Starring Rajkummar Rao, Kriti Sanon, Paresh Rawal, Aparshakti Khurrana, and Ratna Pathak Shah, Hum Do Hamare Do looked promising before the release, considering it comes from Maddock Films, a production house with an enviable line-up of films. But the film, directed by Abhishek Jain, fails to deliver. Read our review of Hum Do Hamare Do below to know why.
Kriti Sanon plays Anya, a social media influencer “obsessed with family” and Rajkummar Rao plays Dhruv, an up and coming tech entrepreneur who worked at a dhaba as a child and did not have a family growing up. The two meet at the launch event of his virtual reality app. Predictably, the first meeting is hostile and, later, sparks fly. Because they’re based in Chandigarh, the film had to have the dramatic entrance to a gurudwara and the boy staring at the girl while she prays, realising that she’s “the one”. It’s like Bollywood has no other means of showing the Punjabi-ness of characters.
Shunty (Aparshakti Khurrana) brings the comedic flavour to the film as Dhruv’s best friend and wingman. Of course, the stereotypical loudness of Punjabis has to be his defining trait. The only saving grace here is that typical Punjabi characters are now being styled like Diljit Dosanjh. The characters of Purushottam (Paresh Rawal) and Dr Sanjeev Mehra (Manu Rishi) had immense comic potential but they are let down by bad writing.
The first 30 minutes are fairly unremarkable, but the actual story begins when Anya’s insistence on marrying a boy with a “sweet family” makes Dhruv create a fake family. While Dhruv tries to project the perfect family for Anya, Purushottam tries to deal with his undying love for Deepti (Ratna Pathak Shah).
Kriti Sanon’s Anya is a bit too perfect, including saying lines like, “Main bahu nahi, beti hoon aapki“. She’s bright and perky but that’s her only defining trait. This is mostly unrelatable for urban Indian women at a time when we see multi-layered characters in Bollywood films now.
The story is difficult to take seriously in its trajectory. It would’ve worked well in the 90s, and it did. You will be reminded of Govinda’s slapstick comedy films from that era when you watch Hum Do Hamare Do. There was potential here to take this “family” drama in a whole new direction but it falls flat.
In its execution, Hum Do Hamare Do drags in places. Don’t expect groundbreaking performances or big twists and turns in the story. All we can say here is that the trailer was well-made and raised our hopes for a much better film than what was finally delivered.
If you’d like to watch Hum Do Hamare Do, stream it on Disney+ Hotstar VIP.
Related: 11 Of ‘Outsider’ Rajkummar Rao’s Most Iconic Roles
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