A clumsy big-kid Amreek (Arjun Kapoor) breaks up with his girlfriend Radha (Rakul Preet Singh) because he’s a mess and can’t apologise even if he’s on the wrong side. He exits from their business of movers & packers’ business ‘Gently Gently’. On the news of his grandmother, Sardar (Neena Gupta), getting ill, Amreeka’s Amreek flies to Amritsar to meet her. Sardar’s final wish is she wants to go to Lahore to visit her pre-partition house, where she lost her husband 70 years ago.
Amreek tries his best to take her to Pakistan but faces many roadblocks on the way. It’s now when the idea of ‘structural relocation’ hits him, and that’s when he decides to bring the home to Sardar. Of course, he’s entering Pakistan, and you won’t expect a smooth ride coming back with a ‘home’ laid back on your truck. Also, if you’ve seen Gadar, Bajrangi Bhaijaan and many such ‘Aman ki Asha’ films, you know what’s the end is going to be like. It’s always “how do you reach to the climax” in such films.
Kaashvie Nair pens the story with the very knowing risk of a “predictable plot”. The route taken by Kaashvie & the team doesn’t actually have varied ways to end the film. The production design in Pakistan’s sequences gives an artificial feel to the film lacking authenticity and impact.
It’s a hat-trick of decent performances for Arjun Kapoor since Panipat, Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar and now this. Though Amreek is at the bottom of his last three characters, Arjun’s honest efforts are visible.Neena Gupta lits up the screen with her hearty laugh in character looking like Rishi Kapoor’s counterpart from Kapoor & Sons. Facing the similar risks Rishi sir’s character had in the aforementioned film, Neena never crosses the line of quirkiness. She holds your heart in the emotional scenes and makes you giggle with her in the lame ones. Kumud Mishra is overqualified for the character he’s playing. He faces no challenges while portraying the character resulting in a highly bland final output. Rakul Preet Singh’s extended cameo doesn’t give her any scope to do anything out-of-the-box. Aditi Rao Hydari shines like always expanding her range, managing to look ‘straight out of heaven’. Thankfully John Abraham doesn’t get many dialogues because he’s still not verbally ready to play a Sardar. Kanwaljit Singh & Soni Razdan are just another addition to the list of ‘overqualified actors’ for this script.
This story had a phenomenal potential, but it’s unfortunately restricted to an ordinary ‘aman ki asha’ film due to ‘too many to avoid’ flaws. Backed with few good performances, it comes with zero surprises and a scattered screenplay, making it hard to put everything back together by the climax.
Rating: 7/10