Mubarakan: More chitchat, less LOLs

MUBARAKAN Direction: Anees Bazmee Actors: Anil Kapoor, Arjun Kapoor, Ileana D’Cruz, Athiya Shetty Rating:

Ithink Anees Bazmee’s Welcome is one of the most underrated comedies of recent times.

That tale of an eligible bachelor in love with a gangster’s sister was followed by Bazmee’s Singh Is Kinng, No Problem, Thank You, Ready, and Welcome Back, all sitcoms centered on marriage.

Mubarakan has the marriage theme too, with a double-role angle. Separated in childhood, twins Karan and Charan (Arjun Kapoor) have been promised by their guardians to ‘suitable’ girls, but they already love Sweety (Ileana D’Cruz) and Nafisa (Neha Sharma) respectively.

Things get complicated when Charan somehow finds himself engaged to another girl, Binkal (Athiya Shetty), while in London. As the family is self-combusting over this development, the boy’s uncle, Kartar Singh (Anil Kapoor), arrives to add more confusion to the mix.

Mubarakan is a typical Bazmee film, with its loud background score, slo-mo hero shots, peppy dances tunes and docile lead men. It is also typical in that there is little logic to some of the proceedings. The setting shifts back and forth between Chandigarh and London, without warning; people keep bursting into song. (These are, admittedly, welcome breaks in a film that runs over 156 minutes.)

Expect to laugh, occasionally; don’t expect to leave the theatre smiling.