You hear the words Rajkumar Santoshi and comedy in one sentence and you immediately think — “Andaz Apna Apna”.

Fifteen years later, Santoshi is back with another comic caper, this time starring Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif.  But if you are expecting another “Andaz Apna Apna”, you will be sorely disappointed.

This film has almost nothing going for it and if it weren’t for some funny moments in the first half and the brilliant comic timing of Ranbir Kapoor, it would have sunk into oblivion.

Ranbir plays Prem Shankar Sharma, a loveable but good-for-nothing young man who runs something called a “Happy Club” (the purpose of this club is unclear).

He meets Jenny (Katrina Kaif), falls in love and spends the film’s first half wooing her. This is the half that is funny in parts and will make you laugh.
Unfortunately, it is all downhill from there.

Jenny, it turns out, is in love with Rahul (Upen Patel with an atrocious accent) but cannot marry him because Rahul’s father is a politician afraid of losing ‘Hindu’ votes if his son marries a Christian. Our filmmakers are inventing newer obstacles in the path of love.

So Prem puts aside his “prem” and sets about helping Jenny get hers. The second half has some funny moments, like the scene between Prem’s parents, but otherwise the script wears thin.

“Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani” has some really shoddy editing and awkward dialogues. Upen Patel’s accent makes it hard to understand anything he says, and even when you do understand, he delivers emotional dialogues in such a deadpan manner you wonder whether he understood them in the first place.

Katrina Kaif is pleasing on the eye and manages some comic expressions but the real star is Ranbir Kapoor. He has such a screen presence and brilliant comic timing you cannot look away from the screen even during the most inane scenes.

It is the mark of a star to be able to stand out among mediocrity and indeed Kapoor is the only reason anyone should watch this film. This is really his story.

Watching three films in the space of 18 hours isn’t easy, especially when the first two are films like “Blue” and “Main Aur Mrs Khanna“.

When I settled into my seat to watch Rohit Shetty’s “All the Best”, I was really hoping for some laughs. Thankfully, I got my share of them.

This film starring Ajay Devgn, Sanjay Dutt, Fardeen Khan and Bipasha Basu doesn’t pretend to be anything but a madcap entertainer and because of that, delivers on most counts.

The jokes aren’t too highbrow, there are plenty of them and all the actors seem to be having fun doing the film, which comes across on screen.

I was especially struck by the difference in Sanjay Dutt, who puts in such a lacklustre performance in “Blue”, but seems to be enjoying himself in this film.

The story itself isn’t much. Prem (Ajay Devgn) and Veer (Fardeen) are friends who live in Goa and benefit from Veer’s elder brother Dharam (Sanjay Dutt), a millionaire in Africa who sends him “pocket money” every month.

Dharam thinks Veer is married to Vidya (Mugdha Godse), when in fact he isn’t.

So when Dharam lands up in Goa without any advance notice, both Prem and Veer scramble to cover up their lies. It doesn’t help that they have rented out a house belonging to Dharam and are also on the run from a local thug (played by Johnny Lever). To add to the chaos, Dharam mistakes Prem’s wife Jhanvi (Bipasha Basu) for Vidya.

Although the film’s energy sags in the second half, director Rohit Shetty ensures you are never bored and keeps the gags coming. Both Devgn and Dutt are good with their comic timing as is Fardeen.

This is exactly the kind of film that will light up your Diwali. Go for it.

There are some things you don’t want to make sense of, instead preferring to just go along with the flow. You’d be well advised to do exactly the same with “Golmaal Returns”.

The sequel to the 2006 comedy “Golmaal” stars the trio of Ajay Devgan, Tusshar Kapoor and Arshad Warsi, with Sharman Joshi choosing not to reprise his role.

But there are four additions to the original cast — Kareena Kapoor, Amrita Arora, Celina Jaitley and Shreyas Talpade.

If you’ve seen the earlier film, you would know trivial things like common sense and practicality have no place in this alternate world, where men stick pointed objects into a man’s rear and all characters burst into song in full cowboy gear for no reason.

So Kareena makes an appearance as a housewife who watches Ekta Kapoor serials all day and suspects her husband of fooling around. The husband, played by Devgan does have the roving eye, but doesn’t like his wife’s suspicious mind.

Tusshar Kapoor plays Kareena’s mute brother, Shreyas Talpade is Ajay’s Man Friday and he and Tusshar both try and save Ajay from his wife’s clutches.

Most of the film is about gags, double entendre jokes and meaningless songs. The semblance of a storyline concerns a murder and the confusion that arises because Ajay is missing from home on the night of the murder.

Director Rohit Shetty makes it clear that this is not meant to be a “serious” film and takes potshots at a lot of people — including Bollywood stars. He doesn’t spare even Ajay and Tusshar, referring to Ajay’s films and Ekta Kapoor’s soaps all the time.

While some of the gags are funny, you get the feeling they are all trying too hard. Kareena tries very hard to act like the dim-witted housewife, Arshad tries very hard to look like a menacing police officer and Tusshar tries even harder to act like a man in love. But they all end up irritating you.

Don’t expect a bound script, or common sense in this film. Go in expecting nothing, and you might not end up disappointed.

In retrospect, I should have just switched off the television. But I didn’t. I watched “Pyaar Ke Side Effects” in its entirety - barely 24 hours before I was treated to the wannabe version of the film - “Ugly Aur Pagli”.

Naturally, the whole thing was doomed from the start.This is not to say the two films have similar storylines, but the producers and lead actress are the same, and you can’t help get the feeling the second film is trying hard to measure up to the first.

Mallika Sherawat is Kuhu, a ranting, raving, dominating hottie aka Pagli while Ranvir Shorey is quite likeable as Kabir Achrekar, a middle-class Maharashtrian boy who falls head over heels in love with Kuhu.

The story moves along at a leisurely pace, and halfway through the film, you are wondering what the point is.

Kuhu makes Kabir do all kinds of slavish acts (riding saddle-less on a bicycle, wearing six-inch heels, and making the rounds of a film production company to sell her script) — all of which he does, without so much as a whimper.

Oh, and along the way, Kuhu also slaps him, in almost every scene, for seemingly no reason. Hence the tagline ‘99 slaps, 1 kiss’.

Kabir is hopelessly in love with this female terror but Kuhu can’t get over her dead boyfriend. Of course, you know how this one ends. I don’t even have to say it.

Mallika hams her way through most of the role but manages to look ravishing doing it. She should not cry on screen though (I cringed through all of her scenes).

And Shorey does a good job with the helpless boy act. But it’s still tough to believe both of them are supposed to be playing college students.

Watch out for some good performances from Bharti Achrekar and Sushmita Mukherjee who play Kabir’s and Kuhu’s mothers respectively. That was about the only refreshing part for me.