Jan 01, 2003 05:45 PM
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(Updated Jan 01, 2003 06:10 PM)
Yes, I am recommending the film from the house of Subhash Ghai, who with his crew and cast were supposedly (and now I say, unnecessarily) searching for a place to hide their faces after the box office gave its verdict –Bombed. Yes, I am recommending the movie of a director whose movie making skills were as rudimentary as the mushrooms that grow on the kitchen refuse thrown out last night, as I guessed before I fell asleep while Pardes was crawling to its climax. Yes, I recommend this movie for its tug at the heart strings albeit a feeble one but better than the jolt my friend gave me when she woke me up to tell, quite disgustedly, that the man in the front was sleeping while Ash was crying in Taal. Good God!!
Rich guy (eye tonic reliable Hrithik) (drool!!) shared school homework, to lollipops, to experiences with our middle class girl Isha (Kareina-surprisingly restrained n lovable-Kapoor) and finally his heart!! In simple words (and heroic deeds!!) ,he tells his feelings to this youngest daughter of a restaurateur father Raj (delightful n heartwarming Jackie Shroff) who is in a catch-22. To Be Or Not To Be. First, his middle foolish daughter listened to her heart and got married to a boy whose mother seemed to be a direct descendant of Shashikala. Result, a bleary eyed daughter clamouring for divorce.
Secondly, he has been entrusted with rich boy Ronit’s wedding with an equally rich cat Monishka (convincing gal but name ?) whose parents themselves are immortally immoral. A business merger in the offing hence prevents Ronit’s father’s (Anang Desai) big B (Amrish Puri-really looking like Desai’s brother) from marrying Ronit to poor man Raj’s lovely daughter Isha. Dear Raj who is considered by Ronit as a very good friend is torn when Amrish Puri insults him, the same ‘paisa-
Bahu- paisa’ dialogues.
Isha, like a true good daughter but an unfair lover sticks to her father while our hero keeps breaking his heart and into tears.
The end is when he makes his folks realize the necessities of a good life and his utter disregard for a phony family honour that the camel passes through the eye of the needle, and a wedding ring through our hero’s finger.
All said and done, they live happily ever after. Even the middle daughter’s marital probs are solved.
Beautiful cinematography, songs, dialogues, casting should not have let this movie sink so badly. At least the Hitchcock styled director (comparison limited to appearances in one’s own movies, only) deserves a pat on his back for making a movie that is straight from his heart. Glitches are inherent to all movies, but here they blur in the whirlwind of emotions. Though I did not shed tears over it much (?) but it completely made me shed my prejudices about the movie and to an extent, about the director.
But then I am reminded of the pleasant dream I had while watching Taal where……….
