Aap Kaa Surroor: The Moviee: The Real Luv Story

Yess. I actually watched itt.

Sometimes you go in expecting the worrst. Through loong, bittter experience, I've learnt that thiss might be a good strategy to adopt.

Howeverr, instead of being an atrocious, abominable mess of a moviee, Aap Kaa Surroor: The Moviee: The Real Luv Story turns out to be merely forgettablle. Praise the Lord!

I could continue with the awful spelling, but I'm sure you get the point. So I'm gonna spell like a decent, civilized human being from now on.

I'm assuming the odd repeated letter in the title has to do with some numerological advice. Basically, some guy told him that the movie had a better stab at commercial success if the spelling was worse than the film. I think he did follow the advice: the spelling is indeed much worse. But I don't think it has helped, judging by the number of people I saw in the movie hall. Most of them, I suppose, came there for the reason as I did: for a laugh. Sadly enough, we didn't get much of that either. Like I said, the movie is just plain insipid.

The plot involves Himesh "HR" Reshammiya, a rock star, being arrested for a murder of a journalist while on tour in Germany. Half the movie is flashback, mainly dealing with his romance with Riaa (as spelt in the credits). The rest is about how he proves his innocence.

As murder mysteries go, this one has about as much complexity as a story told in a music video. Which, I suppose might be because the makers wanted to keep the focus solely on Himesh. Everyone else - the heroine, the vamp (Mallika Sherawat in yet another jaw-droppingly awful performance) - is just garnish. There's a guy who plays a friend of Himesh and has one good line early on. After that, he too has little to do.

Our hero obliges with a predictably bad performance. His dialogue delivery is at about the same level as his singing, which is saying plenty. The worst acting comes right at the end: an ill-advised cover of Mehbooba, with Himesh giving Mallika Sherawat what is presumably his most lustful stare. Given the lady's performance, the term "good riddance to bad rubbish" springs to mind.

The singing of course is typical Himesh. Either you like it or you hate it. I hate it. Someday in the future, the Museum of Modern (and Incomprehensibly Popular) Art will put Himesh's nose on display. Along with Kumar Sanu's. And Altaf Raja's. And... God in heaven! What have we let our music come to?

I must admit, however, that the theme tune is quite decent. The background score in the scene where he tries to break into a guy's safe shows a touch of innovation. The movie is well shot too: nowadays a standard feature in the Hindi cinema.

On the whole, this isn't the worst moviee (sorry, couldn't resist) you'll ever see. But don't let that stop you from giving it a wide berth. Sometimes, in order to make something look good, you put it next to something that is even worse. After this movie, people are likely to ask him to stick to singing. Which might have been the object of the exercise.