Rating: _**

Himesh plays Himesh, India’s biggest rockstar. On a three-city tour in Germany, Himesh takes up residence in Heidelberg, a small town where most of the population appears to be Hindi-speaking Indians, including but not limited to three Mumbai rickshaw drivers, autos and all. While prepping for his gig, Himesh meets Ria (Hansika Motwani), an event manager who refrains from managing much of anything save for her affair with the man himself. On the night HR finally proposes to her, he celebrates by drinking for the first time in his life. The next day he finds himself accused of molesting and murdering a reporter.

The mystery of whether he did it is resolved in the climax, but far more important things are revealed: why he never gets the girl (he never asked), why he wears the cap (he’s possibly balding, since when he does take his cap off, we never see his entire head) and why he doesn’t smile. The reason Himesh doesn’t so much as move a facial muscle, not even by way of an unintended twitch, is because he can’t. It’s not so much that Himesh can’t act – that would have been silly to expect, specially since most of the industry’s actors can’t either – but that he appears to be carved entirely out of stone. So lacking is Reshammiya in presence that you find yourself searching the frame for a sign of him, settling finally on assuming that he must lie somewhere beneath that cap and coat.

What could have been a joyous romp, filled with fun and one-liners like the brilliant “agar naak kat gaya toh gayega kaise?” is instead a heavy-handed thriller-romance that fails to thrill or arouse any sympathy for HR and Ria’s love. Leo Mirani