Jannat of missing cricket!

Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Sonal Chauhan, Javed Sheikh, Samir Kochar
Script: Vishesh Bhatt and Kunal Deshmukh
Director: Kunal Deshmukh
Music: Pritam Chakraborty
Ratings: ***

With Jannat, Vishesh films have yet again served us the diet of a romantic love story mingled with problems due to crawling insect of crime infused in it. Pre-release, the production house may have underlined the match fixing factor as the well treated fact in the fiction of Jannat, but post-release, all the bookie issues seemed gimmicky for cashing on the nationwide IPL fever. The main story focuses on the love story between Arjun (Emraan Hashmi) and Zoya (Sonal Chauhan) while cricket funda is just a forgettable backdrop.

Arjun’s character in Jannat is that of a young guy who is obsessed with money only. Once he finds his love in Zoya his obsession fuels up and he decides to make big bucks as soon as possible by indulging into the dirty game of match-fixing.

The problem starts where he has to choose between his true love Zoya and his addiction to earn quick bucks wherein the police (Samir Kochar) start suspecting Arjun.

As Arjun struggles to choose between the two, the Don (Jawed Sheikh) offers him a whole lot of money in exchange of his soul and draws him into his core entourage of money spinners.

Writers Vishesh Bhatt and Kunal Deshmukh surely deserve a pat on their back for keeping the script tight and moving the story forward with every scene. The speed at which Jannat unfolds is the USP of this movie. The climax, too, is very dramatic and really leaves a great impact on the viewers. Important moments are given space and time to develop properly. There is a certain human element in these movies that clicks and you can sense the expected chemistry.

Debutant director Kunal Deshmukh has also done full justice to his screenplay and deserves a great deal of applause. The confidence with which he has handled the smooth flowing of the script is clearly visible on the celluloid. This young lad has shown a lot of maturity and looks like he is all set to play a long innings in Bollywood.

Cinematographer Manoj Soni, too, has supported Kunal Deshmukh’s vision by beautifully framing some exotic locations of South Africa.

As expected with Mahesh Bhatt’s films, here, too, is couple of songs like Zara Sa and Jannat Jahan, which you would like to add to your CD collection.

Whereas actingwise, Emraan has yet again proved that he is one of the under-rated actors of Bollywood. This guy surely seems to be improving with every film he does. Sonal Chauhan looks gorgeous with her first appearance and she has proved that she has a long way to go when it comes to acting. As expected, Javed Sheikh is brilliant in the character of Don. Samir Kochar, too, has portrayed his character very well.

Overall, Jannat is a well-made commercial film and surely deserves to be viewed at least once mainly due to its brilliant script and excellent direction.