Raat Gayi Baat Gayi?

Raat Gayi Baat Gayi is a movie about the difficulties of people who are rich, honest, good looking and are in stable relationships. What difficulties, you say? Oh, you have no idea how trying it is to be left out by the rest of the population without food / job / spouse / sexy spouse. So, what does one do when there is no real reason to be miserable - make some up, simple!

Rahul (bearded and older looking Rajat Kapoor) and Mitali (Iravati Harshe), an urban, early middle-aged couple, go to this party with friends, good music, gallons of alcohol, and many pretty young things they could both potentially hit on (yes, that's what years of marriage does to these people - they stop thinking of the consequences!).

A stunning-looking Sophia (Neha Dhupia) catches Rahul's eye, and soon, the two are having their own little game, all the while Rahul assuring her that he is a safe guy! He follows her around, fetches her drinks, makes whisper-conversations into her ear, manages to get into a spare room with her, and is obviously too drunk to think about getting caught at that point (statutory warning: Scenes performed by professionals in the movie, not advisable to even try to replicate in real life circumstances!).

The next morning, Rahul wakes up to find Mitali in a bad mood, and like most experienced husbands and peace loving folk, he assumes it is because of something he did (or didn't do). He also realizes he cannot remember anything of the previous night, beyond taking Sophia into a room with him ("Drat, one fling in 14 years and I cannot even remember that!").

Believing that he could have performed with Sophia after 8 rounds of single-malt (oh you know what we mean… No? Oh well, we're saying it just this once: saying "red blood blue blood" 20 times and thumping your chest and yeowing like Tarzan!), and also afraid that he might have with slept her, Rahul wants to know what exactly happened in the party.

Friends Amit (Vinay Pathak) and Saxena (Dalip Tahil) try to drill sense into him - he is no superman to do it after so much alcohol, and even sex seems a remote possibility! After some effort Rahul gets to meet Sophia to try and figure out what happened at all. There is some Priyadarshan like 'everyone-gets-into-the-same-room-in-the-end' kind of a scene where it becomes clear that alcohol is no health drink.

The movie is light-hearted without actually being funny. The premise about one-night stands is targeted at the multiplex audience, but there have already been enough movies about post-marriage sexual liberation, so there is nothing really new here. The little twist at the end comes too late for you to really sit-up and take notice.

The story is narrated through a series of flashes about Rahul post the party and in the party itself. The pace is leisurely, and at the end, there are things that really do not matter to the main story. The by-story of Amit being thrown out by his wife because he watches porn, and their eventual patch up, is rather bland. Sofia's character has about as much depth as the length of her clothes.

The actors are all good, though Rajat Kapoor looks tired sometimes; the women look good, and Neha Dhupia, in clothes that apparently belong to the director's 3-year-old grandchild, looks hot; Ranvir Shorey is good in his little cameo. The music by Ankur Tewari is hummable and suitably westernized to match the feel of the movie, which is slick in an understated way.

Final word: the movie offers you a few laughs, but do not expect great surprises or anything you did not know before.