Tamil Movie Review

Ajab Prem ki Gazab Kahani is a love story that has more fun and laughter on its way to the marriage registrar than heartbreak or romance. And herein lie the film's delights and discontent.

In a town whose radius is about two kilometers, we meet Prem Shankar Sharma (Ranbir Kapoor) in jeans, canvas shoes and shirts that are either checked or striped.
He failed in class 9, has no career plan except to remain the president and mascot of Happy Club. The club, which either cons or coerces people to become members, probably has a long "must do" list. Prem's father disapproves of Prem's pointless days. The two have a strange relationship. Prem confronts his father's taunts with wit, insults and drivel. His mother loves him unconditionally.

Jenny (Katrina Kaif), a Christian orphan whose adopted parents are more stupid than vile, arrives in this kiddie town, misreads Prem and eventually the two become friends.
They have a lot in common, including the inability to convince the audience that they stammer every time a situation gets senti.Anyway, Prem is soon in love. But he can't say.So he does all that Jenny likes eating non-veg and working diligently for money (superhero in a halwai's kitchen).

While he's hoping Jenny is watching, Jenny's parents whisk her off to Goa to be married to a rich man's son. Prem is about to rescue her when she announces that she's in love with Rahul (Upen Patel). Rahul is rich and talks of a Ferrari in Frankfurt, but his politician father is dead against the marriage. Prem puts aside his own feeling to get Rahul for Jenny. In the middle of all this, one duffer and broke don kidnaps Jenny. Prem must rescue Jenny. There's lots of flying, hitting and kicking in and around a large tub of water, with soap bubbles, electric shocks and Jenny's inept attempts to help Prem.

APKGK is Rajkumar Santoshi's second shot at comedy after his 1994 Andaz Apna Apna. For a director known most for extracting awesome, guttural performances from Sunny Deol in Ghatak and Ghayal and bringing a kind of savage street violence never seen in Indian movies before, it's fabulous to note that his funny bone is happily intact. All of APKGK is his - screenplay, dialogues and direction. Though the story has mildly annoying jerks and jumps and random characters keep crash ing into it, Santoshi's snappy dialogues work very well.

As long as the movie stays in its colorful comic bubble -- Prem is so Archie, and Jenny so Betty -- it works. Every time it steps out in the real world, it begins to falter.

For example, when Jenny is being forced to marry Goa boy, her prospective father-in law tells her: "You have two choices, either become his wife in church tomorrow morning, or he'll make you his wife in his bedroom". This made me cringe, twice.

Katrina Kaif in frocks with pin tucks and gathers and colorful hair-bands is simply lovely. Except for her very-Brit Hindi, she's put in a very nice, even performance.

Prem's character, though incomplete and inconsistent -- for a boy so cocky and cool, it makes no sense that he can't string a sentence of English -- is the best thing in the film. Ranbir Kapoor's got the best dialogues and he delivers them with perfect timing and exaggerated but adorable expressions. He's really cute and cuddly that's probably why this comic love situation is not really a story.