Review: ‘Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji’ is a light-hearted romantic comedy

If you happen to be a three times National Award winner, expectations are bound to be sky high and that’s what exactly happened with Madhur Bhandarkar’s rom-com ‘Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji’. After tasting critical and commercial success with realistic cinema, Bhandarkar wanted to experiment with newer forms of filmmaking, especially light hearted romantic comedy, and here comes his latest offing ‘Dil To Baccha Hai Ji’.

Spicezee Bureau

If you happen to be a three times National Award winner, expectations are bound to be sky high and that’s what exactly happened with Madhur Bhandarkar’s rom-com ‘Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji’. After tasting critical and commercial success with realistic cinema - ‘Chandni Bar’, ‘Page 3’ and ‘Corporate’, Bhandarkar wanted to experiment with newer forms of filmmaking, especially light hearted romantic comedy, and here comes his latest offing ‘Dil To Baccha Hai Ji’. ‘Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji’ is the story of three house-mates and their messy love life. It seems that after making hard hitting films, Bhandarkar has forgotten how to loosen up a bit for the movie invariably struggles for a tight script and fleshed out characters. The film revolves around three men: Naren - a divorced banker (Ajay Devgn), Abhay – a playboy gym instructor (Emraan Hashmi) and Milind – a budding poet (Omi Vaidya) and their quest for love and contentment. Despite leading separate lives, the trio share the same fate when it comes to love – a tangled web of emotions. If our mild-mannered Naren is smitten by the felicity of his much younger office colleague June (Shazahn Padamsee), Abhay is torn between playing a toy boy to his rich married girlfriend Anushka Narang (Tisca Chorpa) and her daughter Nikki Narang (Shruti Haasan), while our shy Milind is struggling to express his deep desires to Gungun (Shraddha Das). In terms of acting, Ajay Devgn looks every bit convincing as emotionally vulnerable Naren, who is acutely conscious of his age. On the other hand, Emraan has mastered the bad boy image, which perfectly matches Abhay’s Cassanova act. However, Tisca Chopra is utterly wasted as aging cougar. In totality, ‘Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji’ could have been an interesting story only if the characters and situations had not been truncated. While watching the film, one feels a lack of pace and rhythm in the movie, which makes it a long and tedious affair. Pritam Chakraborty’s music is nice as it reflects and complements the situation and mood of the film. If you plan to watch this film, don’t expect fireworks from ‘Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji’. Ratings: Three cheers from this one.