Namastey London

Went in for this movie on a whim, as I had always thought Vipul Shah to be a director who could at the very least try to pump sense into overdramatized stories.

Summary
As the tagline states, it's a Funjabi (eeks) boy meets a British brat story. So far so humdrum. Jasmeet Kaur (Jazz for her friends and Katrina for us) is a girl born to expatriates who considers herself more British than Indian. Her father Manmohan (Rishi Kapoor in an endearing but underdeveloped role) is worried for his daughter because of her late night parties and a thrice-divorced British boyfriend. Determined to get her hitched to an Indian guy, he takes her on a Bharat-darshan trip.
After interviewing a few prospective grooms, they end up at his village, and Rishi Kapoor coerces Katrina to marry his friend's son Arjun (Akshay Kumar with a weird hair color which does not suit him at all). Katrina plays along, and puts in a condition that they would go to London for their honeymoon. Once in London, she refuses to accept the marriage, and starts planning to get married to Charlie Brown (Clyde Stenden; Indian cinema seems to have grown over it's Archie fixation to get to Peanuts :) ).
Duped, Akshay decides to woo her back, but without the usual herogiri (in his words). Unfortunately for us, this also results in a wooing without any fun. Though the writer tries to put in plot elements of a rugby match and a patriotic plug, both seem forced in, and executed in a childish manner.
Throw in a Pakistani family which faces similar problems with their son (Pakistani star Jawed Shaikh and Upen Patel) to complete the mess.

Actors
Akshay Kumar sports colored hair and ends up looking freaky with dark eyelashes and light hair. He does a credible job most of the time but goes overboard with the overbearing Jat act. Katrina looks good, but misses looking great due to patchy make-up and her acting talent is best left uncommented on.
Rishi Kapoor does his job well, and so does Nina Wadia as Katrina's mother. Her singular outburst when Rishi blames her for his daughter's upbringing is the only sensible dialog in the entire movie.
Upen Patel poses all the time, with a chip-on-his-shoulder smirk. Jawed Shaikh as his father is good, but seems misplaced in this movie.
Clyde Stenden's character is half-baked and gets no scope for redemption at all.

Technique
The much touted cinematographer of Troy didn't materialize for Vipul Shah and he ended up using Jonathan Bloom. The cinematography is plain ordinary, and never once does it give the film an international feel.
The script by Suresh Nair is juvenile and never does one feel for any of the characters. Most of them are caricatures anyway.
Vipul Shah fails in making us emotionally connect with any of the characters of the story. The charades carried out in both Punjab and London are so clichéd that one longs for a sensible shot at the end. Even the climax has been done to death in a thousand movies.

Trivia

• The cinematography for this film was to be done by Peter Field (a camera operator for Troy), but he later dropped out and Jonathan Bloom was roped in. A foreign cinematographer was a must for Vipul Shah as he wanted an international feel to the movie. Not that it has helped much.
• Apart from him, the film’s costume designer is Alison Forbes whose last major film was Tomorrow Never Dies. The makeup artist is Kateling, who is the head make up artist at the BBC and the casting director is Claire Saunders whose last film was Woody Allen’s Match Point.
• Sean Connery's son Jason was also approached for a role in the movie, but it did not work out.
• This movie was a result of a one-line narration which Akshay Kumar gave to Vipul Shah. He liked it and asked the script writer Suresh Nair to work off it.
• This is Vipul Shah's first movie not based on a play. His earlier movie Aankhen was based on his Gujarati play Aandhalo Paato (Blind man's bluff) and Waqt was taken from Wahla Phari Malisu (Dear, we’ll meet again)
• Vipul Shah goes the Alfred Hitchcock way in this movie and makes a cameo. He is the guy who meets Ritiesh Deshmukh on the street.
• The scriptwriter for this movie; Suresh Nair used to write a column for Bombay Times earlier. He debuted with writing dialogues for Jhankaar Beats for his friend Sujoy Ghosh, and has done a few movies for Ram Gopal Verma.
• Before starting with this movie; Vipul Shah went over to Manoj Kumar to show him the script. This was necessary as the concept is similar to Manoj Kumar's Purab aur Paschim. Manoj Kumar thought the script to be very similar, but gave the go ahead, saying he would not sue the makers.
• This is Katrina's first Hindi film where she has dubbed for herself. As her character is shown to be born and brought up in the UK, it made sense for her to speak in her natural accent.
• There was a controversy created when Katrina had entered the Ajmer Dargah wearing a skirt. People had objected later saying that the skirt was too short. Vipul Shah decided to delete that scene from the movie to keep away from controversies.

Opinion
Females seem to love the movie, so if you are a female, or are planning to take your girlfriend/wife on a movie date, this is the movie for you. Otherwise, strictly avoid.