Dosti - this film's no friend to cinema

Deol, Dutta, Kapoor, Kumar in Dosti
Image: BBC Shropshire Entertainment website

So Hindi movies have got slicker and sharper than the pitiful efforts churned out in the 80s? Think again.

While Akshay Kumar and Bobby Deol are never going to win serious acting awards, with Kareena Kapoor and Lara Dutta added to the cast, you would think that the end product would be less torturous than the 136 minutes of brutality Dosti turned out to be.

One of the main problems is the film is not sure what it's supposed to be - comedy, romance or family melodrama? Trying to fit in all three fails disastrously.

Subtlety is at a premium from the opening sequences as Karan Thapar (Deol) is neglected preposterously as a child by his busy parents, played by Lilette Dubey and Kiran Kumar. In an early scene, young Karan storms out and kicks his football from their farm, bearing a striking resemblance to a city mansion, towards the Himalayas! He slips down the ravine but is rescued when the ever originally named, Raj Malhotra (Askhay Kumar), appears from nowhere. 

So the two friends become adults in Chandigarh (while the parents haven't aged a day), which the film claims is right next to Gurgaon (in fact hundreds of miles away). In one of the scenes (visibly filmed in Shimla) the number plates are so fake it seems they're painted on planks of cardboard. Despite these glaring issues, there's nothing early on to suggest this will be anything worse than an average flick. When Anjali (Kareena Kapoor) is introduced as Raj's love interest and the playboy Karan pursues Kajal (Lara Dutta), there are even some moments of genuine humour.

But then it all goes wrong. 

Both weddings are called off as hastily as they are arranged. Anjali is married off within hours, and Raj is diagnosed with an incurable bone marrow problem. In his final days, Raj decides to bring Karan's family together and get his marriage with Kajal back on. Achieving this is ridiculously easily.

In quite the farcical finale, we are told there is a cure for Raj's problem but there's no point flying to the US to save him.

Despite seeing his life squeezed out by the minute, Raj frolics away with his doctor at Karan's wedding until an epileptic seizure (is that a symptom of bone marrow disease?) precedes a predictably emotional climax.The final scene sees Karan celebrating his businessman of the year award despite never working a single day.

When you stop drying the tears of laughter streaming from your cheeks, you might go away thinking it's the script and plot which are diseased in this film more than any of the characters.