Bollywood director David Dhawan has lifted an entertaining Hollywood romantic comedy Hitch (2005) and turned it into a pathetic, unwatchable nightmare called Partner.

Outstandingly executed, Hitch was an amazingly funny movie featuring strong performances by Will Smith (as the Date Doctor Alex Hitch), Eva Mendes (in the role of gossip columnist Sara Melas) and Kevin James (as Albert Brennaman in love with a heiress).

Gosh, there were so many memorable scenes in Hitch - Will Smith teaching Kevin James the 90-10 Kiss Rule, Kevin James teaching Amber Valletta to whistle at the basket ball match, Kevin James' weird dancing and so many more.

Partner does not have a single memorable scene in 153 minutes. Just excruciating agony. Zero entertainment value.

Partner provides as much entertainment as an overflowing municipal garbage truck rolling down smaller Indian cities. In short, Partner stinks.

Partner fails at every imaginable level - acting, screenplay, editing, music and above all directing.

Salman Khan and Govinda are no patches on Will Smith and Kevin James respectively. Doing similar roles, Salman Khan and Govinda come across as rank amateurs with their unpolished performances cheating Bollywood fans of any hope of entertainment.

Playing a bumbling, accident-prone finance executive in love with the very rich owner of his company, Kevin James' electrifying performance was a treat to watch. Cast in a similar role in Partner, Govinda is an unbearable agony to behold.

Most of our Bollywood stars have grown fat on the money and pay little attention to their craft. Except in Bollywood, acting is serious business everywhere else.

Our Bollywood bozos think acting is a picnic and the results show on the screen!

The less said about Katrina Kaif's non-acting the better. This London lass is an affront to all notions of acting.

While Lara Dutta's acting does not in any way rise to the level of Eva Mendes, we felt she was the best of the worst. Unfortunately, Lara Dutta does not have as elaborate a role as Eva Mendes in Hitch.

Hitch succeeded primarily because of the fine performances by the lead actors and careful attention given to the screenplay. In contrast, Partner comes across as a rushed affair although this dreary movie is 2 hours and 23 minutes long.

The comedy scenes involving Rajpal Yadav as the Chota Don are completely bizarre and just don't fit into the rest of the movie at all. What was the director thinking, that is if he was thinking at all?

Chota Don's sudden appearances and disappearing acts led us to harbor serious doubts as to whether Partner went through any editing process.

Even by the lowly standards of David Dhawan's movies, there are too many logic gaps in Partner. For instance, the missile following Salman Khan on his water scooter, some 15-20 minutes into the movie, was utter baloney.

Partner's story closely follows that of Hitch, except in the attention to execution.

A young Date Doctor or Love Guru (in Partner) is in the business of helping young men to win over the woman of their dreams. Then you have the gossip columnist of a local daily, the rich heiress and her bumbling admirer.

Where careful attention was lavished in developing the character of the Date Doctor in Hitch, very little thought has gone into fleshing out the role of the Love Guru in Partner.

Partner's music is clearly not for the ages and just a few notches above cacophony. Do you wana Partner and Maria, Maria were two of the better songs.

If you thought David Dhawan's previous movies Shaadi No. 1, Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya and Mujhse Shaadi Karogi were horrible, you ain't seen nothing till you watch this awful horror-show called Partner.

It's a shame that Bollywood directors are unable to deliver decent entertainment even after lifting story lines from successful Hollywood movies.

Well, we guess even copying requires a modicum of talent. No one ever accused Bollywood directors like David Dhawan of possessing oodles of that precious thing called talent.

Hitch oozes class all over while Partner is crass from the first frame to the last.

Partner is the usual Bollywood saga of confusion and incompetence. Watch this clumsily inept movie at your peril. ... More ... Collapse

Director David Dhawan is back in business with Partner. Or so it would seem by the amount of laughs his nonsensical caper generates. Dhawan has been sorely missed by audiences. The director seemed to have misplaced his funny bone in the last few years after giving audiences films like Deewana Mastana, Bade Miyan, Chhote Miyan and Haseena Maan Jayegi among others. But it seems that with Partner, he is coming back to doing what he does best, churning out nonsensical films like the current one.
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The film, starring Salman Khan and Govinda, is full paisa vasool one could say. The movie is a take off on the Hollywood film Hitch starring Will Smith. Actually, it would make more sense to say that it is David Dhawan's take on the film. In Dhawan's hands, the original is shred of its intelligence quotient and what we have instead is Salman Khan, the love-guru, and Govinda, his client, running amok for two odd hours. You definitely need to leave your thinking cap back at home to enjoy their comic antics. It is not the most high-brow kind of comedy. The film is replete with gags and jokes on gays and everyone else as well, one-liners and similar nonsensical fare.

Dhawan really doesn't need a script as such. Not when you have a Govinda and a Salman. But there is nevertheless still a story in place. Salman is Prem, the loveguru, or your modern day matchmaker. Bhaskar Diwakar Chaudhary (Govinda) is a bumbling middleclass, guy, who works in this multinational and has fallen in love with his beautiful boss, Priya (Katrina Kaif). He turns to Loveguru for help. However, Prem refuses to help him as he is an impossible case. Priya and Bhaskar are too different. But Bhaskar wins him over with his persistence. Meanwhile, Prem himself falls in love with a tabloid reporter Naina (Lara Dutta), a single mother with a precocious kid. The reporter is constantly chasing and being chased by Chhota Don (Rajpal Yadav), in a take-off on Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan's Don.

That is the premise on which the entire film is based. What really makes this film work is the onscreen chemistry between Salman and Govinda. The duo are a class apart. The contrast between their acting styles and their personas is what makes the jodi work. Salman continues to do what he does best, which is, strut around with his superbly sculpted body and play the hero. Govinda provides the ideal contrast with his tapori style. After a long time, the actor seems to be in fine nick. Even if does go over the top in places, it kind of works out fine as the entire film goes overboard. I mean, where else would you find a seven-year-old kid making a voice-activated missile, which is set off by mistake by Bhaskar and almost ends up killing Prem. Incidentally, the kid, Prem's nephew, makes a disappearing act after this and is never mentioned in the film thereafter. Then there is the Chhota Don, who behaves most un-Don like. He gets bashed up by everybody. Like we said before, it makes no sense to try and make sense of the nonsense that takes place in the world of Prem and Bhaskar and their rest of their ilk in Partner. As for the women in the film, Lara and Katrina, they have little to do other than look beautiful. And they do.

The film's pace is fine. Things just keep happening. It's just towards the end that the film gives the impression of being stretched unnecessarily. The entire honeymoon sequence could have been shorter. It just goes on and on and does become a little predictable. The soundtrack of the film composed by Sajid-Wajid is quite like the film itself. Time pass music at its best. But the title track, 'Do You Wanna Partner,' and 'Dupatta Tera Nau Rang Da,' stand out.

Coming back to the actors, the evergreen Salman Khan is a pleasure to watch. Full marks to Govinda, despite being and looking obese and middleaged, he matches Salman step for step. Special mention must be made of the child actor who plays Lara's son in the film. He puts in a very natural performance and it helps that he looks cute as well.

Partner is worth a watch for laughs. Dhawan succeeds to an extent with the film. It could have done with a little more control and some serious editing. But the Salman and Govinda jodi truly rocks. The partnership works well for the film. ... More ... Collapse

As stupid as this movie was, I still loved it! Salman Khan was great and Govinda, as much as I detest him, was actually entertaining for a change. ... Collapse