Dil Ne Phir Yaad Kiya Review

The film industry in Bollywood is one that is based on optimism - not just optimism of the everyday kind, but of a vague sort that only it manages to have. This belief that everything will work out right at the end of the day seems to have pushed the producers of this one to go ahead and make it anyway. And the result is something you wouldn't want to torture your worst enemy with. The plot seems to have been written by a 6-year-old who just got back from watching Pyar Tune Kya Kiya. Well, there you go - that's about the whole story being given away in one single sweep of a sentence.

The movie starts with a juvenile looking Rahul Khanna (Vinay Anand) who's just gotten out of a reverie featuring his dream girl... yaaawwwnnn. The dream girl comes with red lips, rosy cheeks and the whole paraphernalia. And when he finishes his studies in the US and heads home for India, he finds the aforementioned Dream Girl packaged in the form of Pooja Batra.

The heroine at this moment decides to embark on the quintessential tour, on a bus full of corny characters. A song and some queasy ha-ha lines later, the hero, who so successfully juggled jobs between playing Romeo, strumming the guitar, harboring thoughts of love and still managing time to be the tour guide, finds himself married to Miss Batra.

Post-marriage, he finds himself opening up a new ad agency because his wife tells him to grow up and get on with it. And the opening of the agency finds Rahul coming into contact with Roshni (Tabu). Roshni was in the days of yore a top model, and Rahul decides to use her to launch his agency. And thus lands himself into a soon-to-be-sticky situation.

Rahul reminds Roshni of her dead lover (Govinda), and falls for him hook, line and sinker. She indulges in all the sundry activities that mentally unstable people in the Hindi movies do - which include calling at late hours, calling on all the different phone numbers, calling and hanging up, calling and talking, and the like.

Rahul, being true to his love, of course tells Roshni to buzz off. She of course doesn't, and tries to bump Batra off in the sauna, unsuccessfully. You are almost disappointed, given that Batra's range of emotions oscillates between 'dumb look' to 'dumb look'. Roshni then tries to stab her, and even puts a gun to her head, all in vain.

The movie ends with a bang... literally. Then the credits start to roll, and you begin to comprehend the magnitude of the movie's insanity.

As I said earlier, it seems to have been written by a 6-year-old for a 6-year-old. The whole film is one painful scene after another. Govinda has a 'flash' role in the movie - he appears on screen, shakes a leg like he's on fire, mouths a few lines, and poof, he's gone. And you are left with that Vinay Anand guy, who's reciting his lines like in a high school contest. Like we said, Pooja Batra has a predefined range. She needs to work on increasing that a bit, otherwise she's fine.

And then Tabu... what can I say except that someone ought to set up a relief fund to collect money so that we can pay her to not act in non-movies such as this. After Astitva, this movie is an anti-climax to her talent.

As far as the music goes, I can save myself the trouble and not spell mellifluous, melodious and stuff like that. I can spell stuff like yuck, eech and ughh! The movie seems to be the handiwork of some film grads who had nothing to do but twiddle their thumbs. It's a flick that will feature in several film libraries because of its inherent quality as a mixture of various pyscho movies. The feeling of déjà déjà vu looms large.

If you are a Govinda fan and are looking for an afternoon's escape from the real world, I'd suggest you stay clear of the theaters showing this one. Govinda is just a carrot dangled to trap you in a hellhole of 'question answer session' scenes, dancing around beaches and that damsel with a face like a chalk duster - Pooja Batra. Aaaarggghhhh!