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 The movie begins at Bardoli village, Gujarat where a wealthy old man
decides to write his assets in the name of his grandson Yogesh Patel
(Harman Baweja), the only person in the family to remember his maternal
grandfather on all occasions (read birthdays). Yogesh is doing his MBA
at Chicago with a rocking life style of a sincere student in the day
time, popular guy in the campus and a DJ at a night club.
But things
are not rosy at home in Mumbai where his elder brother has taken a huge
amount of loan and lost it in stock market crash and is not able to pay
back to several people including a local bhai. He is supposed to give
attendance everyday at Bhai’s office and he is being constantly
threatened by two chelas of the dreaded bhai who has a style of
threatening defaulters – he would cut the fingers by using a betel nut
cutter.
A family astrologer predicts that within a very short time Yogesh
would get married and he would get a fortune on the very same day.
Yogesh makes an urgent visit home after learning of sudden ill health
of his dad, which turns out to be a false news and he is further taken
aback by the ridiculous request made by his family members - he has to
marry a girl in 10 days in order to save his family from an eventual
complication and disgrace. After a long phase of jet lag and persuasion
and emotional blackmail by family members he agrees to marry and being
a principled man he refuses to accept dowry. He starts reading a book
which he happens to find at home and what’s that book all about? No
prizes for guessing – “What’s your Rashee?” and then starts the poor
translation of Linda Goodman’s sun signs book into a loose movie plot.
As if it is not enough, there are two additional silly and forgettable
sub plots.
The girls start entering in a random zodiac fashion and each zodiac
has a story to tell. Ashutosh Gowariker struggles to stitch a
convincing story relevance-wise as well as astrology-wise. Some zodiac
signs lack convincing characterization and a few overlap. Only a few
succeed in making an impact due to the versatile Priyanka Chopra who
delivers every character with sheer conviction and brilliant
performance.
Anjali (Mesh) with a slouch and a bad dressing sense, Vishakha
(Vrishabh) with a childish behavior who wants to test the person,
Kaajal (Mithun) a vivacious and bubbly girl who thinks it is a must to
give some time to understand each other before marrying, Hansa (Karka)
a traditional girl with a broken heart, Mallika (Simha) an ambitious
and headstrong dancer, Pooja (Kanya) a doctor who wishes for a husband
to support her in every venture of hers, Rajani (Tula) a dominating
business person for whom the marriage is a business contract to save
her from an ongoing CBI enquiry, Nandini (Vrishik) who has a
conservative exterior with a diametrically opposite true nature and who
is passionate about becoming a supermodel, Bhavna (Dhanu) an astrologer
with seductive charms, Jankada (Makar) a school going underage girl,
Sanjana (Kumbh) a sophisticated and a straightforward girl and lastly
Chandrika (Meen) a filmy kinda person who believes in re-incarnation
and second lives….huh
While adapting the extremes of every character to the demands of
screen, the story loses it’s plot (if at all it had any) in a big way
only to be saved mercifully by the brilliant Priyanka Chopra.
Music has always been a strong point of Gowariker’s films here it’s
a downer. Every zodiac breaks into a compulsory song with only very few
being catchy. The story becomes so predictable in the second half that
you wait for the movie to get over and start counting how many signs
are still left and with no interest left to see which sign the
protagonist ultimately marries.
From whatever little you showed us (for a fraction of a second) on
the screen Mr. Gowariker, I could gather that Yogesh Patel is Mithun
moon sign and Scorpio sun sign. But his birth details do not match with
the chart generated towards the end of the movie. But you were so busy
adapting extremes of Priyanka Chopra’s 12 zodiac signs, you completely
neglected the characterization of the main lead. He is just a foreign
returned student with some music knowledge and giving all similar
responses, exclamations and surprise reactions to the extreme
idiosyncrasies convincingly exhibited by Priyanka Chopra’s characters.
Harman Baweja doesn’t impress overall. However, the rest other cast
members have put up a good show.
The film would have been a little more bearable had it been under
three hours but a running time of 3 hours and 30 minutes appears far
too much. If you may ask whether to check it out or not well there are
only two reasons to watch this astrological blunder made by Ashutosh
Gowariker – Priyanka Chopra and Priyanka Chopra.
Rating: 2 out of 5*
Starring: Harman Baweja and Priyanka Chopra
Director: Ashutosh Gowariker
Sampurn Media
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