Director: Nipun Dharmadhikari
Cast: Rohit Saraf, Pashmina Roshan, Naila Grewal, Jibraan Khan and others
Where: In theatres near you
Ratings: 2 stars
Ken Ghosh’s 2003 campus rom-com Ishq Vishq got the cult status but so many years later, makers got a fresh look to the romance with four new faces— Jibraan Khan, Rohit Saraf, Naila Grewal and Pashmina Roshan. In the era of social media, where things like situationship, benching, ghosting and so on exist, the makers touch upon the all new languages of love.
Three childhood friends — Raghav (Rohit), an aspiring writer and Sanya (Pashmina) run a small cafe with her mother, and Sahir (Jibraan) aims to fulfil his father’s wish to join Indian Army. Raghav being the third wheel in Sanya and Sahir’s relationship meets Naila (Riya) in college and falls in love. Sahir chooses career over his love and Sanya incidentally develops feelings for Raghav. What will Naila and Sahir do now?
Director Nipun Dharmadhikari’s film lacks soul right from the beginning. The depiction of social media love isn’t apt and to the mark. With the weak plot line, Nipun fails to recreate the same magic as Ken did. However, the comparisons are bound to happen and this one is a terrible rebound of the first one.
Nipun’s talking to the camera narrative is not exciting and is rather distracting. Even the reprised version of original songs are okay.
Naila of Mamla Legal Hai fame is promising but hardly has screen time, as the entire film revolves around Pashmina’s planned debut. Naila certainly has a better screen presence, and the latter has to learn a lot from hereon.
Rohit Saraf looks cute and fits the bill perfectly. Jibraan is the another debutante in the film. He came prepared, dances well, and has a great sense of technical ability and dialogue delivery.
Having a runtime of 106 minutes, Ishq Vishk Rebound is passable. The film that caters to Gen-Z is dated, below expectations and suffers big time with cliches and predictable entries.
