De De Pyaar De – Movie Review

The new Bollywood rom-com, De De Pyaar De comes from the same camp of Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety and the Pyaar Ka Punchnama franchise, except this time, Akiv Ali is promoted to the directors’ role and with Luv Ranjan penning the story for the film. Starring Ajay Devgn, Rakul Preet Singh and Tabu in the lead roles, the narrative of this two-hour-thirty-minute romedy starts with Ashish (Ajay Devgn), a 50-year old start-up investor who stumbles across Aisha (Rakul Preet), a 26-year old engineering graduate at a private party in London. After exchanging texts and phone calls for a few days, the unusual couple begins to date until the standard age-gap problems start to lead off in the second half.

On the surface and judging by the trailers, the unorthodox romantic angle between a young full-of-life independent woman and a significantly older single man seems interesting and has the potential to tell a story which is not only different but also mature and powerful at the same time. However, throughout the time of the first half, the movie struggles with creative issues and loiters around with an average corny love story. Despite adding a little tweak to the narrative, the movie religiously follows all the directions written in the ‘Invisible Bollywood Rule Book of Love, Romance and Drama’ by making it very obvious and so paint-by-numbers. It advances with the same insipid structure, exploring the three main phases in a relationship (deep love, break-ups and reunions) and blends them terribly with the most-ordinary sounding songs that you hear in every Bollywood movie these days.

As the film stretches out to the second half, it transpires into a typical Luv Ranjan family drama and utilises all the clichés, the comedic bits and one-liners akin to SKTKS which didn’t work for the most part. Subsequently, the characters in the film also take a major hit as they’re barely developed and lacked the much-needed intrigue. As the narrative is so erratic, I found it tough to get behind these characters or anything that they were trying to accomplish in the entire runtime.

Moving on to the performances, the three main leads did the best they could with their underwhelming characters. Ajay Devgn portrayed the role splendidly and didn’t seem to rely on his tough-guy mannerisms too much. Rakul Preet Singh added the dulcet glamour to the film, and her performance is a welcome surprise. On the other hand, Tabu steals the show as always with her charm and magnetic screen presence, but, is again attenuated with a bland character.

Related: ‘Student of the Year 2’ Review

Overall, De De Pyaar De doesn’t offer anything new in terms of storyline and characterization as it lacks intrigue and imagination. It is partly entertaining and suitable for a casual watch when it is available to stream.

Rating – 2/5 | Grade – C

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