Picture this. A 26-year-old hottie gatecrashes a bachelor's party pretending to be a stripper. But before she lays her hands on the groom, they are busted by the bride and her friends. After addressing the initial chaos, she gets drunk at the same party and wakes up in the groom's 50-year-old friend's guestroom.
That's how Aisha (Rakul Preet) and Ashish (Ajay Devgn) meet for the first time. If you think this wasn't lame, bizarre and a little hard to digest, director Akiv Ali throws logic out of the window by making Aisha and Ashish dance at the wedding of the same guy whose bachelor's party Aisha gatecrashed in the last shot. Yes, and all this happens just five minutes into the film.
Akiv Ali's directorial debut revolves around a London-based 50-year-old investment broker who falls in love with a 26-year-old engineer, who moonlights as a bartender on weekends. Though the much-evident age gap keeps them away from a while, the two soon give in to the temptation, and the rest, as they say, is history. In this case, a pretty painful chapter of it.
A few pillow fights, massages and shopping sprees later, Ashish, on a whim, decides to make Aisha meet his ex-wife Manju (Tabu) and his two kids [who are almost the same age as his current flame] in India. But all hell breaks loose when he tries to seek approval from his estranged family.
Touted to be a rom-com, De De Pyaar De starts on a lousy note. The first half is a potpourri of cliches stuffed with heavy dosages of flirting, a few double entendre dialogues, some harmless flirting and a dash of romance. Served cold with humour.
The screenplay of De De Pyaar De is as confusing as the story itself. Ali fails miserably to strike a balance between a modern-day kewl love story and age-old moralistic values.
After a painstakingly predictable first half, the film picks up steam post intermission with Tabu and Jimmy Sheirgill playing the real show stealers in this otherwise average film. Ajay Devgn, who is not new to the comedy genre, fits the bill of the 50-year-old man in love with a girl half his age.
Rakul Preet, on the other hand, is a pure distraction as she fails to lend any depth to her character. Interestingly, Ajay and Rakul enjoy the maximum screen space in De De Pyaar De, but it is Tabu who is the real hero and heroine of this rom-com. She lights up every frame with her presence, and her comic timing is par excellence in De De Pyaar De. Jimmy Sheirgill as Tabu's admirer adds comic relief to this dull tale. Despite his role being just a cameo, the actor makes it a memorable one.
De De Pyaar De is a bag full of cliches. The makers fail miserably to evolve the story beyond a one-line plot. Go watch De De Pyaar De only if you are a die-hard fan of Tabu.