Mucho Mush. Review on Ishq Vishk

Some movies you want to see straightaway. Some you see on others’ recommendations. But some are thrust upon you, rendering you option-bereft and voiceless.

The third happened to me with Ishq Vishq the previous week. My huge protests fell on stone-deaf ears as I was almost dragged by my hair to witness what I had thought would be 3 hours of unadulterated soppy tormenting mush.

The credits opened with a backdrop of those ooh soo cute ornately festooned scrap books that the girliest of girls maintain under tight security, guarding it like a national secret. You know the sort they actually want you to read, but when you do they act all red-faced and angry. As I saw those cutie cutie sweet nothings written all over the book, with pictures of kiddo love, puppies, teddy bears, red hearts and pink ribbons, my heart sank and I resigned to the belief that nothing could get worse than this. But no, that wasn’t the actual case.

I have a favorite, sure-fire successful formula to enjoy any given movie. Meditate momentarily to summon up images and voices from K3G, let them flit through your mind’s eye and reverberate in your ears. Should such an exercise make you want to recoil with horror, do so and then Voila! You begin loving whatever you are forced to see.

The afore-mentioned, fruitful exercise apart, the college caper Ishq Vishq starts getting better and more amusing as its sidetrack characters are introduced. Like:

# An ageing hipster Love Guru Rocky (Yash Tonk) who has encountered countless failures in both academics and girl trapping. He harbors the illusion that all the college kanyaas are female dogs in heat for him, and often vends advice on girl trapping to salivating dudes. Those scenes where he rattles off his phone number, before blowing kisses to completely disinterested girls had me in splits.

# A swelteringly hot maidservant Kamlabai (fatcat, are you listening?) enacted by my all time favorite Upaasna Khosla (a.k.a. abba dabba jabba from Judaai) is a complete riot. She swabs the floor as though climaxing.

# The heroes horny friend Mambo, will also keep you tickled all the time.

There are some maddeningly funny take-offs on Sachin Tendulkar which will keep you in chuckles.

These zany characters pepper the course of Ishq Vishq’s story which incidentally is as old as the hills (any hill, can’t think of a particular one right now). Yes, Archie comics re-worked for the nth time, yet somehow refreshing.

When in college everyone wants to date only the hot girls and avoid the behenjis. So Rajiv (confident debutante Shahid Kapur) must ignore the dowdy behenji Payal (Amrita Rao) who follows him like a lost lamb. He rushes to befriend her to enter a couples’ only party. Drops her the moment she refuses to get touchy-feely and makes a bee-line to an ultra-hep new admission, Alisha (Shenaz Treasurywala)

It’s a relief to see college kids played by actors who actually look like college kids. Anu Malik’s music is also upbeat in keeping with the mood of the movie, all songs are uniformly hummable. The art director has gone the whole hog using a riot of colors in each frame which however not garish like those Barjataya family dramas. Director Ken Ghosh has made a successful shift from music videos to a feature film, the whole movie does have a swanky music video-ish look, and is passable entertainment. He being a music-video director, obviously the songs are done very well.

As for the three lead players, this was the conversation between me and my friend while watching the movie

She: You like Amrita Rao?

Me: Hm! Kinda sweet.

She: But such girls are extinct these days

Me: Maybe, a bit outmoded yes.

She: You guys always like doormats.

Me: I’m talking about her acting, anyway Shenaz is nice too

She: Yuck, Shenaz should go down south and get paid very well to do some Telugu movies quickly while she has all that tummy, thighs, love-handles and asss.

Me: (laughing) Really? I didn’t even notice all that.

She: Liar.

Me: What about Shahid? (I shouldn’t have asked)

She: Ooooo krpshahhmmgoogoogoogookookaashlurpsh (incomprehensible warbling, with a fingernail in her mouth, but I got the gist)

All in all, a cute light-hearted flick that you could watch with sufficient interest mustered even if you are forced to.