The last film based on a kidnap drama had Sunil Shetty and Akshay Kumar going nuts trying to perform a credible piece of comedy. This extension of Hera Pheri has an added hero and loads of typical Ram Gopal Verma attitude—sly heroes, bindaas heroines, comic villains and an ending which says cheers to cunningness. It also has a packed structure with slick technical shifts. The only problem: too much justification of intent, purpose and design. Also, a basic lack of innovative screenplay and gags coupled with the absence of a narrative capable of riveting you to your seat.
Love ke Liye... suffers uncannily from the malady that afflicted Shool, E. Niwas' debut film which derailed Manoj Bajpai's chances of making it as a star. Shool lacked the charge that comes naturally with a revenge drama, Love Ke Liye... is devoid of that breezy feeling that makes or breaks Indian comic entertainers. Here you've got to have either strong character-sketches in the Padosan-Hera Pheri mould or situational run-offs in the Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi-Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron style. The director's handling of Johnny Lever scenes speaks volumes of a thanda approach: the star comedian is made to wait for cues and timings in crucial scenes. He has nothing much to say, or do (except copy an Ajay Devgan movement fromHDDCS in a few brilliant seconds) when he stands outside Aishwarya Rai's 'house' waiting to be cast opposite her. The result: a strangely listless cameo of a small-time bhai wanting to be an actor.
But why was Johnny Lever needed in a film where all the heroes were supposed to have some comic element or the other? The story itself involves a wife's staged kidnap by her own husband (Saif Ali Khan) and the consequent confusion. Aftab Shivdasani and Fardeen Khan, two guys who help the husband, are unemployed aspirants posing as big-time crooks for love and money. The three heroes share the limelight between them in equal measure without ever actually getting to let their hair down. In other movies, you complain of too much happening in too short a time; here you end up demanding why things never touched the raucous high they were supposed to. Both Twinkle Khanna and Sonali Bendre, who had the potential of coming up with funny cameos of their own, are wasted in the bargain.
The music is a major irritant and not because Vishal Bharadwaj's tunes are overtly bad. There are just no proper sequences for their use. A script written in the comic genre allows little room for songs. But whereas this aspect is used deftly by David Dhawan and Co to add a genuinely fantasy-driven element to humour, here a 'realist' hangover prevents the full use of this probability. The Ram Gopal School, it seems, has missed once again the art of making good comedy.
