THODA PYAAR THODA MAGIC...REVIEW

Yet another big YashRaj movie in Bollywood. It's directed by Kunal Kohli, called Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic, or little love. Thoda Magic, or little magic. As it were, there is a little bit of both in this film.

But to watch it, what you need is actually bahut zyaada, or lots of patience.

This is a children's movie. But I wasn't too sure of that when you watch a raunchy number that is obviously an audition tape for Ameesha Patel's sensuous figure.

The film is about four children. I'm not too sure about that either. We're shown very little of the bratty children's past to be able to connect with their present.

They are orphans now. Their parents died in a car crash. A hot-shot businessman, that's Saif Ali Khan, was responsible for that accident. He is instructed by the court to look after the children.

Those kids hate him now of course. Exactly why the complete turn-around takes place is hard to tell as well. Though I think that may have been the point of this film

We realise soon this is also a fantasy movie about a fairy. Rani Mukherjee plays the God's messenger. She comes down to earth to make peace between the children and their foster father.

Openly she does a whole lot of magic: things fall, and reappear, and disappear again. And yet, not one character in the film even questions her magical powers.

Nobody even knows that she's a fairy. Not even the children who're taken on a fantasy trip to begin with.

The humour is so forced at least I didn't find myself laughing at any moment.

What you'll come out of the film then is just having noticed a whole lot of thoughtless visual effects, a trip to LA, and a few drab songs from a Shankar Ehsaan Loy compilation.

The plot, I'm told, has been taken from an old Bollywood movie Dushman. The premise is straight out of the Mary Poppins series. There is a bit of Sound of Music. Eventually you're not sure whose perspective this picture is from.

This usually happens in a film that's thoda this, thoda that, and trying to please thoda here, thoda there. Thank you, but no thanks for little mercies.