An old adulterated wine that too in an old cork less bottle. That's what Dharmesh Darshan offers you in his new film Dhadkan. And you are sure to miss many dhadkans out of boredom after consuming this one. A hapless potpourri of Hindi movies of the 60's, Dhadkan doesn't even rise a shade above mediocrity. Though Dharmesh Darshan has delivered some successful remakes like Raja Hindustani this time his attempt falls bang on the floor.

The story is as jaundiced as dilapidated bananas lying on your refrigerator top for long. A gareeb ladka, Dev (Sunil Shetty) and a bade baap ki beti, Anjali (Shilpa Shetty) madly in love with each other, are disjointed by the baap for the gareeb ladke's obsession with is Kolhapuri Chappals with a hole (and now that turns you mad). The beti is forced to marry a Maryada Purshottam, Ram (Akshay Kumar) whose goodness eventually make Anjali fall madly in love with him (It takes about three years though for Anjali to go mad twice) And bingo! in these three years our gareeb ladka turns into Koradpati business tycoon (you probably will have to win every time Amitabh Bachchan tries to lock your answer for the next three years in 'Kaun Banega Koradpati' to reach somewhere near to the Rs. 500 Crores of wealth Dev earns with not even 50 paise in his pocket when his mad love leaves him at the altar of her father's rants. And even if you succeed Mr. Amitabh Bachchan will never bestow you with a gorgeous business partner that our gareeb turned ameer ladka manages to get out of his Mehnat. Isn't that a lesson now)

Dev returns with a vengeance and venom worth Rs. 500 Crores dispatching Ram & Co. in to Vanvaas (to his driver's house actually) and just when Dev thinks that his Kohlapuri Chappals have eventually scored a victory, the goodness of Ram cast a kind of sudden turnaround in Dev's attitude and he calls truce and allows the story to reach the obvious outcome.

On performance front except Sunil Shetty, every one including the always-impressive Sharmila Tagore delivered a lazy pudding like performances. When there is no use of brawns, Akshay Kumar is a trauma. Shilpa Shetty never seems to be improving and on top of it you wonder why she chose to wear white shades all through out he film. Sunil Shetty gives yet another convincing performance but he does need an improvement in exuding emotions. The songs are hummable but their incongruous placement all throughout the movie frets you.

Bollywood Directors have an uncanny knack of symbolizing something in their movies, be it the infamous clichés of Shakti Kapoor, the "Kutte, Kamine…" of Dharam Paji, the rolling of finger rings of Mogambo etc., Dharmesh Darshan sets an altogether new paradigm by symbolizing Kohlapuri Chappals with a hole. That's an achievement in itself; howsoever insipid the movie may turn out to be. Now whichever way you see it, half empty or half filled.