Dharma Productions’ Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya has been promoted well and the music has also been liked but what made it a major talking point is the comparisons with Shahrukh Khan’s Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and how it is the DDLJ of modern times. The Punjabi setting, the story all resemble DDLJ. Even the title sounds similar. So will the makers be able to give DDLJ a modern tribute through Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania? Let’s find out.
Story: Humpty Sharma (Varun Dhawan) is a Delhi based stationery shop owner’s son, proud of his non achievements leaking exam papers alongwith his best friends Shony and Poplu until the time he meets Kavya Pratap Singh (Alia Bhatt) from Ambala who comes to Delhi to buy her wedding outfit. The first half is filled with moments of their bonding where Humpty helps Kavya to earn enough money to buy her wedding outfit and their journey to discover love. The second half is about family bonding, drums and celebrations. Should be apparent by now that is the closest DDLJ lookalike Bollywood has made in sometime.
Review: Shashank Khaitan who has makes his directorial debut has decided to pay his tributes to DDLJ in his own way, and the film works mostly because of the innocence in his work. He fills Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya with sombre moments and entertaining situations which never drag the film. Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya flows like air and does so wonderfully. Very few people would have gone in to watch the film with the expectations of it being such an entertaining fare. Shashank deserves praise for his unpredictable approach to such an easy-to-get-wrong film.
Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania Review
The other technical aspects of Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya are fine. The cinematographer has shot the Punjab locales with a sure-footedness. The music of HSKD sticks with you. Saturday Saturday is ruling the night clubs and pubs, but Samjhawaan is the track that stays with the viewer (although we do like the original sung by Rahet Fateh Ali Khan a lot more).
Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania belongs to Varun Dhawan, who is quickly emerging as a mega star in the making. He takes control of the show right from the start and excels with his peculiar Delhi mannerisms and accent. Alia continues her rich vein of form with HSKD. She portrays the role of a middle class Punjabi from small town Punjab beautifully. Her chemistry with Varun Dhawan clicks and they both look passionate on-screen. The casting of Ashutosh Rana is a masterstroke as he essays the role of the daunting father with an assured touch. Hope we get to see more of him in Bollywood films once again! Siddharth Shukla is just about average in his role but that is probably due to the character being abrupt and uninspired. Sahil Vaid who had played the role of Poplu is fantastic and almost steals the show from Varun.
Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya is a breezy, lighthearted watch that may not stay with the viewer long after it has ended but for the duration of the film the viewer will entertained. Jab We Met was a fine tribute to DDLJ, and Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya continues the tradition of fine DDLJ tributes. Watch it!
Box office: Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhaniya will take an above average opening at the box office. But positive word-of-mouth publicity will carry the film to safety and beyond.
Positives
- Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt
- Realistic approach to a surreal story
- The setting of the film is fantastic
- HSKD flows swiftly and the duration (runtime) is perfect
- Shashank Khaitan’s direction
Negatives
- The DDLJ resembling story may put off a few people
- Saturday Saturday should have been in the film and not in the end credits
Rating: 
@JS yes u r right and if any train involved movie is tribute to DDLJ then they should also agree that Yeh hai bakrapur is tribute to Srk.lol
@JC — You haven’t watched JWM….There was a scene in the 2nd half resembling the train scene of DDLJ.
HUMPTY SHARMA KI DULHANIA Is Fine Example Of Lazy Film Making
Pluses:
Alia Bhatt looks pretty and fits the bill, Varun Dhawan carries the film on his own, few dialogues evoke laughter, couple of good songs
Minuses:
lazy writing, amateur direction, no depth in terms of characterization or screenplay, lack of chemistry between lead pair which was shocking
Critic Rating:
2/5
Business Rating:
3/5
Verdict:
Watch it only for Varun Dhawan
Detailed Analysis:
Young lead pair and romantic films always create a kind of anticipation amongIndian audience and that too film claims to be homage to all time cult DDLJ. Dharma Production brings another youthful love story.
Film borrows heavily from DDLJ and that everyone knew in advance. A carefree and useless kind of guy Rakesh Sharma aka ‘Humpty’ (Varun Dhawan) is on the verge of getting flunked in college where his father runs a stationery shop. He tortures a professor to get passing marks but there he meets Kavya Pratap Singh (Alia Bhatt) who is from Ambala and she is in Delhi to buy her dream designer ‘lehnga’ as she is about to get married in 3 weeks time. Humpty falls in love for Kavya and helps her to arrange money for ‘lehnga’ as well as solves problem of her friend Gurpreet who was also about to get married. How Humpty wins her girl from her father (Ashutosh Rana) and her fiance Angad (Siddharth Shukla) forms the rest of the story.
Performance wise Varun Dhawan again proves his tremendous screen presence and energy. He tries his best to make his character believable due to such a lazy writing. Alia Bhatt looks good but at times she looks too young in few emotional scenes. Ashutosh Rana is good and so is Siddharth Shukla. Rest of the supporting cast is strictly fine. Special praise for guy who plays Varun’s friend Popli.
Music is big minus strictly average as there are too many songs yet not many register except ‘Samjhaavan’ and ‘Saturday’. Almost 4-5 boring songs leave one exhausted and even poorer background score adds to the misery. Camerawork is amazing and almost every shot looks rich. Art work is decent and so is editing except climax where film ends abruptly. Writing is completely inspired from DDLJ and sorry to say but this is not homage, this is really a bad caricaturist copy of that cult film of our time. There is no visible effort to create some kind of passion in love or depth in script.
