After his stunning, heart-wrenching performance in Sarbjit, Randeep Hooda is back with Do Lafzon ki Kahani, a mushy romance that echoes the fairytale idea of love. Taking us back to the ‘90s when dialogues like “Haath mila rahi hu, maang nahi rahi” seemed cute, Do Lafzon Ki Kahaani is a tale of ‘eternal love’, one that makes you sacrifice all and suffer forever for the sake of your beloved. What is really worth watching are the sequences where Randeep prepares to get back into the ring. For a movie that hinges on a love story, Do Lafzon ki Kahani is weak on the chemistry though. The film focuses more on the idea of love than anything else, and the beautiful locales of Malaysia add to this experience. That in itself is reason enough to watch it. (Take your bae along). If you’re not the romantic kind, Randeep’s acting and his ‘ode to Sylvester Stallone’ (his workout sequences) will be a delight then.

Director Deepak Tijori and writer Girish Dhamija have tried to put together a tale of love,  loss and redemption in Do Lafzon Ki Kahani. The product, however, is a half-baked story with half-decent performances by the lead actors. It is largely because of the acting of the actors, Randeep Hooda more than Kajal Aggarwal, that you want to sit through this yawnfest of a film. Deepak Tijori gives his Do Lafzon Ki Kahani the tagline 'Love never hurts... It heals', and it's more than befitting. If it reminds you of a run-of-the-mill love story of the 90s, perfect. That is exactly what this film is. Do Lafzon Ki Kahani makes use of every believable and unbelievable cliche in the history of bad love stories. From the brooding hero's mysterious past to the unnecessarily chirpy and talkative heroine, from the goons to loss of love: you name it, you get it. Among the numerous songs in the film, Jeena Marna is a hummable track. The other songs are hardly worth a mention. In all, Do Lafzon Ki Kahani has nothing much to offer apart from Randeep Hooda and the MMA sequences. Watch it if you swear by Hooda.

Making its point with the means of just two words is simply beyond this film. It takes an eternity plus a few hours to reach its climax, by which time you just want the tortuous tearjerker to be banished from your sight. The stated runtime of Do Lafzon Ki Kahani is 127 minutes - a little over two hours - but it feels four hours long, if not more, so enervating and exasperating are its dramatic coincidences. To put it in one line, a brooding, unsmiling, reticent hero is brought out of his shell by a visually challenged girl who yaks incessantly and is joviality personified. To complete the picture, the audience is informed that he grew up in a lakeside orphanage that was reduced to rubble by a storm. That actually reflects the state of Do Lafzon Ki Kahani as a whole. It is a cinematic calamity. One question: what is more abominable - the soap opera that the heroine is hooked to or this insipid and lachrymose tale? It is a toss-up. Walk into this storm only if you have the disposition to withstand the ugly gusts.

Storywise, the film has nothing new to offer in the romantic genre. It seems as if the director is stuck in the 1990s and has incorporated every cliched Bollywood element in his film. While Do Lafzon Ki Kahani has good music and a terrific actor like Randeep, it doesn’t make up for the loopholes in the script. The first half of the film basically establishes the love story between Randeep and Kajal’s characters. Their chemistry is cute and two look good together.In fact, the film is somewhat bearable till the interval because of Randeep and Kajal's chemistry. But, performance wise, it's the Sarbjit actor who stands out. It's clear that Randeep has given everything to the role. It’s sad to see such a good performer wasted in a film that just doesn’t do justice to his acting abilities. The editing is sloppy and there are quite a few scenes that pop up randomly, making no sense in the story. The plot is predictable and so Bollywoodish that, after a point, I just didn’t care where the film was headed. Give this film a miss and thank me later. As for Deepak Tijori, I guess he will have to wait a little longer before he tastes success as a filmmaker.

The only point of interest is that it is set in Kuala Lumpur, a city Bollywood doesn’t much get around to. The plot is a string of drippy sequences. Aggarwal sports a fixed stare-and-smile and the kind of lilting voice meant to be cutesy but is mostly annoying. And Hooda works very hard to build muscle and look appropriately battered, and is, as usual, the only reason to keep sitting through this thing. Hooda takes a beating very convincingly and does all the heavy lifting, but once again for a film which doesn’t deserve it. The film, in `do lafz’ ( two words) : sorry schmaltz.

Bollywood seems to be enamoured by Korean films of late. Do Lafzon Ki Kahani is a Hindi remake of a Korean film too. Incidentally, the protagonist here bears an uncanny resemblance to a hooded John Abraham's mysterious character in Rocky Handsome, which was also a Korean remake. Unfortunately, this film is as lacklustre as the John starrer. Set in Malaysia, Deepak Tijori's clean and old school take on romance is refreshing in times of Hindi cinema riding high on PDA. But endearing it fails to be. While Marathi blockbuster Sairat nailed that raw emotion and beautifully portrayed what falling in love feels like, Tijori's drama falls short of achieving that feat. His characters cease to be interesting beyond a point. Randeep still manages to infuse life into his brooding character in an understated way. Guilt-ridden and bruised, he essays his role with conviction. He's a fine actor and deserves better. Also, too many cliches muddle the story, for instance opposites attract. He is a boxer, she likes Hindi daily soaps. She talks, he listens and her optimism overcomes his sadness. But none of this makes you feel for the characters. Pace is another issue. The story crawls to its conclusion sluggishly. Tijori's film has its moments but it's way too tedious to be called Do Lafzon Ki Kahani.