‘Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat’: A painful date at BO

This is a crazed-out romance from Milan Milap Zaveri, the writer-director of ‘massy entertainers’ like ‘Mastizaade’, ‘Satyamev Jayate’ (1 and 2) and ‘Hate Story 4’. But what sticks in the craw is that the film seeks to promote toxic masculinity as a virtue.

A powerful young politician, Vikramaditya Bhosale (Harshvardhan Rane), and his steady minder, Sawant (Shaad Randhawa), are at the airport when they meet Adah Randhawa (Sonam Bajwa), dream girl of the nation. One look and he is hooked. He tricks her into a PR exercise with the Army and declares his love. But she is not biting the bait.

On a power trip fuelled by a duplicitous father (Sachin Khedekar), an erstwhile politician himself, and incensed by her indifference, he declares she’ll willingly marry him by Dasehra.

She takes on the challenge and orchestrates a public vow that whosoever kills him by Dasehra gets to spend a night with her. After that, they keep going back and forth. She walks into his home without any qualms and he keeps visiting her to issue some new twisted ultimatum every time. Their faceoffs spiral into a series of life-threatening events, leading to the ultimate tragedy.

Writers Mushtaq Sheikh and Milap Zaveri craft a lead character who spends most of his time going off into space with Adah’s dreams and a trivial few pursuing his passion for politics. Grandstanding seems to be the name of the game here. Both the contrary leads go against logic to become confrontational and, as a result, put their own lives and moral values at risk. This is not a cautionary tale of one-sided love. It’s a never-ending serenade of hit music attempting to make something as outrageous and unforgivable as toxic behaviour, palatable and acceptable.

There’s no story worth telling here. The war between genders is trivialised by twisty meaningless dialogues and illogical treatment.

The screenplay highlights this battle of the sexes. There is no real understanding of human nature shoring it up. The heated confrontations are expected to score emotional highs but sound so outlandish and farcical. The characters seem to live in a vacuum where nothing else matters but their egos and the ridiculous actions that keep them afloat. Zaveri’s dialogues, meant to be fiery and punchy, are retrograde and derisory. Stylised intensity overshadows logic and obsession is palmed off as passion.

There’s nothing to cherish here. Harshvardhan Rane is framed with a lot of care but his performance gets close to being a parody of Nana Patekar’s in ‘Parinda’. Sonam Bajwa exhibits conviction but her role doesn’t have any depth. Shaad Randhawa has little to do. Khedekar’s all-too-brief spells feel like inserts meant to link the absurd, ludicrous and nonsensical threads of the narrative.

This film is probably aimed at creating a passionate storm at the BO following Harshvardhan Rane’s re-release success with ‘Sanam Teri Kasam’. It romanticises obsession and corrupts the issue of consent, thus setting the audience up for a painful date with a distorted and depraved version of preconceived populism.