Yeh Lamhe Judaai Ke Review

We all have a lesson to learn from the producer of this movie. When lead actors Shah Rukh Khan and Raveena Tandon walked out of his film many years ago, did he feel sorry for himself and give up? Did he think defeatist thoughts like, how can I make a film with no actors? No, he went right back to work, patching up the script and prolonging it indefinitely, finding body doubles for the body doubles and hiring SRK's dubbing-artist from MTV's Fully Faltoo. Compromise on quality? Never!

The movie is a gripping saga of two lives torn asunder by passion. Actually no, it isn't. It's the story of one man's fight for justice. No, not that either. It's really a tale of love and loss. And how time heals all wounds. And a mother's ultimate sacrifice. Plus, it has Shah Rukh looking like he did in Fauji and Raveena looking like everyone did in the 80s - big hair, big hoops, big make-up.

Dushyant (SRK) and Jaya (Tandon) have been lovers ever since they were ye' high. All they ever wanted to do was chase each other in the park and play rousing games of antakshari with their friends. During one such antakshari session, everyone notices that Dushyant can sing. Pretty well, to tell you the truth. Overnight, Dushyant becomes a 'singing sensation' but he's forgotten all about poor Jaya, who stood by him through thick and thin.

Seeing as how Raveena Tandon maybe shot five scenes for the entire film, the director has adroitly managed to make it look like she's there throughout. This he does by simply running her footage over and over again. So no matter where a joke is being told, Jaya seems to be laughing in a park. If she's talking to someone on the phone, you are cunningly shown only the person listening on the other end. Many long conversations are held in this way to fill time. And when further creative uses of her shots became impossible, she is killed off under a truck (to no one's apparent concern).

Dushyant, in the meanwhile, is being led astray by his scheming friends, one of whom only wants all his money, but the other also wants his body. Navneet Nishan plays the over-sexed Nisha, whose attempts at seducing Dushyant are more embarassing to you than they seem to be to the determined lady. Sujit (Mohnish Behl) is also a card-carrying member of the back-stabbing club, and his main concern is to make everybody else's money his own. Don't we all, buddy?

While this lovely tale spools on unendingly, there's another story going on which occasionally borders on porn. Not because of what the couple is doing, but because of how uninterested they seem through it all. Jaya's sister is played by a shockingly bad actress who manages to pack in a lot of squeaking, even if she's only uttering two syllables. For a while, the movie shifts to her and a cop investigating Jaya's death, who makes time from his detective work to roll about in flower-beds and trail roses/feathers all over afore-mentioned sister's body.

Then things start looking up when everybody starts to die in a series of unexplained murders. All the murder vicitms, without exception, looked quite happy at this turn of affairs. SRK as Dushyant is drunk all through the movie, but even though that's a condition he's usually quite scrumptious in, here you get the feeling he's not just faking it. Some people had to die, others had to get sozzled but they all made it out of Yeh Lamhe Judaai Ke unscathed. We're not sure you will have the same luck.