14 Phere

The new Zee 5 original 14 Phere had this scope to be that entertainer dealing with caste-based injustices happening in the country. But this movie directed by Devanshu Singh (who co-directed Chintu Ka Birthday) has no real aspirations to create an impact. The caste angle just becomes another trope they use to create a conflict in the story. Eventually, it becomes just another confusion-comedy with familiar ingredients. And thanks to the performers, it wasn’t becoming boring.

Sanjay and Aditi were together in college, and they fell in love with each other. After college, they are both in a live-in relationship, and their parents don’t know that. Because of the caste issue, both of them were clueless about presenting the relationship in front of their families. In the midst of that, Sanjay comes up with the idea of arranging fake family members and conducting two marriage ceremonies for both families. How the execution of that idea goes is what we see in the movie 14 Phere.

As a one-liner, it is that Priyadarshan comedy kind of scenario. But the issue is that we have seen a zillion versions of this. The fleshing out process of the concept to paper is done in a very usual way. You don’t feel any sort of excitement or curiosity on how the two will pull this off. The tension you see on Vikrant Massey’s face is the only tension you get to witness in this tale that deals with intercaste marriage set in North India. Writer Manoj Kalwani tries to create a conflict between the lead pair to make it a little more intricate, but he quickly gives up on that idea.

This sweet chemistry between Vikrant Massey and Kriti Kharbanda makes some of the moments in the movie enjoyable. Vikrant gets into the skin of the character and portrays the love and desperations very impressively. I loved how he performed in that scene where his sister called him. Kriti fumbles a bit in some of those emotional sequences that happen in the movie’s later stages. Gauhar Khan at times loses grip over her eccentric character. Yamini Das, once again as Vikrant’s on-screen mother after Haseen Dillruba, performed the role of the mother in a really memorable way.

The story here is playing it safe by creating typical and predictable humor around a sensitive subject. A satirical approach towards something like inter-caste marriage would have been a more effective method, but as I said, 14 Phere from Devanshu Singh has no such aspirations. It just wants to be a table profit movie that has a hero, heroine, dance, song, confusion, and chaos. The romantic tracks in the film were soothing. The movie’s visual language follows this glossy, bright nature, perhaps to cheer you all in these days of lockdown.

14 Phere is a harmless romantic comedy that never really becomes memorable. The shooting of the movie happened during the pandemic, and I am assuming it was created for OTT out of the urge for some sort of content. 14 Phere belongs to that “watch, smile, and forget” category of movies. I hope my struggle to find something to talk about the movie in this whole review gives you an idea about the usualness of this film.