To be fair to the lead actor Shahid Kapur, he is trying hard enough to seem his whole career depends on this film. At the end of it, he even lists for the audience all the things he’s done in the movie: basically fought with the villain, danced with the item girl, romanced the heroine, done comedy, gone through emotional scenes, bashed up the goons, even saved the city of Mumbai, if you like. Truly, what else do you want? A headache pill perhaps.
This hero in the picture wants to be a star in Bollywood. His mother wants him to be an honest cop. Why? It’s got something to do with his father having been a corrupt thanedar. Son moves to Mumbai to try his luck as an actor. In a strange quirk of journalism where a major city daily, DNA, outsources its photo department to a local photo studio, the hero appears wearing a cop’s uniform in the newspaper. His proud mother comes over from the village after this news. The son has to put up a facade of being a policeman, when he is actually a struggling actor. Some of these bits are quite funny. Far from a comedy, this movie is a cacophony for the most part.
Rajkumar Santoshi is the director. Santoshi’s Andaaz Apna Apna remains still one of the most hilarious madcap Hindi comedies ever made. Salman Khan makes a cameo here suggesting that he may have to work with Aamir Khan again on Andaaz Apna Apna 2. If this is the form the filmmaker is in, one hopes that the sequel never gets made.
The film is produced by TIPS. The music company specialises in making films merely as an excuse for putting together a popular soundtrack. Their formula is pretty simple: deliver a good looking star and lots of songs, the audience will buy. They usually do. The phata poster the hero land up from in this film is that of Ajab Prem Ki Gazab Kahani, which I didn’t care for much, though it was a big hit. Several TIPS films have been deemed as huge money spinners on the weekend of their release: Ramaiya Vastavaiya, Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya, etc. You don’t recognise these titles anymore. They were forgotten by the end of the week. Everyone still remembers Santoshi’s Damini, Ghayal, Ghatak, Khakee, The Legend Of Bhagat Singh.
You feel sorry for the director. But the lead actor here wanted to be a Bollywood hero anyway. The pint-sized star, like Singham, drops from the air on his feet over flying dust, his body horizontally swaying over the earth as villains come crashing down, he travels to desolate beaches for the Sufi song, dances the item track, weeps for his mother, hugs his father, mimics Dev Anand, Amol Palekar for comedy. You wish him well, quickly pop a Saridon, along with the popcorn, and safely go home.
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