Review: 'Love Recipe' is unsavoury and unfit for consumption

Film: Love Recipe
Cast: Suhail Karim, Rani Agrawal, Vrajesh Hirjee, Manoj Joshi, Sanjay Narvekar, Avantika Kamat  and others
Director: Amol Shetge
Rating: *

 

A supposedly fun filled comedy caper (at least that’s what the printout that was handed to me said), Love Recipe is one film that, under different circumstances, could have worked. The fact that it’s a mindless comedy is not its undoing. Bollywood churns out equally mindless non-funny comedies all the time which go on to earn big bucks at the box office every year. But Love Recipe has no big names to boast of and a very limited budget, so it all comes down to this: Take a spoonful of newbies who have absolutely no idea what they are doing, mix it with cliché dialogues, add a pinch of seriously bad performances and you get a film that is unwatchable.

 

It is the story of Rahul (Suhail Karim), a DJ by profession, and Tia (Rani Agrawal), daughter of a former IG who is obsessed with Hindustaniyat. Rahul must impress the father of his potential bride and get into his good books and obviously walking up and facing him like a man is never an option. So a plan must be hatched, a different identity must be donned and the father must be “tricked” into liking him.

 

This is not it though, there is a whole other angle involved with terrorists who want to blow up a peace meet that is about to happen in Mumbai. Now these terrorists too have quirky characters. One of them, Music Ali, is obsessed with old Hindi music (and how that is relevant to anything in the film is beyond me) while the other one is an internationally known and wanted terrorist who,  it seems, is a bit of an idiot. This extremely dangerous terrorist works for Music Ali and can’t fire a shot properly. Ooh… dangerous.

 

Wait, there is more. Along with all the above mentioned, there is another love recipebrewing between Govind (Sanjay Narvekar) and Shilpa (Avantika Kamat), two police officers out to arrest the terrorist. Shilpa loves our very own legendary Rajnikanth and Govind loves Shilpa, so now it is his life mission to act and be like Rajnikanth.  

 

This and that and these three stories get mixed up landing everyone in trouble. Classic. If you think about it the basic outline is just fine, comedies like these, by nature, are a little ridiculous. It’s everything else that ruins it.

 

The director, Amol Shetge, was obviously aiming for a wholesome family film that has romance, drama, action, emotion, dance, music and everything that Bollywood is known for, but the film fails on every level.

 

Let’s start with the lead couple. They do not do anything for the film unless over-acting counts. The rest of the cast does better, but I’m speaking relatively so it’s not much to go on about. Vrajesh Hirjee as Pappu bhaiya is the only one who is any good but his character is so typical and so overdone that it becomes irritating.

 

The song and dance sequences make you want to cry. There’s the pseudo item number where the item girl is just a part of the crowd and not given any importance and then there are the other romantic numbers that make you want to stomp your feet and yell “no… make it stop”.

 

The only sequence in the film even remotely amusing is where Govind, while day dreaming, is beating up Carlos the terrorist Rajnikanth style, but I’m guessing the points for that one go to Rajnikanth.

 

The final product of Love Recipe is unsavoury and unfit for consumption.