Tere Ishk Mein Review: Dhanush And Kriti Sanon Fail Miserably To Create The Magic Of Love In Aanand L Rai Film

Director: Aanand L Rai

Cast: Dhanush, Kriti Sanon, Prakash Raj

Where: In theatres

Rating: 2

The film starts off with the introduction of the no-nonsense Flight Lieutenant Shankar Gurukkal (Dhanush), who gets grounded by his superior because the former had heard the call of his stomach (whatever that means!) and because he is someone who has trust issues. But, in order to fight an important war, the irreplaceable best officer Shankar has to get a clearance certificate from Dr Mukti (Kriti Sanon).

And when Shankar and Mukti come face to face, the audience come face to face with their past that’s filled with love, obsession and ‘zid’. The flashback sees Mukti as a PhD student whose thesis gets rejected since it lacked reality. Mukti then chooses to experiment with the short tempered law student Shankar for her thesis. She makes it very clear to him that while he may fall in love with her during the tenure, she is very clear of not falling in love with him at all anytime.

Certain unexpected events occur in their lives which transforms Shankar into a topline Flight Lieutenant while Mukti (the daughter of a decorated IAS officer) lands up becoming a hardcore alcoholic. What are these events, do the two ever fall in love, what ultimately happens to their love story (if at all, there is any) is what forms the rest of the film.

Tere Ishk Mein Review: Actors' performance

The film is out and out a Dhanush film. For all those who are yearning to see ‘Dhanush-isms’, this film won’t disappoint. Armed with elements of love, emotions, anger, madness and above all… fire within him, he fires from all cylinders in this author backed role. Sadly, it's the film’s narrative that lets him down BIG TIME.

Ditto for Kriti Sanon, who, in an attempt to deliver a believable performance, also gets let down by the film’s narrative. There are many impossible things which have been shown in the film under the pretext of cinematic liberties. Veteran actor Prakash Raj is ‘just there’ in the film, without creating any ‘roaring’ impact.

Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub's sorely wasted in a cameo.

As for the film’s direction, filmmaker Aanand L Rai who has always been considered as a ‘slice of life storyteller’ not just fails miserably, but also lands up testing the sensibilities and patience (in that order) of the audiences with this film. The treatment meted out to the film makes it difficult to fathom that it's a product of Anand L Rai’s stature.

The amount of cinematic liberties shown in the film only shows the overconfidence of the filmmaker on his product which boasted of a (time and tested) winning formula in the form of his blue eyed boy Dhanush and music maestro A R Rahman.

The film’s narrative (Himanshu Sharma, Neeraj Yadav) serves as a real test to the sense and sensibility of the audiences. The film’s editors (Hemal Kothari, Prakash Chandra Sahoo) could have done a big favour on the film and audiences by chopping a whole bunch of scenes in the second half. But… alas…

The film’s cinematography it's decent, just like A R Rahman’s chartbuster title track. Besides that, there are no hook songs in the film. Background music oscillates between average and above average.

Tere Ishk Mein Review: FPJ Verdict

For all those expecting Tere Ishk Mein to be another Raanjhanaa, then, you will be sorely disappointed. Even though the film is not that bad, still... watch Tere Ishk Mein.. only Tere Risk Mein!