Paagalpan Review

Many a Bollywood saga has balanced itself precariously on the thin tightrope between sanity and insanity. But when a movie decides that honesty is indeed the best policy, and actually calls itself Paagalpan (madness), you'd do good to take their word for it. And you've really got to hand it to these guys - at least they got something right! Not many movies can boast of so apt a name.

Paagalpan is the story of a paagal girl with five paagal brothers and a paagal boy who falls in love with her. It begins with an animated tale of cocks, hens, eggs and chickens that has very little to do with the actual movie and seems to be the product of confused direction - so it only serves to confuse the audience. When the real movie actually begins, you begin to wish you hadn't wished the cartoons away.

Roma Pinto's (Aarti Agarwal) existence revolves around her five brothers, a weird collection of a mechanic, a magician, a jockey, an insurance agent and a muscleman. When Sameer, the son of a rich and... lets say morally challenged tycoon, tries to hit on Roma, her three brothers beat him up. But Sameer isn't about to give up so easily. He loses no time in telling Roma how much he loves her, and you know the rest.

The rest happens for what seems like ages, and Roma uses this time to convince her mad brothers that Sameer is a good boy. After many scenes of zilch consequences and songs (boy, there are seven or eight of them!), Mr. Tycoon decides to blow up his ship so he can claim insurance and become even richer. Unfortunately for him, people from Roma's village die in the blast, and this angers her bros, especially one self-styled village guardian, Jack Pinto, who attacks lawyers, Mr. Tycoon and policemen, and finally lands himself in the grave. The rest of the bros (unfairly, it must be observed) blame Sameer for Jack's death and bar Roma from seeing him.

The story gets really difficult to swallow when Roma's soft and rather stupid brothers turn into hardcore goons and sincerely attempt to kill Sameer. A lot of mindless action and an unbelievably unbelievable finish later (both live is spite of being pumped with bullets), the movie finally and thankfully ends.

With slipshod editing and clumsy comedy, the movie offers nothing novel or interesting. Aarti Agarwal seems to change hairdressers every scene, and often looks (and acts) like a 15-year old. The movie has shades of Satte Pe Satta and Bobby, but is yet miles away from either. Paagalpan is a movie that will be forgotten soon, unless it lives on in the hall of fame for appropriate titles.