Pyaar Ishq Aur Mohabbat Review

Ever heard of a gripping romance? I guess that's one way to describe 'Pyaar Ishq Aur Mohabbat'. Rajiv Rai comes up with another one of those tales with the basic ingredient that all good tales must have - the 'what-happens-next?' factor. Not that what happens next always turns out great (and it's nothing like Gupt), but at least you want to know. And when the basic theme is love and there isn't any dishum-dishum or any real villain, it's an achievement of sorts to generate the kind of interest that this film does.

Yash Sabharwal (Sunil Shetty) is a big businessman in search of his dream girl. A scholarship trust founded by his late father selects Eesha Nair (Kirti Reddy) to be sent to Scotland for medical research. Yash falls head over heels for her but she rejects his proposal. Gaurav, played by Arjun Rampal, is introduced exactly as he is in real life - a model making small forays into acting. Yash hires Gaurav for Rs. 10 crores (I suppose you'd have to be as rich as he is to understand stuff like that) to go to Scotland and somehow get Eesha to like him (Yash, that is).

Eesha, meanwhile, goes to the house of Lord Bharadwaj (a typecast Dalip Tahil), a childhood friend of her father's. His son is Taj (Aftab), and they all live in some fabulous castle in Scotland - I'm not even going to try to tell you the kind of luxury. Anyway, all main characters introduced - let the story begin.

As expected, Gaurav charms his way into Eesha's heart. There's love flying everywhere till Yash gets pictures of a very lovey-dovey Gaurav and Eesha singing on some Swiss mountains. The action begins when Gaurav now has to ditch Eesha so that she hates him and goes back to Yash.

Just when you think Aftab has nothing better to do than sit around and look cute, it's the second half and his role assumes importance. Soon, all the characters are in play with Yash wooing Eesha (post-Gaurav-ditching, that is), Gaurav looking torn, and Taj, really confused. The story moves interestingly from here, on and you are kept waiting till the last possible moment till you find out who wins the girl.

There were some loud voices (which have now become small weak ones) that said that musclemen couldn't act. Sunil Shetty and Arjun Rampal prove them wrong emphatically. Rampal in particular is quite good - he carries his role very well and looks amazing along the way, I'm sure this film will be the making of him. He carries the first half extremely well and disproves another cliché - that the chiseled faces of the ramp can't act. There is an extra half in the rating for him.

Aftab does fine in whatever scope his character affords him. Even Harish Patel in a comic sidekick role is hilarious. The one disappointment is Kirti Reddy - her high-pitched voice and pathetic histrionics are unconvincing. The music is like a Gupt hangover. The direction is excellent and no story track is left unattended to for too long. But, quite like Priyanshu Chatterjee in Tum Bin, it's Rampal that steals the show. Mark my words - a star is born!