One of the most awaited films of the year – Kangana Ranaut’s Simran – turned out to be a childish attempt at recreating Queen and then forgetting that most people might have already seen the film. Kangana may be a superstar due to her successful films but when it comes to meddling with the script and trying to go the Amitabh Bachchan way, she fails miserably and so does the movie.

The movie is based on the adventures of a real-life Indian-American Sandeep Kaur, who robbed banks to pay debts; here Praful Patel (Kangana) does the same and gets away with it until the police find out her identity and the mob is after her for the money she took. Praful’s family, friends and even fiancé tell her to return and surrender, but when you can get easy money from the bank, who cares!

For someone who is shown to have been living in America for at least 10 years, Kangana’s character hasn’t learned anything at all. She accepts a huge amount of money from a stranger without realising that she might have to return it someday; she works in the hotel industry yet is as naïve as an Indian going to America for the first time. We don’t get to know much about her first husband (she is a divorcee) and her accent doesn’t change despite spending so much time in the US. Kangana gives a lackluster performance, considering she is playing a 31-year-old which is a time when NRIs mature, rather than lose their minds.

Hansal Mehta’s direction, as well as the updated screenplay by Kangana Ranaut are the things that pull down an otherwise likable film. The director seems confused as to which genre his film belonged to because there are hints of comedy here and there, overshadowed by drama, romance, action, suspense, and heist. Despite the brilliant marketing strategy undertaken by the film’s lead where she accused a few men in her life of using her, Simran falls flat, and you can add Hansal Mehta to Kangana’s list of ‘users’, for he thought of banking on Queen’s success and failed miserably. •