Kismat Konnection falls under the league of those feel-good NRI love stories having a customary Indian narration in some foreign location. The kinds where every person the hero even randomly stumbles upon speaks to him in Hindi.
The kinds where the hero is still named as Raj Malhotra. Where’s the story you ask? Left to chance.. fate, destiny, luck or Kismat as you may call it.
Raj Malhotra (Shahid Kapoor) is the university topper but somehow luck isn’t favouring him. Five years post graduation he is still jobless and waiting for his first assignment as an architect.
Kismet connects as he comes across Priya (Vidya Balan) who happens to be his lucky charm. In her presence even the impossible turns achievable for Raj. Raj desperately seeks her company in all his endeavours from employment to affection.
Just when you start liking the breezy premise, the director decides to add (rotten) meat to the story by adding a hackneyed love triangle to stretch the screenplay by a few more cliched scenes.
Priya is already engaged with another guy but we are familiar with the fact that the heroine will ultimately end up with the hero. And since the third angle just happens to be some side-hero, he’s also given a bad conduct certificate of two-timing to make his exit easier.
On a parallel note Raj gets the contract to design a shopping mall which incidentally happens to be on the same land where Priya supports a community center.
Surprisingly the film derives the plot on the same grounds of the old age home premise in Lagey Raho Munnabhai and more shockingly Vidya Balan ends up playing the same character as in the earlier film.
Either director Aziz Mirza should have derived from some other source or if the inspiration was so compelling, he should have cast some other actress. This is deja vu on the face.
Finally Raj wins both, Priya and the project by delivering a sentimental speech in the climax where he talks about everything from global warming to US superpower but for the practicality of the project.
Was there a cross connection here? And the film opts for such a convenient conclusion that you wonder if there was any problem at the first place.
Kismat Konnection starts on a promising note but soon resorts to conventional formula. The second half drags with Raj’s repeated attempts to win the construction contract.
The love triangle is clearly off-track and is simply enforced to manipulate that mandatory sangeet song sequence to appease the family and NRI audiences.
Thankfully the script steers away from sermonizing on bhartiya sanskriti et al, an avid tendency with such genres. On the upside Binod Pradhan’s cinematography is eye-pleasing and Pritam’s music is soothing to the ears.
This time around Shahid Kapoor displays a hangover of.. no not Shah Rukh but Amitabh Bachchan in the initial reels and also does a complete take on his extended Namak Halaal dialogue.
Nevertheless he soon comes to his usual self and gives a sincere performance. And those Ahmed Khan choreographed gyrations can never go wrong. As against the notion, Vidya Balan carries a graceful charm and is natural as ever.
Om Puri is effective in his imposing character with a Punjabi accent. Vishal Malhotra repeats his friendly act for the nth time. Age has caught up with Juhi Chawla and it shows onscreen.
Concisely the film only connects with the viewer intermittently and a lot has been left to Kismat.
