It's like the mirror universe version of "Jab We Met."

 Uday Chopra is the youngest son of legendary Bollywood director Yash Chopra, and he has a number of credits as a writer, assistant director, and producer.  As an actor he is probably best known for his role as Ali Khan, the comedic sidekick in the Dhoom series.  But there was a brief time in the early 2000's when people were really trying hard to make "Uday Chopra, romantic hero" happen.  And that's how Neal 'n' Nikki (2005) happened.

Neal (Uday Chopra) is an enthusiastic athlete and self-proclaimed "super star" leading a contented life on his family's horse ranch in Canada. Neal loves the ladies and leads a very active social life, but when his parents start pressuring him to agree to an arranged marriage, he's happy to go along with it; as he explains to his stereotypically henpecked friends, he has terrible taste in women and he trusts his parents' judgement.  (Does this movie lean heavily into skeezy "women you date vs. women you marry" tropes?  Enthusiastically.)  After a few false starts, his parents arrange a match with Good Indian Girl Sweety (Richa Pallod), and Neal is . . . reasonably pleased.  However, he asks permission to spend the twenty one days before the engagement in Vancouver, so that he can have a little fun.

Of course, when Neal says he wants to have a little fun, he means women.  His plan is to meet twenty one women, one for each remaining night of unmarried life, and he starts off strong, almost accidentally scoring a date with famous model Kristy (Kristy McQuade).  (Does this movie also lean heavily into the all too common Bollywood trope that white women are just there to be objectified?  Oh yes.)

It's on that date that Neal meets bartender Nikki (Tanisha Mukherji), and she's . . . awful.  Loud, obnoxious, aggressive, and very drunk.  She's also just been fired, and celebrates her unemployment by dancing on the tables.  Neal is suddenly paying a lot of attention, which gives Abhishek Bachchan the opening to swoop in and take Kristy away.  By this point Nikki is very drunk indeed, and she asks Neal to take her home.  He doesn't know where she lives, so he takes her to a nearby hotel, the Thorny Rhino, and . . . 

Okay, nothing happens.  Nikki falls asleep, and Neal leaves her alone.  We're supposed to think that this show's Neal's inner core of nobility, but he still took an obviously intoxicated woman to a hotel room - way to show the bare minimum of human decency at the last possible minute, Neal.  

Of course, this is a sex comedy, so thanks to a series of unfortunate events Neal is naked and standing beside the sleeping Nikki when the police arrive to raid the hotel.  The misunderstandings are eventually cleared up, and Neal and Nikki go their separate ways.  Neal continues his quest while Nikki goes back to drinking and bouncing from one job to another.  (Does the movie ever confront the issue of Nikki's obvious drinking problem?  It does not.  We're supposed to find it quirky.)

Once again, sex comedy, so every time Neal looks like he's about to achieve his goal, he's interrupted.  By Nikki.  Along the way, they get to know each other a bit better, and Nikki offers to take him to a small resort which is full of beautiful women.  Neal agrees, which means it's time for a road trip.  And whenever the hero and heroine take a road trip together in a Bollywood movie, they are bound to grow closer.

Of course it's a trick - Nikki wants Neal to help her make her ex boyfriend Trish (Alexandre Montez) jealous.  Naturally, they do that by staging a mid-nineties Bollywood romantic song and dance number, and the movie briefly becomes entertaining. Nikki wins Trish back, then dumps him, getting the closure that she needs.  She takes Neal to a bizarre midsummer Christmas party to repay the debt, and that's when they realize that they love each other after all.  They spend the night together, and after an awkward morning after Nikki preemptively dumps Neal before he can reject her, not realizing that he's about to propose.  After a bitter argument they go their separate ways.

Neal returns home and finally meets his fiance Sweety, along with Sweety's family, including her cousin Nikki.  The movie is no longer a sex comedy, it's a straight romance. Will Nikki and Neal be able to overcome their differences and unite, finally becoming the Neal 'n' Nikki that they were clearly meant to be?  Probably, but they're not very likeable, so at this point in the movie I was much more invested in the romantic travails of incredibly minor character Happy (Gaurav Gera), who's spent most of his limited screen-time singing traditional Punjabi songs in the background.  Can Happy be happy with the sweet girl of his dreams?  Hopefully!  And Neal and Nikki are there too, I guess.