There is something to be said for YRF’s cultural bankruptcy when a wafer-thin plot from the formula that made it a powerhouse in the last century is resurrected in 2011. ‘Mere Brother Ki Dulhan’ borders on self-parody in many ways: an NRI brother (Ali Zafar) in London breaks up with his girlfriend, calls up his brother (Imran Khan) insisting that must be married to a good Indian girl by Christmas, the brother goes on a bride-hunt only to realize that the prospective bride (Katrina Kaif), the daughter of an Indian Foreign Services officer (which, I suppose, justifies Katrina’s strange Hindi accent in the Kaif-Kalki era of exotic heroines), is someone he had met as a wild gal who held impromptu concerts to a throng of frenzied fans from greater Agra.
All other props that entail the great Indian wedding are then thrown in: Kanwaljeet and Parikshit Sahni and their respective spouses play the in-laws-to-be; North Indian bumchums from the protagonist’s childhood hang around; a naaniji in a wheelchair glides by every now and then. The bride-to-be even has a demented brother (modelled on Dustin Hoffman in ‘Rainman’/Tom Hanks in ‘Forrest Gump’), who perennially holds a Rubik’s cube in his hand and repeats his sentences in a hackneyed staccato.