Mera Baap Pehle Aap

Papa don8217;t preach, because sonny8217;s not in trouble deep. Priyadarshan , back in form after a series of duds, delivers his favourite actors in a tale which generates laughter and tears : more of the former ; less, thankfully, of the latter. And that8217;s the way we like it.

Gaurav Rane Akshaye is 8216;maal-a-maal8217; : he owns a fancy mall, a snazzy bike, and an ever-loving dad Paresh. 8216;Baap8217; and 8216;beta8217; lead a happy life, whose only irritant is pa8217;s best friend Om, a fifty-plus bachelor itching to get hitched. Along comes groovy babe Shikha Genelia, complicating matters further.

In his previous few releases, Priyan has let his Hindi flicks remakes of his super-hit Malyalam films run away with themselves. The humour has been relentlessly loud and crude, and the balance between audiences wanting to laugh out loud and break into tears has been skewed. 8216;Mere Baap Pehle Aap8217; has one coarse strand 8212;Archana Puran Singh8217;s Haryanvi cop uses language which makes everyone in earshot blanch, and poor Om is made to not only wear a hideous wig, and do a hip-wiggle with scantily-clad extras, but also get a kick in the goolies. The rest is kept restrained. Or as much as it can be in a Priyan film.

Akshaye and Paresh work in such perfect tandem they8217;ve been in loads of the director8217;s films that the two leading ladies seem almost an intrusion. But it is a pleasure to see the graceful Shobhana, and even better to see how good Paresh can be when he8217;s shot through a soft, romantic lens. And Genelia d8217;Souza makes a spirited return to Mumbai masala after her first couple of tepid Bollywood outings, she had headed south, and now she comes back with a bang, even if her Hindi is heavily accented.

Good for a single serve on a summer afternoon.

shubhra.guptagmail.com