Anjali (Kareena Kapoor) and Jai (Akshaye Khanna) land up in the same college and pretend to be smitten by each other, only for revenge. This brings in a couple of hilarious moments, especially when Lucky (Arshad Warsi) attempts at helping out his dear friend Jai get comfortable interacting with the opposite sex. But somewhere down the line Jai and Anjali actually fall in love, which brings in a few emotional moments. Alongside, develops a sub-plot of Kishen’s (Paresh Rawal) marriage without his father’s knowledge, which adds more hulchul to the film.
There is nothing remotely new in the storyline. What earlier used to be done by Govinda and Karisma is now being done by Akshaye and Kareena. And instead of David Dhawan, Priyadarshan helms this movie and makes it more or less as timepass a DD used to.
The entire climax - right from Paresh, Akshaye, Farha, Arshad pretend to be cooks, to the mangalsutra sequence - follows the same pattern as witnessed in HUNGAMA [electric shocks]. It's the type that would appeal to the masses instantaneously. The Manoj Joshi portion in the marriage also tickles your funny bone.
The essential problem with Hulchul is that it tries to find that slippery twilight ground between comedy and drama, an admittedly formidable task. Goofing up with grandiose ambitions is more than forgivable, especially to a director who's worked well before, but this is no ordinary disaster. The film is not a comedy, despite what the promos make you believe, unless the sight of Arshad Warsi being rained upon by paan spittle regales you tremendously.
Kareena Kapoor is getting to a point where she can treat each film depending on how well it fares. She plays her cards with artful meows, claiming she works with films because of the director, resultantly absolving herself from all blame while earning Bollywood brownie points -- one can never have enough. Akshaye Khanna could well end up being the film's tragic casualty.
Hulchul, as a film appeal to those who enjoy light entertainers and also those who like family drama kind of situations.
