Anees Bazmee is one of Bollywood's terrible directors. Unfortunately, his even remotely watchable movies are ripoffs. Such is the case with 'Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha' which pretty much replicates every single frame of the delightful romantic comedy 'French Kiss'. It's funny how Bazmee managed to make the Indian and Swiss landscape look like the ones in 'French Kiss's France. The Bollywoodish additions, such as the hostage sequence, the comedy and the dragged out ending are dreadfully cheesy and give the movie a B-grade quality.
Jatin Lalit's music is pleasant to the ears. Most of the songs are visualized well but some of the tunes are ripped off from American songs. The sad version of the title song is snooze inducing. The title song during the opening credits and the two Asha Bhosle-Udit Narayan tracks are the best of the lot.
Where performances are concerned, Ajay Devgan does a decent job. Kajol is superb in most of the movie. One particular scene that stood out to me was when, at Nisha's party, a tipsy Sanjana expresses her defeat to Shekhar with a sad smile and her eyes filling up with tears. She does tend to go a bit over the top with the quirkiness and comedy (unlike Meg Ryan who does it more naturally). Om Puri lacks the slickness that Jean Reno brought to the character. Kashmira Shah is wonderful.
The execution is quite amateurish as Bazmee merely copies Lawrence Kasdan's film. The editing is quite abysmal and what the hell was Bazmee thinking in including the atrocious action sequences? The cinematography in the song sequences is adequate.
That's about it. 'Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha' is just another lousy ripoff on a tall pile of Bollywood's unauthorized miserable remakes.
