What happens when Meet The Parents meets Father Of The Bride tossed with songs and action?
You get Anubhav Sinha's completely unoriginal Aapko Pehle Bhi Kahin Dekha Hai. Om Puri does a Robert De Niro, as he plays dad to Paakhi (Saakshi Sivanand) who wants to marry Samar (Priyanshu Chatterjee). Priyanshu is sincere, but with his droopy eyes and beatific look, he leaves all the comedy to the senior actor.
In Father Of The Bride Steve Martin relives his daughter's wedding in narrative flashback. Om Puri does the same in Aapko Pehle. Martin Short's hilarious performance as the French wedding planner is replaced by an irritating Navneet Nishan, who jars in her five-minute role.
Priyanshu comes to Canada in search of a criminal. It leads him to Paakhi, who in turn leads him to her over-protective father.
Om Puri rocks. He refrains from overdoing the dramatics; he has great comic timing. What goes against him is the lack of chemistry between him and Priyanshu, so essential for this movie.
The film will do little or nothing for Saakshi. She is not required to do much except look good or exclaim the occasional, Papa'! Even Farida Jalal, as the universal jiji, has more dialogues and screen time than the heroine.
Director Sinha, after a surprise debut in Tum Bin, disappoints. Aapko Pehle might have worked if he had paid more attention to the casting and the screenplay/dialogues. What is a comedy without punch, after all?
All the characters, except Om Puri, are half-baked. The film has been shot entirely in Canada, and it must be said that the foreign actors are absolutely atrocious.
Nikhil-Vinay's music is poor, except for Jagjit Singh and Asha Bhosle's exceptional ghazal Aisi aakhen nahin dekhi.
The Hindi film industry has to wait yet another Friday for that elusive hit this year.