Hindi
Baar Baar Dekho…Akhir Kyon?
MUMBAI: Baar Baar Dekho, the debut directorial venture of Nitya Mehra, is a love story that spans over three decades. The makers seem to have found the basic idea from the Hollywood film, Groundhog Day (1995). Here, the idea has been used for a couple about to marry.
Sidharth Malhotra and Katrina Kaif are born in England around the same time and their parents also decide to move back to India almost at the same time. Katrina and Sidharth meet at school and become close pals at eight. Love blossoms as they grow.
Sidharth is a gifted mathematician while Katrina’s calling is modern art. Their love is boundless and both families are agreeable. It is time to get them to commit to each other and an engagement ceremony takes place. Sidharth is however not sure he wants to get married at that point in time. His first love is mathematics and he wants to prove himself as a math genius all over the world. At the time he was committing to Katrina, his research paper to Cambridge has been appreciated and he is invited to join the faculty.
While Sidharth is a middleclass man who believes in making it big on his own, his would-be father-in-law, Ram Kapoor, gifts him a car and a plush flat. This puts him off further. He has an argument with Katrina to the extent that he offends her. To escape things happening around him, he hits the bottle.
His future travel with wife Katrina is what most of this film is about. Sidharth’s life revolves round his job with little or no time for the family. His mind is so taken up by research, he is unable to connect well with his children when he meets them after gaps. Katrina expresses her displeasure with what is happening to her family life. And, to Sidharth’s discomfort, Kapoor moves in with the family to provide support to Katrina.
Sidharth’s time with his family is like a long lost relative coming back after ages. On one occasion, he is called when his mother dies. There, he realizes that his divorced wife Katrina has remarried!
Baar Baar Dekho is a kind of long-winding sermon to men and women planning marriage, and life thereafter. There is just about everything that is going wrong with the film. It starts with the scripting which jumps from one point to another failing to keep the audience informed.
Sidharth’s ‘amnesia’ is least convincing. The film is beyond the director’s control soon after it takes off. The futuristic approach with communication, be it cell phone or computer, serves no purpose; even the makeup of the aged phase of the actors looks amateur.
The film has some good songs playing in the background but don’t register as one is trying to figure out the events in the story. The popular number, Kala chashma…., is left for the end titles by which time the viewer has lost the will to stay back. Editing is sorely missing. The only thing that works for the film is the visuals. It is a beautifully shot film.
Baar Baar Dekho is a grossly disappointing film.
Producers: Karan Johar, Ritesh Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar
Director: Nitya Mehra
Cast: Sidharth Malhotra, Katrina Kaif, Sarika, Ram Kapoor
Hindi
Jio Studios, Sanjay Dutt team up to revive Khal Nayak
Rights acquired for new version, format under wraps as remake plans take shape.
MUMBAI: The villain is back and this time, he’s rewriting his own script. Jio Studios has partnered with Three Dimension Motion Pictures and Aspect Entertainment to revive the 1993 cult classic Khal Nayak, marking a fresh chapter for one of Bollywood’s most iconic anti-hero stories. The original film, directed by Subhash Ghai under Mukta Arts, was a commercial and cultural milestone, with Sanjay Dutt’s portrayal of Ballu becoming one of Hindi cinema’s most memorable performances.
Dutt, along with Aksha Kamboj, has now acquired the rights from the original creators, bringing on board Jio Studios and its President Jyoti Deshpande to steer the project creatively.
While the exact format whether remake, sequel, prequel, or a completely new narrative remains undisclosed, the collaboration aims to reinterpret the story for contemporary audiences while retaining the essence that made the original a defining film of the 1990s.
The move taps into a broader industry trend of reviving legacy intellectual property, particularly characters with strong recall value. “Khal Nayak” was notable for pushing mainstream Hindi cinema into morally grey territory at a time when heroes were largely one-dimensional, making Ballu’s character a standout.
The project also marks the film production debut of Aspect Entertainment, signalling a push towards more technology-led storytelling frameworks. Meanwhile, Jio Studios continues to expand its slate, having built a library of over 200 films and series, with more than 60 titles collectively winning 500-plus awards.
For Dutt, the revival is as much personal as it is strategic, a return to a role that reshaped his career. For the industry, it is another sign that nostalgia, when paired with scale, remains a powerful box-office proposition.
Because in Bollywood, some villains never fade, they just wait for the perfect comeback.
