PARTNER

The story by David Dhawan and Yunus Sejawal has been inspired by Andy Tennant’s Will Smith-Kevin James starrer HITCH. The entire premise of the movie remains the same with Smith being replaced by Prem aka Salman Khan, a date doctor who has helped hundreds of men woo the girls of their dreams and find true love. The ultimate bachelor playboy Prem finally meets his match and finds the women of his dreams, Naina (Lara Dutta, a feisty newspaper journalist.

Prem comes across Bhaskar Diwakar Chaudhury (Govinda) who is in love with Priya (Katrina Kaif) the rich daughter of a millionaire business tycoon Raichand (Dalip Tahill). Though reluctant at first, how Bhaskar wins over Prem’s heart so that Prem can help him win over Priya’s heart forms the rest of the crux. Yes there are some misunderstandings which are resolved rather quick, as well as an unfinished and unneeded track of an underworld don called Chhota Don (Rajpal Yadav) who seems inspired by both Shahrukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan. Though the basic premise of the movie is the same as well as a number of sequences which have been lifted directly, Sanjay Chhel’s screenplay does give the it’s own look and feel which in turn makes PARTNER it’s own unique movie. Where in PARTNER Smith clearly had the leading role, and James was supporting, in PARTNER it’s an equal show for both Salman and Govinda to showcase their mettle and Chhel has carefully crafted the script to take this in to account. If one wanted to sit here and pick faults they could easily fill up more than an hour, however the “mantra” for the “DD+” formula has always been “leave your brains at home” and PARTNER is no difference. However one does wish that the rather annoying angle of Chhota Don gets deleted as it’s sticks out like a sore thumb, and despite best attempts to inject humour including some old-school toilet humour, the angle fails to gel. On the other hand this can be over-looked as the focus here is primarily on Salman Khan and Govinda.