Is Dileep stretching his luck too far? This is the question that haunts one's mind as the lights come on after watching his latest offering, July 4 (the Date of Love).

It is understandable that he would want to release his films on the fourth of July ever since his film Meesa Madhavan [Images] became a huge hit (it was also released on July 4). But to name a film after the date with what can be called as an excuse of a screenplay is surely stretching it too far.

When someone depends just on luck, without seemingly putting in any effort to achieve success, it creates a kind of revulsion in us. That is what happens with this film.

The excuse of a screenplay by Sibi K Thomas-Uday Krishna has layers and layers of flashback that make us feel as if we are peeling an onion! The story of Gokul Das (Dileep) is inspired from a number of films beginning with the Mani Ratnam classic Nayagan to numerous nondescript films of recent and not so recent past, with a song popping up at regular intervals as if to give respite to the harried viewers from the humdrum proceedings.

Gokul Das is a former gangster of Mumbai who runs away after killing the policeman who had raped and murdered his mother in the police station. He becomes a taxi driver in Coimbatore when Mumbai becomes the encounter city after the serial bomb blasts. From here he somehow becomes a private driver and starts singing and dancing with his partner, Sreepriya (Roma).

To make things more confusing our man narrates these events to the jailer (Innocent) of the Central Jail where he is serving a three-year term for stabbing a senior police officer.

Only the performances are the saving grace of the film. Dileep looks sincere as if this is the classiest film of his career. Same goes for Roma who in her first outing after Notebook looks like a pretty doll and acts like one, all saccharine sweet and na�ve. Innocent as the jailer is not his typical self, which is quite refreshing and surprising (how one wishes that the same was true with the film too).

Dileep in partnership with veteran director Joshiy and his trusted writers has tried to make a please-all fare, which on the contrary pleases none.

Rediff Rating: