By Troy Ribeiro
Mumbai, July 10 (IANS): Film: "Thoda Lutf Thoda Ishq"; Cast: Hiten Tejwani, Rajpal Yadav, Sanjay Mishra, Neha Pawar, Bhavita Anand, Sushmita Mukherjee and Rakesh Bedi; Director: Sachin Gupta;

Rating: *

Director Sachin Gupta's "Thoda Lutf Thoda Ishq" is a far cry from the purported rom-com it is meant to be.

The story revolves around four characters; Mini (Neha Pawar) an enterprising young girl who runs a beauty parlour and is assisted by her friend Chuski (Bhavita Anand) the daughter of a local politician (Sanjay Mishra) from Etawah and two motiveless guys Jhumroo (Hiten Tejwani) and Ghungroo (Rajpal Yadav).

With just fun and frolic on their mind, Jhumroo and Ghungroo land up at Mini's parlour. Chuski, who has been looking out for a groom, gets enamoured by Jhumroo's personality and unbeknownst to him, falls in love with Jhumroo.

On the other hand, Mini's business venture is on the downslide. She recalls her landlord Khanna, who is also an event manager telling his colleague, "Packing mein dhyaan do... sau ka item teen sau mein bech sakte hain."

So, she entices Mr.Khanna to get into a joint venture and ropes in Jhumroo and Ghungroo to groom wannabe models in Delhi. This venture turns out to be successful and Mr.Khanna for without a reason, proposes a pool party where the duo Jhumroo and Ghungroo are to organise 40 bikini-clad girls.

It's after the party when Jhumroo comes home that his mother hands over a "friend's" wedding card to him. That's when reality strikes and Jhumroo rushes to Etawah. What follows is very predictable.

Camouflaged in the garb of a rom-com, the goal of this sadly scripted film seems to be the pool party, where the camera takes voyeuristic pleasure in scanning bikini-clad girls. Apart from this skin show, the director has taken a very shoddy approach to the narration.

The characters are sketchily etched with no detailing. There is an instance where reference is made to Mini as the politician's daughter, but later it turns out that Chuski is whom the landlord was referring to.

The plot meanders aimlessly with frivolous loud scenes and the direction often seems staged as there is no chemistry between the characters.

The characters and their motives are cardboard thin. Hiten Tejwani, an otherwise good actor on television, disgraces himself as Jhumroo. He is a total misfit in the set-up as a "nalayak" (good-for-nothing). And the less said the better about his dancing.

Rajpal Yadav plays the sleazy Ghungroo to perfection and does not offer anything new to his character.

The girls Neha Pawar and Bhavita Anand are non-glamorous and give a realistic performance. Sushmita Mukherjee, Rakesh Bedi and Sanjay Mishra in stereotypical roles are grossly under-utilised and wasted as performers.

Each scene is loud and chaotic with screechy dialogues and the entire film seems like a compilation of such scenes.

The item number - "Mera pyaar hai maggi jaisa" and the pool party song, "Baawri pooch pool party", cater to the front benchers. The choreography too is disorderly and a messy mish-mash of steps which are not in rhythm.

Watch this if you have nothing better to do.