QUOTE MARTIAL
MAKING WAVES
SHORT TAKES
SOUTHERN SPICE
ROUGH CUTS
MEMORIES
ARCHIVES
MOVIES CHAT

It kind of grows on you

A still from Doli Saja Ke Rakhna. Click for bigger pic!

Faisal Shariff

There was a time when cassettes sold solely on the weight of the music director, A R Rahman. Not so any more. A R Rahman has let this film down in a big way. Though this may seem like a digression, in a tender love story, the soundtrack plays an important part. But here Rahman and Priyadarshan seem to have just ignored the music department as if it were a stepchild.

Doli Saja Ke Rakhna is a fresh love story -- different. But the movie has a couple of holes in it that could have been filled up.

Akshaye Khanna plays the son of the quintessential martinet father of Hindi movies, Anupam Kher. Moushami Chatterji, who's decked up more than the heroine herself, plays momma.

Click for bigger pic!

Just out of college, Akshaye plans to study further against the wishes of his folks who want him to settle down and get married. Well, Khanna junior has his way and goes to Bangalore for his MBA. Here he meets his college friends and they move into the house of a retired colonel -- or was it a general?

The character of this military man is not at all defined and it remains a mystery whether he is mad or not, but undoubtedly he is singularly irritating with his south Indian accent.

One fine day in the library, the hero casts his eyes on a pretty damsel (Jyothika). As is a habit in Indian cinema, he falls in love pronto. And the chase is on.

Now common sense says that if you saw a face in the library, you'd head for the library again if you hoped it once more. But Priyadarshan works his lover's differently, and that results in the first of several senseless songs.

Click for bigger pic!

Just making a song sequence look good doesn't help for the song itself should be worth it. And, as we said, Rahman fails there.

When the hero finally gets the opportunity to declare his passion, he does it before the girl's tyrannical brother. To add to his woes, the spoilsport in question is a police inspector.

It is slowly revealed that there are two other brothers as earnest in protecting the little sister. This bit's a little reminiscent of Anari, the Karishma-Venkat starrer.

The hero's pals get beaten up even more often than the hero does, and finally decide that for all the violence visited upon them, they might as well ensure that the hero does get the girl.

Ninad Kamat of Campus fame comes up with a very competent performance as friend Peter, showing no signs of nerves working with big names.

Click for bigger pic!

Several reels are consumed in getting the Akshaye to woo the heroine. Jyothika hardly says anything in the first half of the movie but her character finally takes the plunge, as it were, eloping with the hero after being convinced of his honourable intentions.

Suddenly, even the understanding father turns against her cause and that's when Peter's fisherman father, played by Amrish Puri, get his men to protect the couple. The scene is pretty boring, unduly long and Amrish Puri is clearly wasted in the film.

Just when they have crossed all the hurdles and are about to get married, they suffer from a change of heart. This, they decide, isn't the kind of happiness they wanted, one that tramples on all the hopes and aspirations of others. And so they decide to return to their kith and kin. The film doesn't end there, of course.

Click for bigger pic!

Though the prelude to the last scene could have been more innovative, it is pretty interesting, though it could have been shorter.

Akshaye produces a good performance again. He's not a conventional looker but still appears charming. But he'd better do something about that hairline, considering that at the rate his forehead's rising, it's likely to meet the back of his neck soon.

Jyothika has done a good job of her part, that of a timid girl who is terrified of her brothers. The role demands that she convey a lot through her eyes, which she does surprisingly well, considering the fact that this is her first film. She has the kind of face that grows on you as the movie progresses.

Click for bigger pic!

Paresh Rawal, Mohnish Behl and Tej Sapru are pretty mediocre as the brothers. So is Aruna Irani as the girl's mother. The locales are used very well, but they aren't so rich that they run roughshod over the story. The result is fresh and colourful.

The film plays on traditional family values, and that isn't very convincing. And the way it was carried off could have been a trifle subtler, we thought.

Priyadarshan clearly made this film with his mind on the audience, and the concession he made shows at times.

And, despite the weak music, it is likely to work at the box office. For what we said about Jyotika also hold true for the film -- it kind of grows on you.