If you were like me, you'll be shaking your head at the incredulity of it all throughout the film and well after it's over. 'Dilwale' has a highly predictable storyline. Khan plays a gangster in Bulgaria called Raj Randhir Bakshi or better known as Kaali. During underworld activities, he meets Meera Dev Malik (Kajol) and they fall in love. And then, as expected, tragedy strikes.When the film opens, Raj is running a car modification workshop with his younger brother Veer (Varun Dhawan). Veer falls in love with a pretty restaurateur called Ishita (Kriti Sanon). These two turn out to be Kaali and Meera's younger brother and sister respectively and circumstances force the two, who had parted ways 15 years earlier, to meet once again.
Shetty goes horribly wrong with 'Dilwale' despite having everything at his disposal. The repackaging of the 'Raj-Simran' chemistry backfires, and the fancy glitzy cars, Shetty's signature style, hardly ever come out of the garage, and when they occasionally do, forget flying, it's more like crash and dump.
Emotional scenes, for the most part, fall flat and the narrative falls apart as the story progresses. The second half is more bearable than the first with scenes making you double up with laughter. Khan, in his mafia don avatar, is enjoyable to watch. Kajol has her moments and that spunk is pretty much still there.
However, these aren't enough to save a film that seems to have been made purely on a whim. Shetty's films have always been energetic and lively, but he seems to have completely relied on the Shah Rukh-Kajol chemistry to do the job here while he snored away to glory in the director's chair.
And there's not much of that chemistry to see either as they don't manage to recreate any of the spark they had in their earlier films. Still they do exude a lot of warmth for each other, especially when their eyes lock or they grin together, but these are few and far between. And unfortunately, perhaps the only reason you could consider watching the movie.
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