Movie Review: Jodi Breakers

In Jodi Breakers, Omi Vaidya plays a chick magnet Casanova while still employing the same set of linguistic and behavioral skills that he has done in every other film to date. This seems like something that should be against the law. To cut to the chase, this film lives up to its title - if you want your girlfriend to break up with you, you should take her to watch Jodi Breakers. 

Directed by Ashwini Chaudhary, this poor excuse of a romantic comedy is so rife with non-jokes it seems like it was shot through a specially crafted Unfunny Lens. The story isn’t completely borrowed from the French film Heartbreakers, but is instead even more idiotic. Sid (Madhavan) has been dumped, and his ex-wife has made off with a large sum of his dough and even his car. Frustrated, he decides to pull a reverse-Will Smith from Hitch and form a Jodi Breaking agency that splits up couples in exchange for money. His business takes off like it were the new gold rush, and he takes Sonali (Bipasha Basu) under his wing (who naturally falls for him). As expected Sid plots vengeance and sets his thoughts on breaking up his ex-wife (Dipannita Sharma) and her boyfriend, a rich business magnate (Milind Soman). And this for some reason causes friction between Sonali and Sid.

None of this will keep you awake, let alone expecting it to be even remotely funny or enjoyable. You know the drill – there’s the usual roadblock where the protagonists split up until finally everything falls into place for a happily ever after cliché-thon. Maddeningly all the characters act surprised through all the hackneyed chestnuts and Chaudhary’s direction can’t the least bit hide the structural woes of his own script. It doesn’t help that the Gym Bod Geronimos Bipasha Basu and Milind Soman compete against each other to come across as more monumentally dim and talentless. 

Omi Vaidya is called ‘Nano’ in this film because he is tiny. What he should really have been named cannot be printed here in the interest of readers’ harmony. He repeats the same speech gag from 3 Idiots - presumably to remind complete dullards in the audience that he should never be placed in front of a rolling camera ever again. Madhavan, clad under a jarring chin rug tries desperately to pull off a boyishly handsome shtick but fails utterly. As the lead, he exudes the charm of someone who is simply glad to have picked up a quick paycheck. One must also deplore the total waste of Helen who has a few jaw-droppingly poorly written scenes as a shrill grandmother. 

Of course, you can enjoy Jodi Breakers simply for the beautiful sunlit Greek locations which are in fact nicely shot in widescreen by cinematographer Arun Verma - the Greek tourism board would be pleased - even though we’re expected to believe that a Greek club features Bollywood songs and dances (cue the jhatkas and matkas!). But for the sake of all the lovely scenery, you’ll have to put up with an asinine plot, mindnumbingly boring characters, painfully unfunny dialogue, and more Omi Vaidya shenanigans than your eyes and ears can endure.

(First published in Mumbaiboss)