In Bewakoofiyaan, Mohit Chaddha (Ayushmann Khurana) is the quintessential middle class MBA. He’s on the corporate fast track with a new recent promotion into middle management, a respectable new four-wheeler and a very high maintenance fiancee. The only hitch, it would appear, is getting approved by Mayera’s (Sonam Kapoor) tyrannical father, V. K. Sehgal (Rishi Kapoor).
Sehgal is a frustrated, name dropping civil servant who believes he never got his due while in government office. Now retired, his primary project is to get his daughter married to a six-figure salaried suitable boy. According to V. K. Sehgal’s calculations, Mohit is not good enough for his daughter. This is a family with a questionable value system.
Mayera wants to marry Mohit but without her father’s seal of approval and while the despot of a dad is doing his due diligence on his prospective son-in-law; Mohit loses his job (a fact that never shows up in Sehgal’s investigations). This sets up a needless plot point about an airline letting off hundreds of employees that protest in front of the media.
Even though Mohit is jobless, struggling to land another fitting post in recessionary times, he and Mayera use their credit cards indiscriminately. Eventually a broke Mohit has to borrow money from his better-employed fiancée but mounting debt and a bruised ego eventually rupture their anyway immature relationship.
A theme that could have been the crux of this film, modern day relationships and complexities of equality and economics is sadly glossed over.
Immaturity is the breakdown of this script, shockingly written by Habib Faisal. One might say he had lost the plot had the film had a plot to start with!
Bewakoofiyaan is aptly titled as a two-hour example of bland and banal happenings with Nupur Asthana’s direction unable to revive a flat-lining film.
Sonam Kapoor’s neat ponytails and heavy eye shadow cannot distract us from her penchant for fashion obsessed vacuous characters that lack depth. The script does her no favours either with an absence of even one compelling scene of maturity and conversation of things worthy between either her and Mohit or her and her father.
Rishi Kapoor and Ayushmann Khurana add some sparkle and entertainment in a film that otherwise lacks any kind of pace, emotion or insight.
Rating: **
