The poor village belle becoming a prostitute in the bad city to support her family is an oft-repeated, predictable tale. It could have worked yet again with the right emotional hooks. But every turn of the plot in Laaga is so implausible that you can never feel for the character. Why does Vibha (Rani who has to cry, smile and look forlorn by turn) have to turn prostitute after just one night out with a sleazeball? If this uneducated girl can airbrush herself to sophistication and learn English, she may as well have become a model or even worked in a call centre. Why this hooker-forever fate? And why can’t she stop serving clients even after she buys a sea-facing flat—unless she has started enjoying it? Clearly, Laga is made by a set of blokes who themselves don’t believe in the regressive nonsense but are doing it for manufacturing a Sooraj Barjatya hit. Little do they realise that you need the Barjatya sensibility to pull it off. Or you need to work it out in a semi-realistic Chandni Bar format. With Bunty Aur Babli, Yashraj had stuck a chord with small town India. I doubt if they would be able to repeat it with Lagaa.
