Namestey London (Hindi)- A fun film

PLOT: culture clash between a London bred bride and a Punjabi son-of-the-soil groom
Verdict: a fine blend of style and sentiment
Box office prospects: good outing this holiday season

Gorgeous Jasmeet (Katrina Kaif) likes to live it up with her Brit friends – pubbing, discoing and putting off all the Indian prospective grooms ‘arranged’ by her concerned papa (Rishi Kapoor) with the good counsel of Imran (Upen Patel) her childhood buddy of Paki origin. By the way, Jasmeet likes to be known as Jazz after her ‘kinda’ music.

Jasmeet’s English Boss, Charlie brown, is wooing in her style. That he’s been married and divorced thrice earlier in the least of Jazz’s concerns. On one of her late nights, concerned papa catches her downing vodkas and shaking it up at the disco. His immediate remedial reaction – like a typical Indian parent – is to arrange a marriage for her. He wisks her off to the motherland on the pretext of having ‘a grand Indian holiday’.

Jazz and her parents visit the top Indian monuments including the Taj Mahal, Lakshman Jhoola at Hardwar and Ajmer Sharief too. The controversial holy mosque scene is really a blink and - you - miss montage.

At the end of the holiday papa starts parading groom before the outraged daughter. The groom shows makes for a loud guffaw. Finally upon reaching their native town Phagwara in Punjab they run into the hunky Arjun singh (Akshay Kumar) who turns out to be the son of papa’s best buddy. The two are married off promptly but with Jazz’s insisting that the suhaag raat be celebrated back home in London after they have got to know each other better!
The groom compiles but Jazz does a volte face soon after returning. She declares that the marriage is null-and-void asper the UK laws as it hasn’t been registered. She declares her intention of marrying her British suitor- Charlie Brown. How the rustic groom wins back his bride is what the film is about. So the script frankly can’t boast of any novelty element, but it scores big time in screenplay department. The narrative is amusing and emotional as well.

Director Vipul Shah deserves a pat on his back for his perfect casting. From Katrina and Upen to their screen papas rishi Kapoor and Javed Sheikh he wins half the battle there. Katrina Kaif walks away with all the credit of the film. She’s charming, spontaneous and totally convincing in her role. Upen pulls off a neat performance also. But Akshay is overdoing the moronic ‘hee hee’ act, he never really assumes full bloodedherosim except perhaps the patriotic speech he delivers in defence of India when a British provokes him about India being a land of snake charmers and the Indian rope trick. Akshay’s is the only part that is uninspiring and so is his acting. One query for the research department: why wasn’t the Punjabi groom wearing the mandatory sehra during the saat pheras? Technically the film is world class and it is topped with a dollop of Indian sentiments. Bud sadly Himesh Reshammiya’s Midas touch is missing.

Never mind the hero’s nonchalance, the heroine makes up amply for it. Katrina is truly a revelation in the film. Namestey London is so refreshing that it is sure to rejuvenate the board examinations weary students

Director: Vipul Amrutlal Shah
Producers: Adlabs and blockbuster movie entertainers
Writers: Suresh Nair, Ritesh Shah
Music: Himesh Reshammiya
Stars: Katrina Kaif, Akshay Kumar, Upen Patel, Rishi Kapoor, Javed Sheikh