/> Starring Tusshar Kapoor, Ayesha Takia, Karan Hukku
Directed by Lovely Singh
Rating: *

Two of 'hero' Tusshar Kapoor's sidekicks(nationality, identity and motivation unknown) look at each other and say, "Nowadays only Yash Uncle(Chopra) has successes."

In fact this failed film pays Mr Chopra a homage when the bubbly heroine runs towards her rich lover-boy and moves ahead into the arms of the hero waiting behind the rich lover in Lamhe.

No truer words are spoken in this bogus love try-angle that goes from corn to corniest with no break to feel the ache caused by every tepid take.

Director Lovely Singh has made a film that's as lovely as watching a mad man make the sprint from India Gate to Parliament House with nothing on except the back ground music.

There's something immensely graceless in a film about a loser who befriends and courts the spunky girl next-doll with pursed lips and tight jaws signifying that strange and outdated concept known as Silent Love.

In comparison, the Other Man (played by a not-unlikeable newcomer Karan Hukku) comes across smelling like roses. He reminds you of all those lonely eligible bachelor-tycoon types from Vinod Khanna in Chandni to Himanshu Malik in Tum Bin...

The spunky lass Kajal (played by the spunky Takia) loves the loser with a permanent hangdog expression, as though he has just come out of a terrible illness and was in desperate need of sympathy.

Sympathy is what the makers of this anaemic love story need for attempting a tale that's as stale pale and frail as a yatch with no sail.

Material for a telefilm is turned into a baggy feature bogged down by cardboard characters and sidekicks who chase everything in skirts and bikinis.

The South African beaches offer the 'Lovely' director a chance to focus his creaky vision on butts and bosoms.

Alas voluptuous female-forms cannot compensate for a lack of vigour and contours in a narrative that moves at a pace which rivals the gawky movements of a bleached (and quite certainly dead) whale.

The script (by Rahul Singh) is what a love-stuck adolescent would write for a school competition. It portrays the characters as a bunch of nerds best left in the pages of a pavement pulp novel for girls between the ages of 9 and 12.

Last week we saw a superbly knitted script in Life Mein Kabhi Kabhee. This week we see a film in search of a script.

Wow, talk about a study on con tasks!

The editing(by Steven Bernard) alternates courtship scenes between Kapoor and Takia with comic relief. But what relief do we pbtain from the tedium of watching a feature film that mistakes cinema for the home medium?

The performances leave you cold and shivery waiting for one moment to connect with the characters. That moment never comes.

A word of advice. Watch Kareena Kapoor's sizzling item song at home and stay away from this dead-at-the-centre love triangle about a boy who deserves no love, a girl who deserves more love, her suitor who deserves no-more love and an audience that deserves the cinema that it gets.