With Love, Delhi – Juvenilia At Its Best

Director: Nikhil Singh
Actors: Ashish Lal, Pariva Pranati, Tom Alter, Kiran Kumar
Rating: 1/5

Mithun Chakravarty’s film ‘Gunda’ is a cult classic amongst IITians because it is so full of cliches and stretches them so much, it becomes a delightful watch.

After many attempts, IITians have finally made a film that could have matched Gunda’s low standards. Sadly it is so pretentiously serious that Bollywood would be proud that they finally have an ‘English’ film made by ‘intelligent’ IITians to match their worst products.

After her father is kidnapped, Priyanka (Pariva Pranati) takes the help of her best friend Ashish Lal (Ashish Lal) to solve clues left by the kidnappers to try and save her father.

The patron saint of all IITian who aspire to venture into the arts, Chetan Bhagat, would be proud of this film. The dialogues are so bad and juvenile, that Bhagat’s book would sound like Doestovosky before it.

Yes you laugh in the film but for all the wrong reasons. Like when the hero tells his girlfriend how she could lose two pounds immediately - by dropping all her clothes because that is ‘exactly’ how much they weigh. It has to be an IIT engineer doing such ‘precision’ writing.

The film does try to mask its lack by involving some good people like Tom Alter, Kiran Kumar, Seema Biswas and editor Namrata Rao. But bad dialogues mouthed by a guy with a heavy Bihari ascent, kills everything. If the film were deliberately trying to make fun of English, it would have worked, but its seriousness prevents this little saving grace.

That brings us to the difficulty of making a decent film, especially by IITians who are famed for their intelligence. The trick is to first take stock of what one knows and what one doesn’t, try to better the already known and learn the remaining by watching films.

Another IITian, Kenny Basumatary did just that to make ‘Local Kung Fu’ for a mere Rs. 95,000, a film that undoubtedly has the best kung fu ever shot in India (you can check its YouTube trailer). That this bunch of intelligent IITians couldn’t do it even after spending Rs. 4.25 crore, is an insult to the IIT spirit. And that is where the other problem lies.

When IANS contacted one of the producers regarding the budget, he said, “We are just normal middle-class guys.” If you know little about India, you realize that Rs. 4.25 crore is neither middle-class nor normal. And that is where the politics of its making becomes clear.

The guy who plays the lead, Ashish Lal who had the megalomania to call his character in the film Ashish Lal is the worst possible guy to essay the role. That he does so shows the brazenness of a rich, new India which does not care or respect the field they are entering, and think money can compensate for any lack.

Sadly, it does not. The film is obvious to be panned both critically and commercially. Thus everyone who has invested in it will lose faith. In the future if some really talented filmmaker were to approach them, the once-burnt-twice-shy producers will show him or her the door. In a country like India, where money for good films is hard to come by, ‘With Love, Delhi’ ends up committing a great crime against cinema.

This review was written for the wire service, IANS.