Breezy, romantic fare

YOU’RE bound to enjoy this movie, at least as long as as you don’t compare it with Aditya Chopra’s earlier offering Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. The film has youthful appeal in abundance, a fresh romantic storyline albeit waferthin, good music and altogether good performances from all the artistes which makes it an enjoyable affair, though the length of the film does get on your nerves towards the end.

It’s good to find a director going into the minutest details of his film, and the efforts do pay off in the end. It is no easy task to extract relatively good performances from a none-too-experienced cast and handle two good actors and justify their roles. The film narrates the tale of the romances of three college boys, and the confrontation between two gentlemen representing two generations. The only flaw in the story is the tame submission of Amitabh Bachchan in the end, who plays a strict disciplinarian, despite his vow to fight the new values brought in by Shah Rukh Khan.

Narayan Shankar (Amitabh Bachchan) is the father figure in a college, Gurukul, in some obscure town, where he always preaches the necessity of three principles in life — honour, tradition and discipline, to his pupils. Whoever flouts his code of discipline is shown the door. There is Vikram (Uday Chopra), Sameer (Jugal Hansraj) and Karan (Jimmy Shergill), roommates at the hostel, who somehow don’t fit in, yet fail to raise their voice. The three guys are in love with Ishika (Shamita Shetty), Sanjana (Kim Sharma) and Kiran (Preety Jhangiani) respectively, but fail to express their love for fear of eviction from the college. Enter Raj Aryan (Shah Rukh Khan) as a music teacher, who is hired by Narayan Shankar after some initial reluctance. Raj is hellbent on breaking the code of discipline and giving the guys a free hand in doing whatever they wish. He has a score to settle with Shankar — Raj was thrown out of the college for loving Megha (Aishwarya Rai), Narayan Shankar’s only daughter and she commits suicide not able to cope up with his strict disciplinarian terms.

Raj encourages the trio to fall in love with the girls they like and provides enough opportunities though knowing it wouldn’t go well with Shankar. Sanjana is in love with some other boy but Sameer manages to win her. Kiran, a young girl of 19 years, is waiting for her husband who is missing in action on the border. When Narayan Shankar gets to hear of all this, he decides to expel the boys from college. Here Raj steps in and tries to convince Shankar not to take such a drastic action which will spoil their careers. He tells him he himself has been the victim of such a decision. In the end, Narayan Shankar relents and decides to adopt the new values.
Performance wise, the film is a treat to watch, with all the characters performing their roles with relaxed ease and conviction. They have been excellently handled by the director. The roles of Uday Chopra and Shamita Shetty come out quite prominently, thanks to their lively portrayal of young, obsessed lovers. Kim Sharma, Jugal Hansraj (an improved performance compared to all his previous films), Jimmy Shergill and Preety Jhangiani lend excellent support, though Preety at times appears unable to justify her role as a young widow.

Amitabh Bachchan, for the first time, gets a very good opportunity to play his age and he is a treat to watch. His verbal encounters with Shah Rukh Khan, in quite a few scenes, indicates his calibre as a good actor who can justify a well-knit role. But he has been let down by the story towards the end, where everyone expects fireworks between him and Shah Rukh Khan. It has been a very controlled and polished performance from Shah Rukh. Aishwarya Rai makes her glowing presence felt though she doesn’t have a full length role.

Aditya Chopra’s untiring efforts are visible in every frame and his mastery over Spotlightplay is evident throughout the first half. In the second, the length could well have done with some editing, which would have given the film a racier finish. His characterisations and ability to extract good performances from the cast is flawless. Obviously, the director was in no hurry to complete the film, and took his time over the shot executions.
Technically, the film is superb. Manmohan Singh’s camerawork add lustre to the scenes. Jatin-Lalit’s music, though not chartbuster stuff, is melodious and situational. It grows on you as you watch the film. Farah Khan’s choreography is very imaginative, with a lot of youthful appeal. Sharmista Roy’s sets are quite realistic, too.

The film is worth watching on all counts, though it would have had a greater impact had a few reels been chopped off the latter half.

Other>>>>