Ishqiya is an entertainment package. While the story of the film is okay with an old cliche given a new form, the direction of the movie is good, acting of Naseer, Arshad and Vidya is high quality, Vishal’s music is awesome and Rekha’s voice is beyond words.

And then, there is Dil to Bachcha hai ji.

Ishqiya is a movie that is all about presentation. Two guys running from a bhai, stuck with a lady, who happens to be not quite as they think she would be and then twists and turns. The story of the movie is not that great but with all those twists and turns and the great performances, it’s easily good enough to keep one interested for two hours. The good part is that the director hasn’t stretched the movie to make it cross the standard two and half hours.

The best thing of Ishqiya is, still, the performances given by its actors. While Naseeruddin Shah is a natural since time immemorial, Vidya Balan too does a role that not only suits her, but she looks almost perfect there. Arshad Warsi again does a superb job after helping Sanjay Dutt in Munna Bhai series. Talking of acting, even Nandu, the village boy does it well. Seems like Vishal Bharadwaj ke gaon mein ****** dhone se pehle acting karna sikhate hain!

The bad thing of the film, though, is that the film is quite complicated, and gets more so especially near the end. While Vishal’s last movie, Kaminey, also got a bit complicated, this time his screenplay falls there a bit again though the acting makes up for many things. Dialogs of the movie are good again and at times, Arshad’s dialogs make the movie a laugh riot.

As expected, Ishqiya is colored in quite the same color of eastern UP as Omkara, but then, there are many larger differences in the two and the films are completely different. In fact, Ishqiya is a bit less sophisticated, more storyish and less real than Omkara, especially in the first half. But on the other hand, the movie talks about the caste differences openly and not just to show that in dialogs but to add to the story.

But then, the movie is interesting, entertaining, and overall worth a watch if you are okay with the language. In fact even in case you could not like Omkara due to language issues, you might like this one as the language is a bit easier here in most sequences. Go for the movie if you are okay with the idea of an offbeat commercial entertainer.

If that happens, it will be worth seeing if Sharman Joshi makes as good a Circuit as Arshad. My guess is Sharman will have a new name instead of Circuit, but since it’s a Munna Bhai series, I don’t think Aamir will be called anything else. And while my opinion is that Sanjay Dutt any day makes the best ‘bhai’ in Bollywood, how Aamir does that role will have to be watched.

Whatever it is, I think the news is bad. For one, I do not want a new Munna Bhai, and secondly, I think Aamir should get ahead of Hirani’s comedy now and go on to do better films.