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AAP MUJHE ACHCHE LAGNE LAGE - (Reviewed By Komal Nahta)

Director: Vikram Bhatt
Music: Rajesh Roshan
Lyrics: Ibrahim Ashq, Dev Kohli
Producer: Rohit Kumar
Starring: Hrithik Roshan, Kiran Kumar, Mukesh Tiwari & Amisha Patel

RATING:
*****

Emkay Films P. Ltd.'s Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage (UA) is a love story with the angle of crime thrown in. A college youth falls head over heels in love with an underworld don's daughter. The romance blossoms during the nine nights of Navratri festival. To be close to his beloved, the boy becomes part of a music band which performs at the don's house for the nine nights. On her part, the girl too loves the boy but is petrified of her father and equally horrific brother, both of who will not let her leave their home for fear of the rival gang. They even get her engaged to marry a boy of their choice.

On the last day of the Navratri festival, the girl elopes with her beloved who keeps her in his all-boys hostel. When the girl's whereabouts is found by her family, her father, pretending to be on the lovers' side, takes his daughter away while making a false promise to get the two married. The boy then is beaten up by his beloved's brother and assumed to be dead. When the girl learns of the 'death', she attempts to end her life by consuming poison. But the boy reappears and rescues the girl not only from the clutches of her family but of death too. In the end, her father has a change of heart and gives his consent to their marriage.

Both, the story and screenplay, jointly written by Robin Bhatt and Sanjeev Duggal, are hopelessly routine and offer no novelty whatsoever. The only novel angle of the two lovers romancing during Navratri is not exciting enough to create any impact. Rather, the way the Navratri festival has been treated, it looks like a never-ending one! Other than the audience in Gujarat and Maharashtra, where Navratri is celebrated with the gaiety shown in the film, nobody would really care for the novelty. Even in Gujarat, people may appreciate the angle of Navratri but would not necessarily approve of it because the dandiya and/or garba-raas atmosphere recreated is not very entertaining.

The film looks disjointed as it moves on one track at a time for a fairly long time although there are at several tracks - prominent among them being those of crime and romance. After the initial crime angle, when the drama turns to romance, the track of crime takes a complete back-seat. It comes to the fore again after many reels. That the screenplay writing is a half-baked job is evident not just because of flaws as above but also because loose ends have not even been tied together. For instance, there's not even an attempt to show what happens to the girl's fiancé and his family in the end!

The film's pace is so frighteningly slow that the drama bores at many places. Further, the director takes so long to come to the point (in many scenes) that the film literally tests the viewers' patience. What's worse is that the culmination of those long-drawn out scenes is as routine as routine can be! The script offers no answers to questions that crop up in the audience's minds - questions like why the boy does not take the girl to his parents instead of his hostel, considering that she'd be safer with his parents; why do the boy and girl believe the latter's father so easily when he promises to get them married; why do two dons, who are sworn enemies of each other, meet up merely because one is in trouble - and who fixes this meeting? Such questions further reduce the impact of the drama as viewers get a feeling of being taken for a ride.

Some light scenes are entertaining, especially in the pre-interval portion. While the romance doesn't gladden the heart too much, the emotional scenes completely fail to touch the heart. The charm of several romantic scenes is lost if only because the girl cries even while romancing!

Hrithik Roshan's entry is splendid - he looks superb and makes a terrific impact on the viewer. However, thanks to the insipid script, he gets little scope to show his acting talent but plenty of scope to dance - in fact, he has been made to dance so excessively that viewers would tire of it. Although he dances brilliantly, he doesn't dance his way into the audience's hearts with his performance. Amisha Patel cries in a good part of the film. She overacts as she tries to get variation in her crying in scene after scene. Her dialogue delivery is quite flat and it appears as if she were delivering a speech, not her dialogues, at some places.

The supporting cast is quite a letdown. The producers seem to have cut corners by taking inconsequential names and unknown faces even in some important roles. The opening scene in which an important member of the don's gang is killed by the rival gang, creates such a terror in the don's house but the deceased turns out to be a faceless guy because there's nobody playing that character!

Kiran Kumar is alright. Mukesh Tiwari is too loud. Nishigandha Deoolkar does a fair job. Madhuri Sanjeev and Alok Nath lend ordinary support. Jimmy Moses is dull. Shaikh Sami, Ali Asgar, Hemant Pandey, Jasbir Thandi, Suchit Jadhav, Shahbaaz Khan (in a special appearance) and the rest just about fill the bill.

Vikram Bhatt's direction is uninspired and ordinary. Let down completely by a dull script, he does little to salvage the film. Rajesh Roshan's music is good but not too exciting. The title track and 'Hawaon ne yeh kaha' are the better numbers and their picturisations are very nice. The Navratri song is too lengthy. The hostel song deserves to be chopped off. A couple of other songs can be shortened. Camerawork (Pravin Bhatt) is good but not consistently so. Dialogues (Girish Dhamija) are good at places only. Action scenes (Abbas Ali Moghul) are effective. The action scene in which Hrithik saves Amisha Patel in the first half has been brilliantly executed. Editing is loose. The film needs heavy re-editing to reduce its length by at least 20 to 25 minutes.

On the whole, Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage, which reminds of Kaho Naa…Pyaar Hai and (Venkatesh-starrer) Anari, is a weak fare and its high price will see its distributors reeling under losses. It has some chances in small centers only.

RELEASE DATE: 19th April 2002

REVIEWED BY KOMAL NAHTA