As rain leaks through cracks in the ceiling, our shirtless hero scampers around looking for a dry spot to protect his beloved TV set, covering it with his bony frame all the while.

Okay folks, for that scene alone executed brilliantly by Vijay Raaz (the marigold eating Dubey of Monson Wedding) this film is worth watching. If there is one film I could recommend to readers through this column, this year, it would be actor/director Rajat Kapoor's Raghu Romeo.  

Raghu Romeo is a depiction of the new Indian condition, detailing the whimsy, intolerance, and shallow cable-TV and Bollywood fueled fantasies that fuel our nation. A clueless misfit, Raghu (Vijay Raaz), who lives with his abusive mother and works for a tyrant, finds love in unlikely places. He feels tenderly towards bar dancer Sweety (Saadiya Siddiqui) who may be inclined to give him a chance. But Raghu adores soap opera character Neetaji (Maria Goretti) to the point of obsession.  He weaves elaborate fantasies about her and loses himself in Neetaji-centered reverie at the most inopportune times. Raghu's involvement with the TV soap opera Dard Ka Rishta is so intense that he loses touch with reality and mouths the inane lines delivered by Neetaji as gospel.

To complete the confusion there is the underworld hit man Mario aka Brother (Saurabh Shukla) who has a yen for Sweety and employs Raghu as his driver while he goes on contract killing sprees.

When Raghu realizes that his beloved Neetaji is herself the target of Mario's next supari contract, he kidnaps her for her protection. Raghu holds her in a little cottage that belongs to Sweety.  Neetaji, he soon realizes is a foul-mouthed diva spoilt to the core. But Raghu's devotion to her never wavers.  Soon Mario and Sweety are in the cottage and mayhem ensues.

This charming, unconventionally structured gem of a film was shot by Kapoor in 40 days flat.  Raaz's Raghu is sweetly ridiculous and while we laugh at his unwitting simplicity, we never stop rooting for him. Surekha Sikri is brilliant as Raghu's non-traditioanl Bollywood ma who is continually dope-slapping Raghu and cursing him out for being a numskill. Saurabh Shukla plays the cute and chubby hit-man brilliantly.  Goretti and Siddiqui deliver energetic performaces as the female leads, playing the archetypes of  Mumbai feminity: the star and the bar girl.

The director Rajat Kapoor is an alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). He is actively involved with theatre, acting (Monsoon Wedding and Dil Chaahta Hai among others) modeling on both TV and film besides film making. Raghu Romeo is his second feature film following Private Detective.

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