I am a sucker for good covers. If I spot a sexy, glamorous cover at a newsstand, I have to have that magazine. Once I do, this is my routine: I’ll rip off the plastic wrapper, flip through the pages, pause for a bit at some pictures, resume flipping, pause again at a seemingly interesting article, but after reading a few lines realise it’s old stuff regurgitated with maybe one new quote and two new pictures. I’ll fling the fashion/film magazine on the bathroom floor and sit on the pot feeling very stupid. I know I’ve been had, again.

That was my exact feeling after watching Mere Brother Ki Dulhan.
We already know the story. The film’s poster and title say it all. Given that Katrina Kaif is the heroine and the speech-balloon containing the film’s title emerges from Imran Khan’s suitably biggity face, what are the chances that Ms Kaif will retire to the honeymoon suite with Ali Zafar? Nil.
But those wide smiles and primary colours on the poster are hypnotic. Then there’s mild excitement at the thought of two brothers playing tug-of-war with Ms Kaif. So we go along, hoping that since Aditya Chopra put his money into this, the film will have at least two magical moments. It doesn’t. Imran and Katrina have as much chemistry as your school’s super-sizzling head girl had with the moony class eight prefect.
The film’s opening scene is in London, in the apartment of Luv Agnihotri (Ali Zafar). His girlfriend of five years, Piyali Patel (Tara D’Souza), is throwing a tantrum because he is always late, doesn’t do any house work and has a pig’s hygiene. He insults her Gujarati lineage, she calls him a cheap Indian. He dumps her.
Cut to a happening party elsewhere in London where Kush Agnihotri (Imran Khan), assistant director of a hit Bollywood film, is hanging out with friends. Luv calls Kush, says in the 15 long minutes since he broke up with his girlfriend he has decided what he wants from life. He would like Kush, who is going home to Colonel Papa and sweet-heart Mama in Dehradun, to look for a suitable girl. He’d like to settle down ASAP. Ok, bro, says Kush.
En route to Dehradun, Kush eyes every passing nubile thing, copies dance steps patented by the three senior Khans, teams up with two school friends, Rohit and Shobhit (played brilliantly by Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub), and goes on an all-India bride-hunting tour that’s presented as a montage of oily samosas and weird girls.
Finally, he receives a phone call from a seemingly sensible father and a meeting is set. But the moment Kush takes one look at Dimple Dixit (Katrina Kaif), his hands shake and hot tea burns his crotch. Flashback to five years ago when Kush was a camera-wielding college boy and Dimple a guitar-strumming college girl.
The journey to the inevitable has a few funny scenes, some wrong turns, several songs, epiphany moments — first hers, then his — and close-ups of Katrina’s face and tender waist.

WRITER-DIRECTOR Ali Abbas Zafar has taken bits from the 2007 Steve Carell-starrer Dan In Real Life, Onir’s Sorry Bhai and thrown in juvenile references to characters from other films, including Shah Rukh Khan’s Asperger’s syndrome boy. The end result is an entirely predictable, almost pallid, film.
Everything here has been picked up from the big bazaar of romantic-comedies — the humour, the twists, the confusion and the resolution.
Imran Khan is cute in the Farex baby sort of way, but here he inhabits his character with severe anaemia. Because he has dimples, we’d like him to be with the girl he loves, but we are not rooting. 
Katrina as Dimple gets to pose, strut, jump and scream like a rock star. She wears shredded jeans and mini skirts, smokes beedis, drinks beer, but her virgin status and good Hindustani values are established beyond doubt. She even has some funny scenes and the full attention of the cameraman. Yet, she bumbles through her role on the power of her glossy pout and angelic looks.
Then there is Ali Zafar, whom we last met in Tere Bin Laden. Now here is something Pakistani that we could easily develop special feelings for. His comic timing is great, his lehja endearing.
There is something to be said about films that show shooting bloopers with end credits. Mere Brother Ki Dulhan does. It’s an attempt to change audiences’ mood after a limp climax. Just like a glossy magazine’s last page. Even after you’ve been had, the con continues.