In Dilwale, Shahrukh‘s character, Kaali (Yes!!), takes out Kajol (Meera) on a 5-minute date in a typical European setting in Bulgaria. Romatic! And given SRK-Kajol, you’d expect it to work, huh ?
Not when the Car-izmatic Rohit Shetty is the director.
Dilwale has too much of Rohit Shetty and less of SRK’s charm, something which saved Chennai Express and made it bearable. A song like “Gerua” picturized in an overtly photoshopped setting. I mean how hard is it to get it done in an actual location? Allocating a little extra budget to this, instead of those cars might have helped! Rohit?
The biggest crowd puller of Dilwale, SRK-Kajol, just doesn’t click together. The magic one would expect from the pair seems to be vacationing somewhere.
It’s not even one of those story-less movies, because (Surprisingly) it has a STORY!
The Plot of Dilwale is filled with layers of unnecessary complexity and would give a South Indian masala movie complex. The platter comprises of action, the kind where SRK fights like the Arrow and beats the baddies mercilessly, there’s Bhai-Bhai and Behen-behen drama too and comedy inserted to keep you laughing once-in-a-while and take your attention off your watch, which you keep looking at!
It’s good to see Johny Lever and the amazing Sanjay Mishra who gets the best lines anyway in a Rohit Shetty Comedy. Comedy, of course, of Rohit Shetty standard.
Songs are good, and the background music as well. Kajol looks ravishingly beautiful in every frame and is so pleasing to the eyes. SRK in the movie appears super casual and is akin to Salman acting in one of those South Indian remakes.
Varun Dhawan and Kriti Sanon fill in the scenes to take the “story” forward. Varun still appears in the Modern-day Govinda mode, while Kriti does decent in whatever little she had. However, the central characters of Dilwale, SRK-Kajol, fail to make you fall in love with them, like they’ve done always.
Yes, you can go down into a few nostalgic trips as thy appear onscreen, but the “old-wine-in-a-new-bottle” doesn’t work this time.
Dilwale just doesn’t deliver and being this long (155 Minutes!) doesn’t help at all. It is not as bad as Happy New Year, but then that’s no benchmark. Especially not for SRK! The movie just doesn’t seem to end!
I’m going with a 1.5/5 for Dilwale. It is watchable (Bearable is the correct word) , but it’s wiser to not waste your money on this one. You’ll need a big heart to like this movie.