It’s been four years since Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif made us laugh in director Rajkumar Santoshi’s last film ‘Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani’ and now the director is back with another long-titled film In ‘Phata Poster Nikhla Hero’. Shahid Kapoor and Ileana D’cruz star in this film (the latter in her second Hindi film role after ‘Barfi!’).

The trailer starts off with a few shots of Shahid Kapoor performing gravity-defying action stunts, dressed in a policeman’s uniform: something that we are so used to seeing in Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar films. Did Rajkumar Santoshi have to go that way too?

Shahid Kapoor, acting as a true Bollywood hero, also throws out one masala dialogue after the other at villains and rogues. Then the picture gets clearer. Shahid Kapoor is just an actor, or a person trying to make it big as an actor in the Bollywood industry. The trailer indicates that he is playing a policeman, or at least trying to get people to think he is one.

The dialogues surely have the zing. Be it “Agar aapne maa ka dudh piya hai, toh ek-ek karke, ek-ek karke mat aana. Sab saath mein aana. Mere paas time nahi hai.” or “Aapka shakal dekhke koi nahi soch sakta ki aap itna achcha soch sakte ho”, the dialogues seem readymade for an audience which would love to clap and whistle at the big screen. It helps that Shahid Kapoor delivers dialogues in the style of a lafanga-wannabe actor.

Ileana D’cruz seems to be just a trophy heroine, unless the trailer is hiding her larger role in the film. We hope that is the case, because she was good in Barfi! And it would be good to see her in larger role.

The action in the film as mentioned earlier seems very larger-than-life, but is this deliberate? Is Rajkumar Santoshi poking fun at the Dabangg-style action or revelling in it?

One will only know when the film releases. ‘Phata Poster Nikhla Hero’ releases on 20th September, 2013.