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Love Ka Tadka
a; comedy/drama
Dir: Rajan Waghdhare
Cast: Sammir Dattani, Nauheed Cyrusi, Satish Kaushik, Rakesh Bedi, Vrajesh Hirjee, Bakhtiyaar Irani½
½
What's it about: Poor boy Aditya (works in a finance company) meets rich girl Sheetal (lives fancily thanks to Daddy 'Dehati' Moneybags). The guy has a superbike, feasts at an Andheri joint but lives in a Mumbai chawl.
She lives with a roomie, works with a news channel because she wants to "make a name" for herself. It's hate at first sight. Boy gets slapped and he's smitten. She thinks he's like every other Roadside Romeo...
You know what, I'll just forward to the part where they fall in love, marry, she discovers the 'truth about him', fuming papa comes running to Mumbai to meet his beti and damaad and is waylaid for a while. In the meantime, the couple buys a house in a hurry. The catch? They're non-vegetarians in a strictly vegetarian co-operative society. It's something they realise far too late. Kukkad-shukkad khaanewaala Panju papa (Kaushik) and his sidekick are starved for chicken and the beti-damaad don't have the heart to tell them about their predicament. And then there's the thing about our hero's boss having an eye on the same house...
What's hot: That someone actually paid big money to make a film that feels like a TV episode, has still-struggling actors and TV comedians doing the same old ham jobs they've come to be known by. All in the name of providing a few laughs. Now I wanna make a film too⦠Anybody interested?
What's not: Rajan Waghdhare makes his filmi directorial debut. He's a veteran on the TV circuit and is responsible for hugely popular comedy shows like Shriman Shrimati and Yes Boss. And the trouble lies there.
The story itself is too entrenched in the sitcom genre and more so between the confined universes of his two best-known shows. Why make a feature film that's treated like a TV episode? While societies like the one in the film exist, they're nearly not as food-fascist as the ones in the film. Acting-wise, Bakhtiyaar fails to make a mark in his film debut (as a sidekick⦠to Sammir Dattani, no less). The film has far too many contrived comic moments and even the ones that are remotely funny get tedious after much repetition.
What to do: Bland, uninteresting, tasteless fare, LKT's spice is definitely not worth the price. | 
