Oh Romeo Romeo, wherefore art though? Forget Shakespeare and all his spin-offs. Forget even Baz Luhrman’s Romeo & Juliet on steroids.

Roadside Romeo is the coolest wham. What’s it about? Well….it’s a bout of a pout and a bit of a kick, a wacky whammy romance between two savvy wunder-dogs thrown our way in a casual chic manner that makes the animation characters seem like replicas of their potboiler avatars from feature films.

Maybe the plot should’ve been less formulistic to go with the innovative format and genre. Nonetheless this has got to be the most urbane and coolest take on the rights and wrongs of that thingy called love-shove.

First things first. So far animation films in India have been mainly restricted to revisionist interpretations of the mythologicals. In Roadside Romeo, director Jugal Hansraj goes for the jugular, and the jocular. The story of a rich no-thank-you-mansion-not canine from the well-to-do part of the city and the slum (and need we add, slim since it’s Kareena behind the mike?) seductress Laila is peppered with every ingredient that makes an alluring entertainer.

The main voices are used to telling advantage. Saif scores subtle points over Kareena whose dubbing tends to veer towards boredom. But then she is the blasé seductress, isn’t she? But it is Javed Jaffry a seasoned voice-ourvre brings great vigour and vivacity to the slum-lord’s role.

There are the non-primary characters too, giving the central romance a catchily cute spin without taking the slim narrative to an over-the-top stratosphere. Most important of all, the quality of animation and the detailing that has gone behind its execution are exemplary. We really haven’t seen anything like this in Hindi. The songs, dialogues, action and reaction add up to quite a fun-filled festival of swirling colours and dancing divas, devas and devils.

Roadside Romeo is a smartly-executed piece of slip-in-slip-out cinema. Ideal popcorn-khao-ghar-jao entertainment during this festive season which kids will enjoy and the grownups will giggle about.