One by Two (Hindi) (2014)

I stand corrected from my previous statements about Bollywood being obsessed with objectification of women.  I think the trend is moving slowly but surely to farting on screen.  Is there some focus group discussion that caused this spark to become a raging fire? Every movie seems to have someone in the lead cast passing wind – on demand!!! Getting bored with the dialogue? Hey – get someone to fart and people will be fine.

Why would one of Bollywood’s or should I say India's most intelligent actors in the past half a decade stoop to the level of a “Besharam”? There was a decent story in hand.  Some good casting and a half decent script writer could have prevented “One by Two” from reaching the distorted smelly messed up state that it turned out into.

Amit Sharma (Abhay Deol) is a software engineer working in an organization that drops words like deadlines and delivery in the most uncomfortable manner possible. They have meetings where our hero doodles away through a meeting in a room that’s about 15 x 10 ft in size and the boss in in line of sight.  But the boss doesn’t notice it till the meeting is over? He is apparently the blue eyed boy for reasons not established. He is going thru a tough time because he has been dumped brutally by Radhika (Geetika Tyagi).

There is Samara Patel (Preeti Desai) who has learnt ballet since she was 5 to 14 and went onto complete her BA from the London School of whatever.  Following that, she comes to Bombay (thankfully clarified later) to be with her mother.  Turns out that Mummy Mom Patel (Lilette Dubey) is usually found as sprawled out as her terrace.  Ironically, it is her daughter who spends her nights out of home under the pretext of dance practice.

Amit and Samara cross roads somewhere in the first half when Amit has a bike crash that leaves him with a broken wrist but no bruises whatsoever.  This happens when Samara is making an ass of herself air punching to a very boring number called Kaboom that begins somewhere in the day and ends well after midnight on a desolate street.  Samara doesn’t realize that she has caused an accident and walks away blissfully.

There are 2 parallel story lines in this movie.  To figure out when and how they meet or how they cross each other, you will have to sustain a grueling post interval and an almost grueling pre-interval.  Not something that I would recommend.  The script is god awful boring.  There are some boring one liners like when Anika (Preeti Tyagi) is asked “Aapki kya rai hai” and the response is “Aishwarya Rai hai” (Find wall bang head!!!).

The casting gaffes are endless.  Darshan Jariwala as an unmarried Punjabi cop whose favourite pastime to organize Kavi Sammelans (Poetry recitals)? Preeti Desai in the lead? She cannot ballet or jazz in her dreams.  In her defence, she looks stunning and is confident on screen.  But come on guys!!! She could have been anyone but a ballet dancer from London?

The only sensible dialogue in the movie was when Samara’s father, an industrialist of the name Mathani (Anish Trivedi) asks her, “Why did you leave London and come here?”.  Like duh.  Another wasted opportunity from Bollywood.  A good story that ruins itself on its journey thanks to some people who could not care less.  4 on 10.  Maybe on TV for some of the dances that involve Netarpal Singh Heera.

Watch the trailer on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU84MpyXwTE&hd=1