Ranbir (Saif) is handed the kids, fresh from the trauma of the accident which killed their parents, to clothe, feed, and love. He manages the first couple of things with a flick of his platinum credit card. Get them whatever they want, he orders his girlfriend (Amisha). It’s the last commandment he falters over: love, what’s that?

Kunal Kohli’s latest helps shake off our lousy memories of Saif and Rani, who, armed with two kids and dog, graced one of Yashraj’s cheesiest movies, ‘Tara Rum Pum’, last summer. This time around, the same lead pair has to contend with double the number of children, an equally fluffy dog, and a hamster. And inspiration from ‘Sound Of Music’, and ‘Mary Poppins’, or is it ‘Nanny McPhee’, and a flavour of a popular teen novel series which has angels-doing-the-earthly-thing.

Saif and Rani look a great deal more comfortable with what they are asked to do, despite it being a fantasy: there is some cheese here as well (can’t be helped, with angels riding rainbows, with pretty little white flowers in their hair), but, praise be, only a little bit of preciousness, so teeny as to be negligible.

And that’s got to do with the fact that the kids are believable: the oldest, close to being a pre-teen, holds on longest to his resentment about being made to live with a man whom he hates ; the younger ones, including a cute ‘sardar’, lose their dislike a little faster. Amisha, in a small role, is delightfully ditzy, her chief preoccupation being tarot card readers and Prada bags. Rani is mercifully reigned in, in her cheery Dilli-ki-Punjaban act (that’s her earthly guise, as nanny to the bereaved children). She says ‘sho shweet’ only once. Promise. Rishi Kapoor, as the affable ‘bhagwaan ji’, does it nicely. But mostly it’s got to do with Saif, whose little crease-between-the-brows disappears with great felicity when he becomes pals with ‘his’ kids.

The angel learns the value of tears; the not-so-nice man gets to know the whole deal about ‘pyaar’, and becomes a good guy. And the ‘bachcha’ party gets the best of everything : for ‘Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic’, your essential accompaniment is a kid. Take yours, or borrow one.

Via Darjeeling
CAST: Kay Kay Menon, Sonali Kulkarni, Sandhya Mridul, Vinay Pathak, Parvin Dabas, Rajat Kapoor, Simone Singh, Prroshant Narayan
DIRECTOR: Arindam Nandy
Newly married couple, honeymooning in Darjeeling, runs into trouble. There’s a loud argument with a cabbie. There’s a shadowy man who could be anybody— a former boyfriend, a contract killer, a reluctant lover. And the husband disappears. Some time later, a bunch of friends meet on a rainy night in Mumbai, each taking a different point-of-view, and speculating : is this what really happened?

Interesting concept, ho hum execution. The husband and wife (Kay Kay and Sonali) don’t have a good fit. Vinay Pathak, as the inspector who handled the case in the hill-station, and is part of the Mumbai party, tries too hard to be a cool gumshoe. The whole doesn’t wash : the gathering where the strands are meant to be unraveled is dull, the clue-less characters are one track— Sandhya Mridul is the bitchy spinster who drinks too much, Prroshant is the aggressive drunk ; Rajat, looking aimless, and Simone, grating every time she opens her mouth, are the hosts who have the unenviable task of keeping it going.

And we wait for something to happen.

Made Of Honour
CAST: Patrick Dempsey, Michelle Monaghan
DIRECTOR: Paul Weiland
He is a serial bed-hopper. She is a staunch friend. It’s all platonic, and it’s all good. Till, ten years later, not a day less, he has a Eureka moment with a bunch of his ball-playing buds : guys, I think I may have feelings for her.

Turns out that she’s gone and committed to another guy, a kilted duke-type in Scotland, and wants him to be her M-0-H. Her maid of honour. Everything from here on is predictable rom com territory : she finds that she may still be soft on him, he is chased by an undressed woman, she catches them in bed, he says, please, please, she says no. And then she says— yeah, you know what’s coming.

‘Made Of Honour’ could have been made with any other meet-cute couple, currently au courant in Hollywood. In this combination, Patrick Dempsey displays some raffish charm, Michelle Monaghan is suitably understated-yet-sexy, and everything proceeds according to plan.

Okay for a few sappy laughs.