Movie review – Baar Baar Dekho – A much happier narrative would have worked big time for the film
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By Joginder Tuteja

Rating: **1/2

What happens when a film is promoted as a largely fun affair but it instead turns out to be largely serious? Well, you do end up asking for a lot more. This is what happens with Baar Baar Dekho. The promos had given an impression of a feel good affair that would keep the smiles going. Instead, the smiles actually start fading away after 30-40 minutes. In fact the film actually starts quite well and you are sucked into the plot pretty soon. However after the core twist in the tale takes place, that of time travel, the fun element (surprisingly) suddenly goes away!

In the beginning portions, you really like the manner in which the characters of Sidharth Malhotra and Katrina Kaif evolve from being kids to lovers. Director Nitya Mehra handles these portions of the film extremely well and you like the freshness that the two actors bring, especially Katrina Kaif. During these first few minutes you are puzzled for sure around the manner in which Sidharth behaves. Still, you go with the flow as you expect this to be a core characterisation point of this protagonist.

However, after a while this begins to get tiresome and you end up wondering why is Katrina actually coping up with him despite his mood swings and at places, even idiosyncrasies. For a character which is shown as well educated and doing well in her career, you actually believe that the girl on screen deserves a better spouse. Nonetheless, you go with the flow and expect things to start perking up once the first jump into the future takes place for Sidharth.

Ironically though, the film – which should have become a lot more interesting at this point – starts to get a tad sad and that too when it is just the first half. Typically films lose momentum in the second half but here it happens much earlier and though you are led to believe that the interval point would be a high that is huge enough, even that doesn’t happen. Later, the second half too follows the same route and the futuristic set up doesn’t help much either. So even as Sidharth and Katrina are shown to be aging, there are just a couple of points or so where you are actually invested in the story.

Things get a tad better towards the pre-climax though when the film gets into the zone of a lesser known but well made film Chodon Kal Ki Baatein (Anupam Kher, Sachin Khedekar) which carried the same theme of living for today instead of worrying about future by means of living the same day again. A few smiles do come at this part of the film and then the climax is woven well too. Yes, it is predictable and you could see that coming for the entire duration of the film. However, the cliche still works to an extent, hence allowing you to stay through till Kaala Chashma plays in the end credits.

The film is mainly told from Sidharth’s point of view and he is there in practically every scene. He has the meatiest part and though he tries hard to play the part well, the manner in which his character is written is not quite impressive as a result of which you find something amiss. Katrina is present through the film but she is basically ‘just around’ instead of ‘being there’. First 30 minutes totally belong to her though and she acts well and looks super beautiful during this portion of the film. Ram Kapoor and Sarika are as usual and Rajit Kapoor hams it up the way he normally does. Music goes well with the film’s narrative and the cinematography is bright and cheerful. Background score had to be much better though as the experiment with fusion just doesn’t work.

Baar Baar Dekho isn’t confusing despite the angle of time travel. However, it needed to be much more engaging, exciting and happy than it eventually plays out.