/> Starring Jaccky Bhagnani, Vishali Desai, Rishi Kapoor, Archana Puransigh
Directed by Vivek Sharma
Rating: **

Kal Kiss....sounds like something we would rather do today.

Since the film had the word ‘kiss' tucked into its title we waited patiently for the young couple to share at least one chaste kiss.

Alas, the closest debutants Jaccky Bhagnani and Vaishali Desai come to a kiss is a coquettish collision on the college campus where our simple-robust-prankish (etc etc) hero from Chandigarh Nihal, with a few vital tips from his Bebe back home (Archana Puransingh, wonder how Kirron Kher missed out on this one) teaches the Campus Bitch a lesson or two in social etiquettes and basic good manners.

Bebe did it for Shah Rukh in Duplicate and Om Shanti Om. Kal Kissne Dekha has nothing to give the audience except a 2-hour-plus showreel for the newcomer from his indulgent producer-father.

As a vehicle for Jaccky Bhagnani's aptitudes this is a harmless, inoffensive sometimes-fun but never funny (in spite of concerted attempts at humour) vehicle.

Sadly the audience at the moment is in no mood to indulge the indulgent producer-father. It expects much more than just indulgent trivia from their large-screen entertainment.

The writing skills displayed in young Bhagnani's launch pad range from the intentionally funny to the abysmally tacky.

The eye-confectionary is innocuous as long as the simple boy with the innocent smile (with incredibly white over-decalcified teeth) and the campus female-brat fight it out through a primeval mating game interspersed with ‘cool' songs and dances with enough colours to put a mammoth carnival to shame.

The serious stuff ends up being embarrassing in its clumsiness. Casting Rishi Kapoor as a college professor who moonlights as a explosive terrorist is a bomb of an idea.

Please, yaar! We know Kapoor is the last word is versatility. But you can't have him smirking under makeup planting bombs randomly all over Mumbai.

‘A Wince-Day', anybody?

Interpolating extremism in a college romance is an extremely careless thing to do. We can't have terrorism as a potboiler- formula. Worse, we can't have Riteish Deshmukh as a funny don bumbling all over shopping malls and dance floors with his army of two henchmen, one effeminiate the other indeterminate. Both hugely annoying, like their boss.

The same is more or less true of the film. While director Vivek Sharma could wring a few moist-eyed scenes from his audience in his film about a friendly ghost Bhootnath the closest we come to any emotion while watching Kal Kisne Dekha is impatience.

It's fine for an indulgent father to throw a party to introduce his son. But must we be invited as peering guests looking desperately for that fun spot in the proceedings where even the music is of the most unpalatable variety?

All said and done, the debutants are easy on the eyes. Vaishali Sawant is leggy and moves well to the screechy music. Jaccky Bhagnani conveys the earnestness of the boy nextdoor who will help an old lady across the street with a jig and a smile, hoping some producer is watching his good deed of the day.

You never know.