But it is debut director Shashank Khaitan who tries his best to borrow from cult classic but fails miserably. Characters look so caricatures and script so boring that no one cares whether they meet or not in the end. Shallow approach and forced formula spoil this tale despite a good lead pair.
Film will release tomorrow and should get decent release across 2200 screens. Film will get some competition from Hollywood’s ‘Planet Of The Apes’ and Ritesh starrer Marathi film ‘Laibhaari’ but more or less it will have a good two week run before Slaman Khan’s biggie arrives. Film should open with good initials due to presence of exciting young lead pair. But still film will find it tough to score in long run considering mediocre content and not so great music.
Jab we met has story of DDLJ and now HSKD also follows DDLJ.
Good one but you have forgotten that DDLJ was more inspired from Maine Pyar Kiya than these two films inspired from DDLJ
Some haters r burning here
This is a hat-trick 3rd class movie by Dharma Movies.What is Karan Johar doing, First Gori tere pyar mein, then hasee toh phasee & now the worst overrated movie, HSKD..This is tribute to DDLJ, my foot, it’s an insult to legendary DDLJ.Karan Johar is sinking the career of Varun dhawan, n who is this Alia bhatt, Is she an actor, Can she really act is a big question mark..This movie is full of bollywood stereotypes, If you look for class, creativity & entertainment, this is Zero
Honesty Varun is much better than Siddarth.
Siddarth’s not bad, he is good, but Varun is 2x better
This is a hat-trick 3rd class movie by Dharma Movies.What is Karan Johar doing, First Gori tere pyar mein, then hasee toh phasee & now the worst overrated movie, HSKD..This is tribute to DDLJ, my foot, it’s an insult to legendary DDLJ.Karan Johar is sinking the career of Varun dhawan, n who is this Alia bhatt, Is she an actor, Can she really act is a big question mark..This movie is full of bollywood stereotypes, If you look for class, creativity & entertainment, this is Zero
ddlj is to boooring novie
ranjhaaana is much better
@JS, lol
@sht, as per your logic every love story made after ddlj is tribute to ddlj. lol.
Indicine particularly pointed out Jab We Met and any sane cine goer who has seen both films know that there is not a single resemblance of ddlj in JWM.
Just for the sake of adding something to the review, the reviewer here wrote about the connection between two movies.
As to @sht, Jab We Met is a classic film and I found it way way better than ddlj. If you can’t digest that, that’s your problem.
@sht, i aint not a srk hater, i hate his romantic silly films like ddlj and other craps. The only films i liked of srk is Darr and Chak De, rest all are overated melodramtic silly teenage stuff.
i even don’t like salman’s silly romantic movies like mpk and sugar coated family dramas like hahk.
salman though is more action oriented and hence i like his movies more along with that of akki and ajay, while aamir does the best hatke films ever than any current superstars.
@jc jwm was modern day of DDLJ but not entirely. Jwm is very good movie with great song direction acting. But other listed movies were purely inspired from DDLJ including DCH (only Amir preity and ayub khan part). Which is compact story of raj simran and parmeeth sethi.
@jc if u don’t like srk movies it is upto u but mejority r liking it. Hence u r not eligible to claim which movie will b remembered after 20 years.
@arjun: that above reply to u isn’t mine .someone is misusing my id. I don’t think arjun does overacting.
I think, best tribute of DDLJ is Pyar kya to darna kya.
ddlj is overrated and overacted peice of srk a peice of shit. Nothing else.
Getting boared of Karan’s film after Agneepath, 2 states.
@sachin11 ur a Top level Lunatic…undrestimatng a Cult Classic like DDLJ..plz hire a cab n go to hell buddy!
i dint know what is wrong with this website…!!since the time i discovered the site it never ever displeases any film..i winder why..even if it is terribly overacted slow and pathetic film such as this…what was the idea behind making such a film??
the cast overacts with puttarji is very irritating.. the music is pathetic it wasnt required!!
the story is repititive and jokes are nonhumerous.. my prediction…a resounding flop..with collections set to drop today
some lunatic on this site says that jab we met was inspired by ddlj.. there has been an overkill of ddlj by srk himself.. and now his producers… fi e upon them… we will kill this film today..all join and stay at home
and 4/5 rating is far far beyond the level of this movie or has this site also stooped to the last nadir of badness of this film that foolishly gave away 95% to this bad student of a movie
@megha don’t get hyper ur doubt will be cleared when hskd will do far better than jwm. Wait n watch.
just wait and see.. this film will not do more than 30-40 cr.. it will fall flat today people have realised that these films are made by scrammers and are actually made with the purpose of making money and not for entertainment
I can’t get this! I can’t take this anymore guys girls!!!!!! Indicine team: why would u give a 4 star for a repeated story which we saw 100 of times on the screen!!! the same story.. 2 ppl in love.. family rejection.. forcing the girl to marry the guy they chose for her.. finally love will win and a happy ending!! applause for them.. what the hell!!! wl I saw the trailer and I thought that I will see something new as I loved the 3 film of Aalia Bhatt, Student of the Year, 2 states, and Highway.. the 3 were some good films.. but this one..no.. a waste of time only!! ( Main Tera Hero was a better film for Varun than this one!) and yeah.. can’t believe that it’s Karan Johar’s production!!!
And nothing was as good as Queen and 2 States.. best 2 films of 2014 so far.. let’s wait till end of the year to see the upcoming films, maybe Happy New Year for Shahrukh will be a very good film too.