Shimla Mirchi movie review: It's heartbreaking to see Ramesh Sippy and Hema Malini reduce themselves to tripe

Films that have been delayed for long, usually carry a sign of impending doom once they finally see the light of day. Very few like Pakeezah (16-year delay), Bajirao Mastani (8-year delay) and, to an extent, Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam (6-year delay) have managed to rise above the curse on the strength of their quality that stands the test of time. Unfortunately, Shimla Mirchi joins the rest of the sorry bunch.

What's it about
Shimla Mirchi follows perennially unlucky-in-relationships Avinash (Rajkummar Rao) who falls head-over-heels in love after casting his first sight on Naina (Rakul Preet Singh) while on a family vacation in Shimla, only to find his bumbling, fumbling ways at handling a relationship, mixed with a bit of wrong advice, land him in a right pickle when Naina's mother, Rukmini (Hema Malini) mistakes Avinash's surreptitious advances for herself and responds in kind, given her lovelorn life post a lengthy separation from her husband (Kanwaljit Singh).

What's hot
The music by Meet Bros is quite good, with every track, thankfully, an original, and most striking the right chords. Other than that, a passing scene here and a fleeting moment may elicit a half chuckle or small guffaw, but that's about it.

What's not
The list of have nots in Shimla Mirchi is lengthier than Chennai's Marina Beach, but I'll try to truncate it to the best of my abilities (which would still be ant day better than the horrendous editing on display by Vijay Venkataramanan) so as not to bore you with the long-winded details. Firstly, I need to get an earnest plea to Ramesh Sippy off my chest, imploring the Director of arguably Indian cinema's greatest film (Sholay), not to mention his other classics such as Shakti, Shaan and Seeta Aur Geeta, to please, please not tarnish his legacy with such drivel.

After mammoth failures like Bhrashtachar (1989), Akayla (1991) and Zamana Deewana (1995), Sippy returns 25 years later (even if it had been 19 years as originally planned, it wouldn't have made a vestige of difference) for an even bigger failure than the aforementioned titles — something we honestly never through possible from the creator of Sholay. Even the best auteurs tend to lose their touch after some time. If that's indeed the case with Sippy — and it does seem so — we'd rather he just leave us with the memories of his erstwhile masterpieces and on our part, we can assure him that they're more than enough for us to remember him by.

This time, he drags Hema Malini — one of Indian cinema's finest actresses and biggest superstars, whose stardom Sippy had ironically contributed in abundance to by giving Malini two of her most of iconic roles (Seeta/Geeta and Basanti) — down with him albeit with the latter doing more than her bit to leave us dumbfounded over how an actress of her caliber and legendary stature has put in such a terrible, overly dramatic, borderline cringe-worthy performance. It doesn't help that other than Rakul Preet, who barely emerges with passing marks, the script offers very little for other seasoned performers like Shakti Kapoor and Kanwaljit to shine.

Finally, Rajkummar Rao, gets badly exposed in a film that demanded him to go all-out commercial and channelize his inner SRK loverboy. It clearly shows that while he excels in dramatic roles both in mainstream and indie films, there are but a few actors like Shah Rukh Khan who can balance the hardcore commerical stuff with the serious work that Rajkummar's brigade his known for. Adding to the burgeoning problems are the dialogues, which fall smack bang in the so-bad-that-it's-good category, and Jitan Harmeet Singh's camerawork, which makes Shimla look like cardboard cutouts from a kid's playbook.

BL Verdict
Along with going down as Hema Malini and Rajkummar Rao's worst performances of their careers, Shimla Mirchi is also a clear signal that it's probably time that Ramesh Sippy hangs his Director's hat with dignity. I'm going with 1.5 out of 5 stars for this abomination on romance.

Rating : 1.5 out of 5