Close on the heels of Bhootnath, comes yet another high- profile film full of fantasy, magic, kids and family values. Producer-director Kunal Kohli (of Hum Tum and Fanaa-fame!) teams up with Yashraj Films; picks up 4 nice kids and his favourite star-pair of Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukherjee and then fits them into a self-written modern-day-fairy tale inspired by a host of Hollywood hits like Sound Of Music, Mary Poppins, Bewitched and Nanny McPhee. What he succeeds in making is a fairly enjoyable and formulaic family entertainer but what he fails to do is to give it a fresh, original, funny and emotionally satisfying perspective.

The plot goes like this: Saif plays a high-flying business tycoon who has been a reticent loner since his childhood. While driving back to his palatial home after winning yet another of his countless awards, his car bangs into another car and the accident ends up killing a young couple. The judge (Sharad Saxena) then comes up with a unique sentence whereby he tells the guilty rich young man to take over the complete responsibility of 4 kids left behind by the dead couple! He is given a three month deadline to win over the kids and prove to the court that he would be their ideal guardian- otherwise a 20-year prison-term is in the offing!

He, along with his dumb bimbo girlfriend (Amisha Patel) struggles to win over the hearts of the kids, who are quietly determined to be as nasty and as unfriendly as they could ever be. After all, for them he is their parents’ killer and he must go to jail! But the God in the heavens has his own ways and He (played by the bearded Rishi Kapoor) decides that a fun-loving angel (Rani Mukherjee) would be sent to earth in order to end this war, which is making the poor kids more miserable. Thus enters a smiling, bubbling fairy-turned-nanny who would use magical powers at the drop of the hat and make things right between the feuding parties! Of course, in due course, she would also find the earthly way of life- with its fair share of crying and romancing- to be charmingly enticing!

The story follows a predictable picture-book route and at no point, we feel surprised by the turn of the events. It fails to develop subtle nuances for any of the characters and the events plotted to separate these characters or bring them together are plain sketchy. The syrupy, goody-goody superficial story thus fails to make you emotionally connect with the protagonists.

Technically the film is excellent. The look of the film is bright and colorful; the special effects are A-1 and the songs are well-choreographed. The widely promoted  item-song Lazy Lamhen is hot with plenty of underwater antics of Saif and Amisha but it just seems like a commercially minded patchy addition of ‘adult’ material into this film catering mainly to kids and families! Especially the story- sequence built around that song seems to be totally unconvincing!

Amongst the performances, Saif and Rani justify their top billing with good performances but they are both severely hampered by lack of good material. So in most of the film, Saif has to act stern and harassed and Rani has to appear all-knowing with a perpetual smile! If I remember right then, this movie must be Saif’s first serious foray into the Sallu-territory of showing off his bare torso at every given opportunity.  In terms of body- baring, Amisha goes even one (or should I say ten?) step ahead and her skimpy outfits are eye-popping. She even proves to be quite funny as the dumb and ultimately dispensable girl-friend. The 4 kids look cute, have some fun-moments and do their best but once again, the lack of well-written scenes comes in their way of making better impressions but the veteran Rishi Kapoor manages to leave a mark even in his brief cameo!

Thoda Pyar Thoda Magic is fine for good and clean family-fun, a perfect choice for a Sunday evening out but I wish the film-maker had given more thought to writing the story and the scenes a good deal better!