Pooja Entertainment and Dinesh Jain’s Dil Juunglee (UA) is a love story.
Sumit Uppal (Saqib Saleem) is a trainer in a gymnasium and aspires to be a film actor. He meets Koroli Nair (Taapsee Pannu) who is an English teacher. Sumit joins her classes to learn to speak good English. The two soon grow fond of one another and fall in love with each other. Koroli, especially, is smitten by him.
One day, Koroli and her two friends – Shumi (Sristi Shrivastava) and Geetika (Ayesha Kaduskar) – go for a picnic with Sumit and his friend, Prashant (Abhilash Thapliyal). In a freak accident, Koroli falls into a lake but Sumit is unable to save her from drowning because of his fear of water. Even otherwise, Koroli and her two friends realise that Sumit is very self-centred. Despite that, Koroli agrees to marry Sumit but minutes before the marriage is to be solemnised, she understands that Sumit is not happy about marrying her. One of the reasons is that Sumit doesn’t find her suitable enough. However, when Koroli realises that Sumit will not take the drastic step, she herself calls off the marriage. The two part ways.
Koroli returns to England and joins her father’s business, something which she never fancied. Her father fixes her marriage with Jai Singh Rathod (Santosh Barmola), a rich young man. In India, Sumit becomes an actor but manages to get work in inconsequential films only. He is now close to Ayesha Pathak (Nidhi Singh), his co-star.
His shooting takes Sumit to England one day. Accompanying him is co-star Ayesha. Sumit, quite by chance, meets Koroli there and realises that she is a new and super-confident girl now. Sumit and Ayesha also meet Koroli’s fiancé, Jai. Sparks fly between Sumit and Koroli.
What happens thereafter? Does Koroli marry Sumit or Jai?
Aleya Sen, Tonoya Sen Sharma and Shiv Singh have written a story which does not have even a hint of newness. Stories like this have been seen in umpteen earlier films. The trio’s screenplay fails to engage the audience because of several reasons – lack of novelty; humour that does not appeal; no emotional connection with Sumit and Koroli. How Koroli agrees to marry Sumit soon after feeling let down by his absence to save her from drowning in the lake, is not clear. The audience simply doesn’t root for the two lovers – not when they are together, and not even when they part ways. In other words, the viewers couldn’t really care about whether or not Koroli and Sumit would unite in matrimony. Even the climax is so weak that it simply fails to emotionally move the audience. Dialogues, written by the three, are average.
Taapsee Pannu acts well in the role of Koroli Nair. Her costumes are pretty. Saqib Saleem is fair as Sumit Uppal. Santosh Barmola looks quite nice as Jai Singh Rathod. His performance, in a comparatively brief role, is alright. Nidhi Singh leaves a mark as Ayesha Pathak. Sristi Shrivastava has her cute moments as Shumi. Abhilash Thapliyal is okay in the role of Sumit’s friend, Prashant. Ayesha Kaduskar is quite effective as Geetika. Shilpa Shukla acts ably as Sumit’s mother. Ishtiyak Khan (as Sumit’s secretary, Tinku), Sanjeev Jaiswal (as middleman Doga) and Daljeet Singh (as Koroli’s overweight boyfriend) lend decent support. Lvye Arora (as Porus), Krishan Tandon (as Koroli’s father), Tina Harris (as Koroli’s mother), Suresh Sippy (as Jai’s father), Sandeep Garcha (as Jai’s mother) and the others provide ordinary support.
Aleya Sen’s direction is immature. Music (Guru Randhawa, Tanishk Bagchi, Shaarib-Toshi and Abhishek Arora) is good but not popular. Lyrics (Guru Randhawa, Neeti Mohan, Tanishk Bagchi, Vayu, Dr. Devendra Kafir and Abhiruchi Chand) are of a decent standard. Song picturisations (by Uma Gaiti and Salman Yusuf Khan) are fairly nice. Abhishek Arora’s background music is ordinary. Amol Rathod’s cinematography is quite appealing. Manohar Verma’s action and stunts are functional. Durgaprasad Mahapatra’s production designing and Anupamey Sawale’s art direction are very nice. Dev Jadhav’s editing is ordinary.
On the whole, Dil Juunglee will spell disaster at the box-office because it is devoid of entertainment or novelty.