Thank God, Kangana Ranaut has a sense of humour. She has reportedly joked about T-Series producer, Bhushan Kumar’s belief that the film I Love NY “nikal jayegi”. She said, “He is talking just like a doctor who tells a patient to close his or her eyes before giving him an injection, saying ‘nikal jayegi’.”
Well, one could easily keep the eyes shut during half of I Love NY without missing a thing.
Randhir Singh (Sunny Deol, let’s forget that he is 57 according to Wikipedia) has been leading the same boring life each day, as some kind of office executive (rather unclear in the film) in Chicago. The film opens to his voiceover explaining how bored he is and one day, for no reason, he decides to kick his daily, non-happening routine. No more working Sundays. Next to go: his “favourite coffee” (vanilla mocha, if you please). Now, why would anyone chuck anything that is their favourite? Only the writer/director duo, Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru would know.
Rao and Sapru’s concept behind the film is decent, but unfortunately, it’s released two years too late. Made before Queen, this small film appears to be a refreshing change when released along with action-packed Bahubali. Unfortunately, the difference in tone isn’t enough to make up for how the story gets stretched to eternity.
Still, if you are a Sunny Deol fan, rather than a Ranaut fan, you may just stick it out. After all, it’s been a while since he was last seen on screen. It doesn’t matter that he and Ranaut are a miscast as a romantic pair. Deol tries his best to be subtle and plays it simple as Randhir.Randhir’s life may be routine, but it’s not boring. He has an entertaining dad (Prem Chopra) at home. He has a girlfriend, Riya (Tannishtha Chatterjee, another miscast) who wants to party a deux with him on New Year’s Eve. Mr. Bachelor decides he will finally pop the big question of marriage that night.
Before that, he goes to the gym and hangs out with his middle-aged friends. They sit around in towels in the steam room and get drunk to celebrate his impending matrimony. Deol even manages some cute jumping moves in the song, Gud Naal.
The bottle-happy guys drink so much that they end up sending Randhir to New York by mistake. Randhir ends up getting carried in trolleys and lands as a drunken heap on Tikku’s (Ranaut) bed. Apparently, he and Tikku have the same address -- in different cities.
As luck and screenplay would have it, Randhir’s home key can open Tikku’s lock! Who would believe this yarn? Certainly not Tikku’s boyfriend, Ishaan (Navin Chowdhry, of an irritating accent). Not when Randhir gets bolder by the hour as New Year’s Eve unfolds. To Ishaan’s chagrin, Randhir keeps coming back to the apartment and Tikku happily helps him.
All night, Ishaan and Randhir come and go, in and out of Tikku’s apartment, leaving her one confused and pretty mess in a pink saree and golden curls.
I Love NY takes its own sweet time coming to its predictable end, and you can only sit back and note irrelevant details — like Ranaut’s three costumes and debate over Deol wearing a wig, counting his age and wishing him more suitable roles. It is to their credit that both Ranaut and Deol give their unconvincing parts their own best.
Maybe, Mr Kumar is right. Film “nikal jayegi”. Just maybe.
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