MUMBAI: Ishqzaade takes the age old formula of love stories of a boy and girl never seeing eye to eye, hailing from families of two sworn enemies and from different religious backgrounds.
As is the norm, such films are always interesting till the boy and girl profess mutual romance, becoming predictable thereafter. Ishqzaade manages the feat of sustaining interest a little longer than the rest.
Producer: Aditya Chopra.
Director: Habib Faisal.
Cast: Arjun Kapoor, Parineeti Chopra.
Arjun Kapoor and Parineeti Chopra grew up hating each other and hurling abuses and stones at each other. Kapoor is the uncouth, couldn't-care-less kind who hails from a Rajput family. His grandfather is contesting the assembly elections; his opponent and arch rival is Chopra's father, a Muslim politician and a sitting MLA.
Chopra is a firebrand girl who would even trade her earrings for a firearm when she can't win a fight verbally. The locale is a small town of Almore in UP where belonging to different communities is reason enough for tensions between two groups. Their being political adversaries only makes the situation worse as guns are picked up at smallest of provocations.
What is more, both groups make sure the other is provoked into a fight at every possible opportunity. If one faction is having a party, the other will disrupt it and even take away the local nautch girl for his group party. They tear up posters and even empty one's bladder on rival's poster. One such act by Kapoor earns him a slap from Chopra. He seeks revenge by pretending to fall madly in love with her and to get her to marry him only to desert her after celebrating 'suhaag raat' with her in an empty train compartment.
The deception hurts Chopra even more, as, on the eve of the elections, the pictures of her Hindu ritual marriage with Kapoor are circulated all over town, which spells doom for her father's election prospects. Chopra picks up her gun to kill Kapoor and the fight between the two turns into an all out war between the two factions with the community angle coming to the fore.
It costs Kapoor's mother's life to make him see sense and accept and protect his wife's life; he discovers true love for Chopra but the couple has to now run from both warring factions as one is not happy with having a Hindu son-in-law and the other with having a Muslim daughter-in-law. It is the later part where the couple is in hiding or on the run that gets predictable and is stretched unnecessarily.
Ishqzaade is the debut film of Arjun Kapoor and he performs with the élan and confidence of a veteran. His dialogue delivery needs some working on but his position has been confirmed with this film as a mass hero. How he performs in a suave role remains to be seen. Parineeti Chopra, who impressed every one with her first film, Ladies vs Ricky Behl, excels here. She is a natural performer, here to stay. Gauahar Khan does well while the others support ably.
The direction is good, sticking mainly to the proven formula of a mass film. Music goes well with the film's theme and situations, the song 'Pareshan...' being the pick of the lot. Editing needed to be harsher in later parts while dialogue is routine.
Ishqzaade has opened to very good houses and is also assured of a fair share of it business from single screens too thus making it a profitable enterprise.
Indiantelevision
