The movie revolves around Ashish Khanna(Akshaye Khanna) and Rani (Ayesha Takia) who are both crazily in love with each other. In order to prove his love for Rani to Ranis father(Vijayendra Ghatge) Ashish even works hard to 5 years, lands a successful job, car, house etc and finally gets approval from the father. But Ashish has a problem-even at the smallest sympton of a illness Ashish pops a dozen pills! At one such visit to his doctor(Boman Irani) Ashish misunderstands the diagnosis from the doctor and comes to the conclusion that he has cancer. His world is completely shattered but before he dies he decides to make sure he does Rani justice and along with his friend Shayaar Kanpuri(Rajpal Yadav) Ashish goes about trying to make a plan so that Rani will hate him and leave him and not have to go through the suffering of his death.
On purpose Ashish starts flirting with a Supermodel called Sania(Mallika Sherawat) and slowly Sania too falls in love with Ashish. At the same time Ashish finds out that he infact doesn't have cancer and things start to go haywire as he has now got to win his ladylove back from his sleazy best friend Rohit(Aftab Shivdasani) as well as convince Sanias older "bhai" Anna(Suniel Shetty) that he can't marry Sania. The concept may sound interesting on paper but Sanjay Chhels story doesn't live upto its promise. The story has been inspired from the yesteryear comedy MERI BIWI KI SHAADI however this is not even half as interesting nor as funny as the original. Chhels screenplay too goes haywire in the second half. The scenes involving the Mafia and Akshaye Khanna seem long drawn and fail to make the viewer laugh. The movie drags on yet doesn't have the laughs to back up the mindless gags. The story/screenplay leave the viewer feeling restless. This is VERY surprising given Chhels talented writing skills in films like YES BOSS and his own directional venture KHUBSOORAT
To give Chhel credit his witty and hilarious one liners do keep the proceedings alive to a certain extent.
As a director Satish Kaushik once again fails the viewer. Here is a director who is extremely inconsistent. At times he springs a surprise on the viewer with films likethe enjoyable HUM AAPKE DIL MEIN REHTE HAI, brilliant TERE NAAM or the interesting VAADA and at others he completely bores the viewer and makes a dull venture like BADHAAI HO BADHAAI or this! The main problem with SHAADI SE PEHLE is that it tries WAY TOO HARD to make the viewer laugh and just comes across as extremely forced. Comedy is all about timing and about natural. Kaushik has tried to make a tongue-in-cheek comedy which pokes fun at itself, but fails to tap into the genre correctly and makes a mess out of it. There are certain sequences which raise laughter including scenes between Akshaye and Rajpal as well as Boman Irani but these are few and far in between. Please think carefully before your next movie Mr.Kaushik.
The performances in the movie are a mixed bag!
Akshaye Khanna is impressive yet again in a comic role but one wonders if he is typecasting himself? Here he plays a role that is complete throwback to Govinda(bright clothes, crazy dance steps) heck Khanna even does a "MAIN TO RASTE SE JAA RAHA THA" in one scene. His facial expressions are tremendous and his delivery and timing is superb however Khanna is capable of much much more. The movie doesn't do Khannas talent justice and at times one actually think WHAT IS KHANNA DOING HERE? He was highly impressive and managed to save films like HUNGAMA and HULCHUL to an extent but he certainly can't save this movie.
Ayesha Takia gets limited footage and looks cute throughout as expected-but her performance isn't impressive.
Mallika Sherawat is good in her part living up to her sexy sultry seductress routine well. Her character he keeping sync with her image and there is plenty of cleavage and bikini shots to keep the male viewers happy-the girl is SIZZLING! However as far as acting is concerned-she is not upto scratch at all.
Suniel Shetty YET AGAIN plays his Anna routine this time poking fun at himself however he fails to raise a laugh. He is confident and presents himself well on screen but roles like this offer NOTHING to Shetty.
Aftab Shivdasani.....WHAT IS HE DOING HERE? He looks and acts like a complete dork! Either he is a dan good actor who plays precisely what is role was....or he just sucked here!
Boman Irani and Rajpal Yadav are two actors who rise above the script with their performances and timing and yet again the two actors do that here with success. The scenes with them in the enterprise liven the film a lot yet sadly they cannot save the movie.
Anupam Kher is utterly pathetic and one feels that old friends Kaushik and Ghai should've utilized his talent a LOT better rather than making him act like a buffoon!
Gulshan Grover, Vijayendra Ghatge, Mita Vashist, Dinesh Hingoo are all apt in their part.
Himesh Reshammiyas music too is a disappointment given his recent chartbusters. Also given the music of Satish Kaushiks TERE NAAM or any of Ghais films the film is even more of a stinker. At the time the songs do the trick, but once the credits have rolled I couldn't even remember the songs(nuff said).
Technically the movie is bright and has a slick look throughout-credit to Johnny Lal.
All up SHAADI SE PEHLE is a movie that should only be seen by fans of Akshaye Khanna! Others will be thoroughly disappointed. If you're after a timepass laugh then you're safe with films like GARAM MASALA, NO ENTRY or even a re-run of MAAL A MAAL WEEKLY!
Final Rating: * *
