a few one liners
What’s Nay: Wafer-thin plot
Story
Karam (Ayushmann Khurrana), a jagrata singer wants to get hitched to his lawyer-girlfriend Pari (Ananya Panday). Enter Bollywood’s oldest villain, ladki ke papa who will approve of this union only if our middle-class hero gets a good job and manages to earn a bank balance of Rs 25 lakhs in six months.
Karam’s friend Smiley (Manjot Singh) comes up with a bizarre quick money-minting scheme where Karam slips into sarees and wigs and becomes ‘Pooja’, and gets hired as a ‘dance girl’ at the blingy Saajan aka Sona Bhai (Vijay Raaz)’s nightclub.
While Karam is still juggling between his dual life, his bestie Smiley falls for Sakina, a Muslim girl whose father Abu Salem (Paresh Rawal) will allow their love story to flourish only if his elder son Shah Rukh (Abhishek Banerjee) who is nursing a broken heart, returns back to normalcy. Left with no other choice and upon Smiley’s insistence, ‘Pooja’ is forced to pose as a psychiatrist in order to cure Shah Rukh’s depression. This sets out a chain of events which only adds more names in the list of ‘Pooja’s admirers.
To add more to the chaos, Shah Rukh’s aunt Jumani (Seema Pahwa) is smitten by Karam while Karam’s father Jagjit Singh (Annu Kapoor) loses his heart to Jumani. Will Karam’s love story get a happy ending?
Direction
If Dream Girl was about a man who poses as a lady and sweet-talks lonely men and women, its spiritual sequel Dream Girl 2 gives a face and body to that sultry voice. This time, director Raaj Shaandilyaa doesn’t venture much into the territory of social messaging. Instead, the spotlight is more on Pooja’s ‘curves’ and shenanigans.
A few funny gags land well especially when they are delivered by Ayushmann and the talented supporting cast. Unfortunately, the director expects his cast to do all the heavy-lifting in his make-believe world which rests on a poor script and that’s where Dream Girl 2 loses some of its colour.
Slowly, the jokes and the antics become tiresome. In between, there are nods to Shah Rukh Khan and a ‘Gadar’ reference. Raaj and his co-writer Naresh leave a couple of sub-plots untied. Finally, the hurried climax crushes all the fun just like how in one of the scenes, a stiletto crushes an orange which tumbles out of ‘Pooja’s blouse. To be honest, Dream Girl 2 comes across more like a skit than a film. Does it entertain you? Well, only to a certain extent!
Performances
Ayushmaan Khurrana indeed goes ‘jamnapaar‘ and pulls off an ‘Aunty No 1’ with conviction. Be it twitching of the eyebrows, the ‘latkas and jhatkas’ while shaking a leg, the swinging of the hips or the voice modulation, the actor gets every aspect of ‘Pooja’ pitch perfect. His comic timing is on point. The way he switches between Karam and Pooja is also effortless. One only wished that the film had its voice intact!
Ananya Panday gets to play ‘papa ki Pari’ here and her bimbo act barely adds any weightage to the film. We are told she is a lawyer, but Raaj & Co. choose to restrict her profession to the corridors of court where she catches up with her beau.
Dream Girl 2 has a bunch of deft names like Annu Kapoor, Asrani, Vijay Raaz, Paresh Rawal, Seema Pahwa, Abhishek Banerjee, Rajpal Yadav and Manoj Joshi in its star cast. It’s unfortunate that the flimsy writing robs them of a chance to go ‘toe-tally’ hilariously.
Technical Aspects
CK Muraleedharan and Jitan Harmeet Singh’s cinematography works fine with the tonality of the film. Hemal Kothari does a fair job on the editing table.
Music
Except for ‘Dil Ka Telephone 2.0’, Meet Bros and Tanishk Bagchi offer you a prosaic music album that barely makes you hit the ‘replay’ button.
Verdict
“Phone se bhi jyaada features upar waale ne mujhe mein di hain,” Pooja tells someone in the film. The same holds true for Ayushmann Khurrana too. Despite more misses than hits, Dream Girl 2 can be dialed-up at least once for his drag act and some shots of zany humour.
