Film review: Ekk Deewana Tha

Over the years, Bollywood has dug deep into India's rich repertoire of regional films for inspiration. While recent films like Singam, Ghajini and Tere Naam (Sethu in Tamil) have been turned into successful remakes, others like Force (Kaakha Kaakha in Tamil) and Sunday (Anukokunda Oka Roju in Telegu) have been box office disasters.

While most remakes have been helmed by a different director in Bollywood, south Indian director Gautham Menon comes from an unique place, having been entrusted to turn his Tamil hits to Bollywood gold. Menon's first attempt at a rehash, turning his 2001 Tamil hit Minnale into Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein, bombed at the box office. And with Ekk Deewana Tha, it looks like he hasn't learnt from his mistakes.

With a battered premise about a man who falls head over heels in love with a woman despite the extraordinary obstacles that stand between them, Menon sets out to convince audiences that there is more to this 21st century love story than meets the eye.

Prateik (who's officially dropped his second name), plays an aspiring filmmaker, Sachin, who is studying to be an engineer. One day, as he stands daydreaming outside the apartment he shares with his parents, his eyes catch hold of Jessie (Amy Jackson), a cooing, blushing seductress, who walks right up to him and asks to be let in. It turns out, Jessie is Sachin's landlord's daughter - and she lives upstairs.

The plot immediately begins to falter at this point. It's a bit far fetched to suggest that the two, who live a few metres apart, had never seen each other. And to make matters worse, Sachin, that crazy lover, immediately breaks into a song.

Having found his soulmate, he narrates to the audience the obstacles that lay before him: Jessie is a year older than him, she belongs to a conservative Malayali Christian family (he is a Maharastrian Hindu), she has an older brother who looks like he was born with a constant scowl, and lastly, horror of horrors, the entire family has never heard of Amitabh Bachchan.

But stay with me. So loverboy immediately confesses his love to blushing girl, who immediately takes offense at his audacity, leaving him crushed. He perseveres though, and about two songs later, she confesses that she has always loved him too.

The film would have ended at this point and we could have all gone home with minor concussions. But no, Menon decides to drag the whole thing out into a traumatic brain injury, poking fun at cultural stereotypes along the way (the plot moves to Kerala for a bit) and all the while, still trying to convince us he's got something bigger up his sleeve.

It never comes. When the badly dubbed Jessie (don't give up the day job Jackson) eventually explains in sultry tones amidst more coos and forced tears why she told him she loved him but couldn't stay with him, if you don't have one foot already out the door, you'd be left rummaging around for the leftover pop corn.

Prateik has the acting chops no doubt, even under these gloomy circumstances, but the poor boy can't dance to save his life. Even the usually dependable A.R. Rahman seems to have lost the plot this time.

With a tired plot like that, one can't really be blame him.