Bheja Fry (Nimboo Maarke). Review on Jaal - The Trap

Welcome to the trap!

There are known knows and then there are known unknowns. This is not to say that there are no unknown unknowns or unknown knows. It naturally follows that the known knows are directly proportional to the magnitude and ignorance of unknown unknowns and inversely proportional to the things that we think we know but actually don’t know. The more I think about this, I know for sure that the things that I knowingly or unknowingly know far outnumber the things I don’t know that I don’t know.

Heh..heh. Trapped, aren’t you? In that sense, I didn’t see much difference between the plight of my co-spectators and that of Sunny Deol on the screen. We were all ignorant and trapped as well.

The “Honey Trap” was so meticulously laid that unsuspecting spectators like me had no option but to fall hook, line and sinker for it. Spooks (a.k.a. Casper) must be laughing out aloud in his characteristic “mu-hua-hua” style at my imprudence in opting to watch “Jaal – The Trap” rather than settling down with the fifth book of the “Hari Puttar” series over the long weekend.

Having been subjected to a disgustingly sepulchral offering from director Guddu Dhanoa (GD), by way of “Hawa – Gone with the wind” (pun intended), any well-wisher would have deep fried me in boiling oil or at least handed me over to a bunch of terrorists for punishment if they came to know that I had committed the unpardonable crime of watching “Jaal – The Trap” (again by GD), my second culpable and non-bailable conviction in as many weeks.

Jaal and the art of fishing

Michael Jackson meets James Bond meets Romeo in this hotpotch concoction of romance cum action movie totally bereft of any shred of common sense. I don’t know if the director intended it or not, but the movie also turns out to be a huge comedy and an affront to the sensibilities of the hapless public.

Welcome to New Zealand where a group of terrorists made a helicopter-cum-skiing entry to try and kidnap the Indian Home Minister’s daughter, Anita (Reema Sen, competing in a shout-at-the-top-of your-voice of the year contest of which is the undisputed winner) so that they can bargain for the release of their captured leader (Ashish Vidyarthi). Amrish Puri is in-charge of protecting this brattish imp and he successfully thwarts the attempts of the terrorists.

Back home, his son, Ajay (Sunny Deol) is a wannabe pop singer performing his song-and-dance sequences on the streets of Shimla. Life goes upside down for him (and for the spectators) when a “dupatta” flies onto his face when he’s riding on his Enfield one fine day. No surprises that the surf-excel washed dupatta belongs to Neha (Tabu), a teacher at a local school and a widow to boot. It takes Sunny Deol a great deal of time (about an hour and 15 minutes and 7 reels) to woo her (what a waste of time!) and convince her FIL (Anupam Kher) that he wants to marry her.

In the meantime, we are subjected to the usual Sunny Deol movie ingredients where he bashes up dozens of goons and cops with his “Dhai Kilo ka haath” (if you’ve seen “Damini”, you’ll know what I mean). As soon as permission to marry is accorded, the couple promptly break into a song sequence by the end of which a helicopter emerges (again) on the lofty mountains to disturb the romancing couple and the terrorists headed by Mukesh Rishi kidnap Neha and bargain with Sunny to in turn kidnap Anita from NZ. Rishi even gives Sunny a fake passport and air tickets to NZ immediately.

At this point, I simply wanted to walk into the movie and request Mukesh Rishi to get a passport for me as well because mine has been languishing between the Hyderabad and Mumbai passport Offices for the last 3 years.

Sunny Deol immediately takes off for NZ and after doing a “Ricky Martin”, woos Anita into his arms. After a prolonged boat chase (shot quite well), he delivers Anita to Mukesh Rishi but has an unpleasant surprise waiting for him at the other end. The final 40 minutes or so are full of exploding vehicles, more intruding choppers, a longish train chase sequence, death to the bad guys and a happy re-union of the made-for-each-other” couple.

Thus Spake TiC

The only thing that saved my brains from being run over like a badly squashed tomato was the fact that this movie was not as taxing to watch as “Hawa” was. I’d probably give a quarter to half a star more for “Jaal” in this regard.

The story was miserable to say the least and that’s putting it too mildly. Whoever wrote the story and screenplay need to be amply complimented for letting their imaginations soar to the upper realms of Stratosphere to arrive at such a story. Its almost as if they did “Lateral Thinking” and came up with all kinds of improbable situations and pieced those incoherent pieces to string together the movie.

Of the cast, Sunny Deol carries the movie on his able (though now sagging) shoulders. Tabu has a significant role and carries it out with élan. Reema Sen goes completely over the top. In some instances, I had to virtually plug my ears to provide them some respite. Amrish Puri and Anupam Kher are too seasoned for these kind of roles and add substantial value addition to an otherwise mediocre movie.

The music by Anand Raj Anand has some catchy numbers (none of which can be remembered once out of the theatre) and the choreography for Sunny Deol is comic at times. The cinematography (Shripad Natu), action (Tinu verma) and background score (Aadesh Srivastava) are apt and offer good technical support to the movie.

The movie is a 17 reels and 3-hour torture. Watch it at your own risk of getting trapped.