Well it IS ugly......

I had high hopes for this movie. I really did. I liked the cast, I thought I liked the concept, I even liked the trailers. Too bad the only thing I liked about the movie was the rolling credits.

Ugly or Pagli does have some moments of humor. Plus, by the time you have waded through the confused mess that is the rest of the movie, you are begging for even a half decent guy-kicked-in-the-crotch-falls-over-with-funny-expression joke. Unfortunately, even those are few, too few.

The movie stars Ranvir Shorey as Kabir, a lovestruck loser who would endure all kinds of pain just to keep the girl of his dreams Kuhu(Mallika Sherawat) happy. Aaaaaaaaaaand that's it. I imagine after the scriptwriter wrote those lines he congratulated himself on a job well done and went home. We are supposed to feel....what? Empathy for Kuhu for some deep dark pain she's going through ? Encourage Kabir to follow his heart, anal torture(more on that later) notwithstanding ? Unfortunately Kabir just seems like a simpering doormat and Kuhu a heartless, mean bitch.

The story is told through Kabir's voice overs. Thank god for that because without them this movie would basically be The Benny Hill Show 2007. The film is largely a collection of set pieces that go like this. Kuhu tells Kabir to do something outrageous, humiliating, painful or all three. Kabir refuses. Kuhu slaps him. Kabir does what he is told. Hilarity ???? ensues. I yawn. Rinse. Repeat.

That is, until the last 20-30 minutes. That is where I guess the filmmakers realized they were running out of ways to hurt Kabir and tried to bung in a story. Of course, by then the film is such a boring, confused mess that I hardly cared. Mallika remains a sadist right till those last minutes when she suddenly becomes lovelorn and tries, desperately, fervently to act. Unfortunately, it is precisely then that the director decides to cover up her ample cleavage, so she has nothing to act with. What follows is the worst display of onscreen crying since Salman khan passed a kidney stone in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam.

Ranvir is a passable, even good actor, but the script (or in this case the scribbled bits of toilet paper) doesn't really know what he is. One moment he's the cool dude, back chatting professors and dancing up a storm in clubs and beaches, the next he's a stuttering, stammering fool. Actually cancel that last statement, Ranvir can't dance up a storm to save his life, the director just pretends he can.

The few funny bits mostly come from the supporting cast. Tinu Anand was good, if a little creepy as Mallika's alchohlic father. It was nice to see Zeenat Aman, and even nicer to see that she still can't act for nuts. The best performance is by Sushmita Mukherjee as Mallika's painfully prim mother. Seriously, she looked like she sucked on a lemon just for this role. One of the rare moment's where I laughed out loud was when Ranvir's character makes a feeble attempt at humor, which she digests, and the quizzically asks "Joke Maara??"

Or maybe I was trying to ask the director the same question.