Ishq Vishk

Saw this movie day before yesterday.
Nice movie, though a little crass in some places.
Debutant director Ken Ghosh seems to have a big hangover from his music video days.
The college sets seem out of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. Not that I am complaining.
Just waiting for the day when I would actually get to see a realistic college in a movie. Either the college sets are too drab, or too good to be true. Then there are movies where we dont get to see anything of the college besides their gardens and steps.
Well, coming back to Ishq Vishk... The movie has a gloss finish to it, with all the protagonists living in designer homes, straight out of an Interior Design mag, with a huge dose of Neon.
Everyone leads comfy lives, and the only tensions they have in life are about matters related to the heart. Not that I am complaining about that either. If I need to see real life, I dont need to go to the movies.
Cutting to the chase...

Synopsis:
This is the story of Rajiv Mathur/Archie (Shahid Kapur), Payal/Betty (Amrita Rao) and Alisha/Veronica (Shenaz Treasurywala).
A normal Archie, Betty and Veronica triangle, Archie realises the value of true love when he loses it.
Archie and Betty have been friends since childhood, and Betty has always been in love with Archie. Betty is a plain Jane, and is never Archie's 'type' of girl according to him. He always yearns for a girl who would make the others boys in college consider him a stud.
An incident in their life changes their relationship, when Archie tries to get Betty out with him for a group night out, when he wants to lose his virginity. He woos her, and fakes his feelings of love for her. When she gets to know his true feelings, she gets repulsed by him.
Archie later acts like a total ass when she tries to reconcile with him with the total support of the group.
He feels snubbed, and challenges the group that he will get the best girl of the college to be his girlfriend.
Enter Veronica; the undisputed heartthrob of the college as soon as she joins it. Not just Archie, but all the studs in the college can't keep their eyes off her.
Archie seeks the help of a college pseudo stud (Yash Tonk in a great role) to win the attention of Veronica. He succeeds in his ploy, but realises that he loves Betty after he sees his bosom buddy(Vishal Malhotra) with her.

Analysis:
The movie is realistic in the sense that it does not go into overly dramatic situations to explain Archie's change of heart. One can plainly identify a situation where a guy falls in love with an ex-object of his affections after seeing her with another person.
Not enough reason is given for him not liking Veronica. Sundry matter like her wearing short clothes is shown for an excuse.
This movie reaffirms the normal mentality of men for having a sexy kitten Sharon Stone for a girl friend, and a naive and cute Meg Ryan for a wife/life partner.

Technique:
The subject has been handled in a very light manner, which suits the target audience of the film, which is the college going crowd. The film has a very glossy feel to it. The cinematography by Amit Roy is a let down inspite of the awe-inspiring locales. Music by Anu Malik is pretty mundane except for the first few bars of every song. The pace of the film crawls at places due to the placing of the songs. The screenplay (Vinod Rangnath) is mostly racy, and situations are funny if not always credible. The dialogues (Kiran Kotrial) are great most of the time. Ahmed Khan's choreography is plainly a copy-paste job from most of his earlier ventures. Omung Kumar's sets deserve a special mention as they give a surrealistic candy-floss look for the movie. Ken Ghosh, the director/driver of this vehicle deftly handles the important scenes of the movie, without being overly melodramatic, though the situations offered ample scope for it.

Verdict:
A good movie. Seems like a breath of fresh air after seeing endless inane movies. Dont expect too much from it, and you will be pleasantly surprised.