Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Jaaneman Review : doesn't take itself too seriously



When I first saw the trailers for this movie , I thought "Oh no , not another of those stupid love triangles! No way am I going to watch this !" . But after a few good reports from my friends , I thought that it might be worth it , so I decided to take a chance …. And boy was I in for a pleasant surprise!Far from being a mushy love-triangle , this turned out to be a well made , funny , unusual and most importantly entertaining movie. To be truthful , I have never seen a love-story presented in this way before( At least in Hind movies ) .

The plot ? well it deos'nt really matter much in this movie . Salman Khan plays Suhaan, a struggling actor , and Piya’s(Preity Zinta) ex-husband . After a series of extremely contrived circumstances he ends up helping ,along with his Uncle (Anupam Kher) , NASA Astronaut( that’s not a typo!) Agastya Rao (Akshay Kumar ) fall in love with his ex-wife so he doesn’t have to pay her alimony .Its as simple as that . The amazing part is , it works .

When the first scene opens with Agastya and a blond soviet female astronaut,in an orbiting space-station, you realize that this is not a movie to be taken seriously .

The film has been very creatively shot . I loved the first two song sequences where the extras and dancers literally jump into the song sequences .The "fourth wall" is conveniently ignored throughout the movie . In one scene Salman even mentions to is uncle that the flash-back sequence is going to start , followed immediately by one of the walls of the room being turned into a movie screen… which Salman Khan calmly steps into .

In another sequence, the trio are interrupted as a qawali group steps out of the wardrobe and proceeds to provide the background music for the song. These wouldn’t be out of place in a Tim Burton movie.
The movies constantly weavers between reality and fantasy , and it all looks really nice thanks to some great camera effects , and slick editing work , which I really cant recall in any other Hindi movie . Sometimes even the lighting and backgrounds change according to the characters reactions ! The sets are also pretty nice and colorful .

Most of the humor is the tongue-in-cheek variety , with the director gleefully taking pot-shots at established filimi conventions .To say that watching this movie a would require some suspension of disbelief is an understatement ! For e.g When Salman Khan questions his uncle about getting money for his flight to New-York , his uncle immediately withdraws a big wad of cash from his pocket , saying that it was the money he was saving for his wedding. A tearful salman khan accepts the money , promising to get his uncle married as soon as he returns . As soon as Akshay Kumar makes his entrance , a halo appears over his head .
Since this is a love story , you have you emotional moments too...they're pretty well done and not overly-melodramatic . Most of the emotional scenes are in the last half hour . I loved the last part of the movie , where Akshay finally gets his lady love ( it's too cute. )

Akshy and Salman have a good screen presence and on screen chemistry . Akshay's geeky laugh was just perfect . Slaman's also given quite a good performance...the boo-boo diapers scene being a case in point .
On the downside , the movie is a bit stretched . Two of the songs could have easily been taken out of the movie or shortened . Few of the joke are are bit lame too. other than that , it was really hard to find fault with this lovable movie.Its too bad that this movie was presented as a love story...I'm sure it would have done much better if it had been presented as a comedy movie instead of a love triangle .

If you're the kind who looks for moving performances, meaningful cinema or you're a cynic who enjoys ripping apart movies for the smallest mistakes , then this movie is not for you. This is the kind of movie where you just sit back , relax and enjoy the ride . i f you liked movies like Andaaz Apna Apna and Deewan Mastan , then you'll surely like this one too .

Go for this movie if you're looking for a very uniquely made and light hearted romantic comedy
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