Partner Movie Review

By Varun Unnikrishnan 10 December 2007 168 views No Comment

Starring: Salman Khan, Govinda, Lara Dutta, Katrina Kaif

Synopsis: Partner is a romantic comedy that revolves around the ‘Love Guru’, played by Salman Khan, and his efforts to set up an innocent, gullible young man with the girl of his dreams.

Review:

Let’s face it, David Dhawan is a hit and miss director and his movies depend on the viewer and the context in which it is seen. But even the harshest critic would have to admit that the man knows how to make a masala movie, and is pretty good at it, too.

Partner revolves around Prem, the so called Love Guru, played by Salman Khan, who takes it upon himself to set up good-natured guys with girls way out of their league, which would never have been possible otherwise – all for a fee of course. The story also revolves around Bhaskar, one of Prem’s clients, who pines for his boss, Priya, played by the very beautiful Katrina Kaif. Along the way, Prem also meets his own ‘partner’, Naina, played by Lara Dutta.

A lot has been made of the fact that Partner is a blatant copy of the Hollywood movie Hitch , which starred Will Smith, Eva Mendes and Kevin James as the lead characters. Unfortunately, I have to admit that it is absolutely true. Not much effort has been made to at least look original, and many of Hitch’s set pieces have been emulated scene by scene. The movie certainly goes all-out in trying to entertain the audience, but the jokes fall flat on most occasions.

Salman Khan, is pretty good at playing the suave matchmaker. He initially comes off as a real jerk, and then gets better as the movie goes along. That being said, the first quarter of the movie is rather poorly written – the gags are quite lame, especially the motor-boat scene, which had some terrible effects, and should have been scrapped. Ironically, the best parts of the movie are when they come off Hitch , and these work well with the script. Both the romances are believable, though Lara Dutta does much better than Kaif with her material. However, the best relationship is between the two male leads, Salman Khan and Govinda, who play off each other to great effect. The director has worked with both these actors before, and plays to their strengths pretty well. Govinda continues his comeback, and is pretty good, although he overdoes the physical comedy a little bit.

The script never quite recovers from a terrible first quarter, but does get marginally better as it goes along. On the other hand, the music was pretty catchy, and worked reasonably well with the story.

On the whole, Partner is another brainless masala flick, but does have its moments, and the banter between the two leads is quick and believable. This movie will likely split audiences in half, but don’t go into this one expecting a logical story or particularly savvy jokes – watch Hitch for that.