Rajkummar Rao’s latest Hindi rom-com ‘Bhool Chuk Maaf’ begins with a promising premise of the good old time loop trope, but fails to deliver anything worthwhile. It is riddled with forced puns and wordplays and desperately tries to salvage a story lacking depth, logic, or even charm. The characters also remain largely unlikeable — a small town hopeless romantic Ranjan Tiwari (Rajkummar Rao) who wants to land a government job only to be able to marry Titli (Wamiqa Gabbi), your typical bubbly girl whose only personality is wanting a wedding.
The plot turns when Ranjan finally gets the job and prepares for the wedding only to be stuck in a time loop on the previous day. After an unnecessarily drawn out exposition, the story finally delves into the same day being repeated and the different ways in which he tries to break the loop. With no justifiable setting whatsoever, the film suddenly incorporates the philosophical issue of ethics and the systemic issue of the government and social service, and becomes a preachy moralistic tale about right
and wrong.
There are such little redeeming qualities to the film that no actor shines. The oversaturated colour palette and the umpteen number of romantic songs do nothing but elongate the runtime of this hotch-potch of story arcs. ‘Bhool Chuk Maaf’ perhaps could be tolerated as an OTT release, but definitely not worth your money to watching it on the big screen.