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What would any self-respecting guy do if a gal slaps him for no apparent reason? Slap her right back, right? So, so wrong. In Ugly aur Pagli, Kabir not just turns the other cheek, he practically lays out a red carpet for Kuhu to trample all over him. After, of course, she's finished barfing down his sweat-shirt, and had him sent to jail.
Debutant director Sachin Khot is not content with just one slap. Pagli Kuhu ( Mallika ) goes through two hours and some targeting the hapless Ugly Kabir's ( Ranvir) cheeks. And other body parts. The tagline says 99 slaps, 1 kiss : after a while, you stop counting. The slaps, that is. For the one kiss, you have to wait all the way to the end.
And that's exactly the problem with this could-have-been-hilarious rom com, which is rumoured to have been `inspired' by Korean hit flick My Sassy Girl : it's one line premise stretches thin, and the plot doesn't have enough for both the Ks to do, other than look for opportunities to slap, and be slapped. Here goes the one in a seedy hotel room, here's another on a terrace, and oh look, one more in a coffee shop. Or was it in an apartment ? Who cares?
At this early stage in her career, Mallika has begun playing Mallika : no matter that Kuhu wears colourful barrettes in her curly long locks, and leggings under short skirts, something Ms Sherawat hasn't done before, but she comes across as she has all the times before. She was so good in her previous oddballs-in-love picture Pyar Ke Side Effects, back in 2006. Two years on, it looks like she's bought into her own myth of stardom, and that's sad because she's got both the looks and talent to take risks and do something new, every time she takes on a role .
But Sachin Khot saves his movie in spadefuls because he's been clever enough to offset Mallika with Ranvir. As a lovable loser, who's flunked several straight years of engineering college, and who makes being slapped as pleasurable as being kissed ( well, almost), he's terrific. He knows that being slapped is a mug's game, but he surges ahead with just the right emphasis on the anticipatory wince ( after he's been slapped), and the tremulous smile ( after he's smitten). You wish, though, that he hadn't wimped out completely: even one return slap would have done the trick.
