Ek Haseena Thi Ek Deewana Tha review: Absurdity has a new name

The promos of Suneel Darshan’s Ek Haseena Thi Ek Deewana Tha didn’t hold any promise. But even if you watch the film with zero expectations, you will still be shocked by what is passed off in the name of romance, mystery and suspense. In short, the film has set a new benchmark for absurdity.

However, if you are a trashy films lover who gets inexplicable satisfaction and laughter therapy from such content, you will be up for a good time.

Ek Haseena Thi Ek Deewana Tha is set in a European town. Natasha (Natasha Fernandez) and her fiance Sunny (Upen Patel) visit the place for a holiday and stay at Natasha's uncle's bungalow. Their marriage is scheduled to take place a month later. As soon as they arrive at the bungalow, a mysterious young man, Dev (Shiv Darshan) starts hovering around Natasha.

Due to some strange feeling, Natasha too feels a deep connection with him, which leaves her uncle and Sunny confused. Her father (Rumi Khan), who also arrives at the place later, is shocked and worried by his daughter’s strange behaviour. The newly found association of Natasha and Dev and its consequences give rise to a number of mysterious and shocking incidents.  

Nadeem Saifi (from the hit composer duo of Nadeem-Shravan), who has composed the music, has come out with few impressive numbers like the title song and ‘Hue Bechain.’ The problem is that there are six songs in a film with a duration of only 105 minutes. The production design is up to the mark. But barring these two aspects, everything else in Ek Haseena Thi Ek Deewana Tha is shockingly silly.

Here are a few instances to help you make your decision to either watch it or not:

- A man saves a girl from drowning just like Spiderman. Please don’t ask how he found a rope to hang onto. Without even trying to help her regain consciousness, he immediately gives her mouth-to-mouth respiration and disappears.

- The girl regains consciousness, but doesn’t bother about how she landed there. Her companion, who was with her earlier, too isn’t worried at her condition. They brush off the incident and immediately start speaking random stuff. After reaching the destination in a few hours, their host asks if they faced any difficulty during the journey. The two of them answer in the negative. By this time, their clothes have changed mysteriously.

- Dev continuously converses as if he is reading those forwarded shayaris. He behaves like a creep by always finding ways to get intimate with Natasha. She has no problems with it although she is engaged to someone. She invites him to a party where the two dance romantically. Sunny and others are shocked, but they don’t intervene.

- Natasha politely ditches Sunny by telling him with a wide smile, “You will always be my best friend.” This could be Hindi cinema’s biggest friendzone moment.

- A man clicks pictures of a girl with a guy. But the pictures only show the girl, which gives a feeling that the guy is a ghost. But later on, it is found that someone else had replaced his memory card with photoshopped pictures that show only the girl.

- Natasha’s uncle’s manager, who is like family, gets murdered. But nobody feel an iota of sorrow or shock.

- The culprit is dumb enough to leave behind the ‘purchase receipt’ of bullets right besides a dead body.

- (Spoiler alert for the best one) A man dies but gets 14 days more to live after putting in a request to God. Later on, his death is transfered to someone else and he is free to live.

Needless to say, the performances are nothing much to write home about. Shiv Darshan was launched by father Suneel Darshan in Karle Pyaar Karle (2014). This film is his re-launch, in which he fails yet again.