MUMBAI: Baar Baar Dekho, the debut directorial venture of Nitya Mehra, is a love story that spans over three decades. The makers seem to have found the basic idea from the Hollywood film, Groundhog Day (1995). Here, the idea has been used for a couple about to marry.

Sidharth Malhotra and Katrina Kaif are born in England around the same time and their parents also decide to move back to India almost at the same time. Katrina and Sidharth meet at school and become close pals at eight. Love blossoms as they grow.

Sidharth is a gifted mathematician while Katrina’s calling is modern art. Their love is boundless and both families are agreeable. It is time to get them to commit to each other and an engagement ceremony takes place. Sidharth is however not sure he wants to get married at that point in time. His first love is mathematics and he wants to prove himself as a math genius all over the world. At the time he was committing to Katrina, his research paper to Cambridge has been appreciated and he is invited to join the faculty.

While Sidharth is a middleclass man who believes in making it big on his own, his would-be father-in-law, Ram Kapoor, gifts him a car and a plush flat. This puts him off further. He has an argument with Katrina to the extent that he offends her. To escape things happening around him, he hits the bottle.

His future travel with wife Katrina is what most of this film is about. Sidharth’s life revolves round his job with little or no time for the family. His mind is so taken up by research, he is unable to connect well with his children when he meets them after gaps. Katrina expresses her displeasure with what is happening to her family life. And, to Sidharth’s discomfort, Kapoor moves in with the family to provide support to Katrina.

Sidharth’s time with his family is like a long lost relative coming back after ages. On one occasion, he is called when his mother dies. There, he realizes that his divorced wife Katrina has remarried!

Baar Baar Dekho is a kind of long-winding sermon to men and women planning marriage, and life thereafter. There is just about everything that is going wrong with the film. It starts with the scripting which jumps from one point to another failing to keep the audience informed.
Sidharth’s ‘amnesia’ is least convincing. The film is beyond the director’s control soon after it takes off. The futuristic approach with communication, be it cell phone or computer, serves no purpose; even the makeup of the aged phase of the actors looks amateur.

The film has some good songs playing in the background but don’t register as one is trying to figure out the events in the story. The popular number, Kala chashma…., is left for the end titles by which time the viewer has lost the will to stay back. Editing is sorely missing. The only thing that works for the film is the visuals. It is a beautifully shot film.
Baar Baar Dekho is a grossly disappointing film.

Producers: Karan Johar, Ritesh Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar

Director: Nitya Mehra

Cast: Sidharth Malhotra, Katrina Kaif, Sarika, Ram Kapoor