Ugly Aur Pagli: Atleast learn to COPY properly!
Yasser Usman reviews Ugly aur Pagli
Ugly aur Pagli (2008)
Ugly aur Pagli’s tag line is- 99 Slaps, 1 Kiss. After watching the film one feels it should be 99 Slaps, 1 Kiss and a Psychiatrist. To explain this new tag line let’s take a look at the story. Ranvir Shorey is an engineering student failing in the same class since last 4 years. One evening he saves a heavily drunk Mallika Sheravat. This incident is repeated again and soon Ranvir falls in love with Tally Mallika. Mallika comes back to her senses in the morning and then we realize that she is not normal by any standards. She slaps the guy who saves her repeatedly. We laugh at the first slap; smile at the second, grin at third but then the ’slap-stick’ comedy just evokes one emotion… boredom. Also this lady is an aspiring scriptwriter who writes scripts with herself as the central heroic character that thrash the male protagonist (poor Ranvir) even in the stories she writes. And the director actually recreates sequences written in Mallika’s script (borrowing heavily from My Sassy Girl). The humour includes worn out one-liners or done to death fart jokes like Ranvir lovingly naming the fart as De Boo.
Now the big question- Which guy on earth will fall in love with a girl who humiliates him so cruelly day in and day out? So I feel he definitely needs a psychiatrist. Mallika vomits regularly after drinking, makes him wear a petticoat and ride a bicycle (without a seat) and slaps him every time they meet. Yet he wants to see Mallika happy. And then the director actually conveys that both are deeply in love but since Mallika has a tragic past, she can’t be with Ranvir. So finally they meet or go their separate ways forms the climax of the film.
They copied the story idea from a very good film but in their pursuit of inserting cheap humor, shabby one-liners and item songs they ruined the essence of the script. The characters and the narrative are novel. But after the first half, the film just falls apart. The second half including the climax drags endlessly. The situations are so repetitive that you feel like running away. And then it just finish abruptly with a cameo by faded looking Zeenat Aman (What is she doing in this useless role?).
But Ugly aur Pagli do has its positive points. And that includes brilliant performances by Ranvir Shorey and Mallika Sheravat. The characters weren’t well etched but they rise above the poor script.
Ranvir shows a rare vulnerability in a character that is so dominated by his mother and his dangerous girlfriend. Mallika is fabulous be it the slapping scenes, the hot item songs or the emotional scenes. Sushmita Mukherjee in a small role is excellent. But Zeenat amaan is completely wasted.
Technically the film is strong with exciting cinematography by Somak Mukherjee . However, the editing could have been better as the film is irritatingly slow and long. AAnu Mallick…ya that’s the new spelling of Music Director Anu Malik’s name…hope the new spelling brings back his glory days because there is no hope from the music 
that is very ordinary except Hard Kaur’s song Patiala Peg Chadake.
So if you have nothing else to do over the weekend, watch it for Mallika Sharavat and Ranvir Shorey. Ugly aur Pagli might do well as there is no other significant release this week but this PNC (Pritish Nandy Communications) produced film is nowhere near their previous deliciously comic Pyar Ke Side Effects.
Friends, Roman, Countrymen! Atleast learn to COPY properly.
My Rating: 
Your Rating
(3 votes, average: 2.67 out of 5)
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Yasser,
One small correction : The Korean film is titled “My Sassy Girl” not “The Sassy Girl”
P1J
Thanks for the correction… ya it is “My Sassy Girl”.
I just came back from seeing this mind numbing stupid effort..its 99 slaps indeed–for the helpless audience. btw nice review yaseer
Good i read the review…i was dying to watch this movie and expected it to be close to Pyar ke side effects…u just saved me my 3 hrs!!! Thanks
Thanks for the awesome review. I’ll make sure to steer my wife away from this next time I’m at a desi grocery store and she wants to buy a pirated copy.
thanks
Hi Yasser! Thanks, will not watch it even by mistake :-)) But would love to watch YOUR film someday! May that happen soon
Its not showtime ..but copytime as yasser says…its a bad copy..Mr Sachin Kamlakar Khot(name truly justified), should have paid much more attention to filmmaker Kwak Jae- Young’s “My Sassy Girl”…the female lead Jun Ji hyun is prettier than our Mallika…If you guys really have some time to kill watch the Korean version..its a cleverly scripted comedy….