Film: Kis Kis Ki Kismat

Cast: Dharmendra, Mallika Sherawat, Rati Agnihotri, Siddharth Makkar
Director: Govind Menon

The two things that emerge from this haze of vapid and vaporous humour is the camera's commitment to the leading lady's figure and the director's obsession with food.

If the camera isn't focusing on Sherawat, the director is busy creeping up on his characters biting, crunching, snacking and salivating as they gorge on edibles.

Kis Kis Ki Kismat is the most aberrant comedy that man has ever committed to celluloid. All the dialogue, scenes and situations seem to have been rendered in a mood of reckless abandon.

Director Govind Menon had earlier done two straight-off Hollywood rip-offs ( Danger and Khwahish ). In Kis Kis Ki Kismat , he goes original. Going by the results, you wish Menon hadn't.

The supposed satire is triggered off by the bullish hi-jinks of a stockbroker, inventively named Hasmukh Mehta. All resemblance to Harshad Mehta is purely intentional. And so is the fatuous characterisation.

A bit of the problem originates from Dharmendra's poor parody of a man whose riches are being squandered by his spendthrift wife (Rati Agnihotri) and a nerdish numbskull son (Siddharth Makkar).

From Hrishikesh Mukhejee's Chupke Chupke to Raj Kumar Kohli's Naukar Biwi Ka , Dharmendra is done with his quota of fun. In this film, he's a tragic shadow of the frolicsome comic virtuoso he once used to be, reduced in Sherawat's shallow company to mouthing lines like, "It's gone up."