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- Siddharth Vinayak Patankar This may seem downright personal. But Salman Khan is not hero material anymore. He is getting too old to play the young lover. Having a six pack is not the prerequisite to play a hero in Indian cinema and its time producers understand that. The three lead stars in this film all look older than they should, and that is a pity. The story is basic, and yet it works. The use of New York as a backdrop is a sheer waste - unlike how it weaved into the story of say, Kal Ho Naa Ho. Akshay Kumar has done a great job with his relatively new found comic timing, but it is Preity Zinta who seems to be the true star of this movie. She is larger than life in the trailers too, and so I guess Sajid Nadiadwala has tried hard to cash in on her recent success. Suhaan Kapoor (Khan) is an aspiring actor who has eloped with his college sweetheart Piya Goyal (Zinta), against the wishes of her richie rich family. He gets a break, but the producer says he can't say he is married until the film releases, and that is when the misunderstandings begin, and the film begins with the two already divorced. Meanwhile, Agastya Rao (Kumar) is the quintessential college geek, who now works for Nasa but still harbours his secret love for Piya, who now lives in New York. Suhaan receives a Rs 50 lakh divorce settlement notice from Piya, and he goes to his uncle/lawyer (Anupam Kher) for help. What follows is a comic tale where Suhaan tries to coach Agastya into Piya's heart, so as to escape paying the alimony. But he only ends up falling back in love with her. A surprisingly nice story, which isn't executed tightly enough, Jaan-E-Man fails to impress. Anu Malik's music has a few high points, but the lows make it all very average. The lyrics, surprisingly, are by Gulzar, and they will have raised a few eyebrows! Interestingly, Akshay Kumar's role of Agastya was first offered to King Khan - Shah Rukh - but he turned it down. So Kumar and Salman Khan came back together after their last hit - Mujhse Shaadi Karogi in 2004. Another thing to watch out for Kher's first attempt at playing a dwarf. Jaan-E-Man takes on Don at the box office, and may not be able to hold its own, but is it worth a watch? I will still go out on a limb and say yes - only because the director has tried to go back to classic musicals in his style - where songs substitute dialogue – very Munnabhai! If you can withstand Salman Khan's bizarre accent when he speaks English (and he does have to speak a lot of it in this flick) then go ahead and as the tag line says - fall in love again! |
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