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Humko Deewana Kar Gaye
Aanjo P C, IndiaGlitz [Saturday, April15, 2006]
A lovely story premise borrowed, per Raj Kanwar, from real life, with a good star cast and mounted and produced on a lavish spit and polish scale, Humko Deewana Kar Gaye is yet another film that proves that content is king, that content comes first, and everything else is subservient to it.
Inspired from the lives of director Raj Kanwar's real-life friend and his wife who met and fell in love inspite of having been engaged to marry someone else and didn't know each other before they met, but ultimately decided to follow their hearts, Humko Deewana Kar Gaye moves briskly in the first half, setting up the premise deftly and with speed. That it is also resembles the Ben Afflech starrer Forces of Nature is perhaps a coincidence, right? However.
HDKG stars Akshay Kumar as Aditya, an automobile engineer who is a romantic at heart and to whom relationships and being expressive in them is extremely important. However, Aditya is engaged to career-minded Sonia (Bipasha Basu), who is determined to become the hottest name in high fashion in India and all over the world, and who, emotionally, is on a different wavelength. While Aditya likes Sonia and is expresses his emotions, she somehow doesn't bother too much about the little niceties of being expressive. Aditya has to leave for Canada to test out some new car model, and Sonia has to leave for Paris for a mega international assignment.
HDKG stars Akshay Kumar as Aditya, an automobile engineer who is a romantic at heart and to whom relationships and being expressive in them is extremely important. However, Aditya is engaged to career-minded Sonia (Bipasha Basu), who is determined to become the hottest name in high fashion in India and all over the world, and who, emotionally, is on a different wavelength. While Aditya likes Sonia and is expresses his emotions, she somehow doesn't bother too much about the little niceties of being expressive. Aditya has to leave for Canada to test out some new car model, and Sonia has to leave for Paris for a mega international assignment.
Aditya lands up in lovely Canada, and his company puts him up with a colleague from Pakistan, Nawab Sharif (played by Vivek Shauq). Aditya's sister too is in Canada (Bhagyashree, Mahesh Thakur and Raj Kanwar junior making up the family).
In Canada, Aditya literally bumps into the lovely Jia (Katarina Kaif in a brilliant performance), and is somehow drawn to her. Over several such literally accidental meetings, Aditya tells Jia that these meetings are ordained by destiny, while Jia is not so sure. Even though Jia and Aditya are aware that each is engaged to someone else, they become friendly and the screenplay draws the graph of their coming together and becoming comfortable in each other's company in a subtle and charming way, replete with moments and songs (overall, the songs are one too many, though), and here we see Raj Kanwar's ability to grasp and develop relationships in a very believable and endearing manner. Right up till the interval, through a credible emotional graph and moments, the script brings Aditya and Jia together, and it doesn't drag. When you add the beautiful cinematography and the captivating locales of Canada, along with songs like Fanaa and the title song, it makes for great viewing.
However, while the emotional graph is credible, some of the incidents that bring the two together are straight out of the out and out Filmy manual. Aditya has to take part in the Rocky Mountain Rally, and his navigator is down with the loosies, so what does Jia do? She volunteers, and in a moment is an expert at reading maps, and even though Aditya has his teeth clenched as their car hurtles forward through dust, slush and mud, Jia only has a beatific smile. A bit far fetched. Another instance: both are returning to Jia's hotel and Jia is at the wheel. She nods off to sleep for a moment, and the car goes out of control and ploughs into the thick snow, and they are trapped for the night. Next morning, Aditya gets out of the car easily, and we cut to the same car, gleaming and unscratched, as it pulls up at Jia's hotel.
So the engrossing stage the story has reached so far is: we know Jia and Aditya 'especially Aditya' care for each other. But then, we're introduced to Jia's dangerous looking takeover king of a fiance, Karan Oberoi (Anil Kapoor).
Karan Oberoi's secretary (Shehnaz Patel looking stern and matronly) warns Jia that Karan is a guy who, "when he loves you, he owns you", and says, "Sapne wahi dekhna jinki ijaazat ho, warna takleef hoti hai." (Dream only what you are permitted to, or you will have problems). So here's a taut setup waiting to explode, but from here on, the script only flatters to deceive, and peters off into a rather unsatisfactory climax that goes on and on, and in which, Karan Oberoi acts completely against his character. Also, the songs in the second half, especially towards the end, come as massive irritants and speedbreakers. The accident in the climax is strange indeed. One moment Aditya is walking out of the hotel, and next moment, you see an overturned car with Jia trapped in it. Was it a silent crash? Why isn't anyone near her, why hasn't anyone heard the car overturn?
Some important moments have been bodily lifted from other advertising and feature films. Three one can recall, are: The Mastercard ad "Having a girlfriend whose father has a sense of humour? Priceless!" is ripped off and recreated when Aditya comes to drop Bipasha home at night. Two other memorable sequences from feature films such as Billyt Zane's Titanic outburst against Winslett, when Anil Kapoor rants at Katarina, and again, Anil Kapoor tipping room service steward Akshay Kumar a la the sequence in Notting Hill.
While Akshay Kumar is competent though sometimes overtly casual in trying to be conversational, Katarina Kaif is first rate. She looks ethereally beautiful, and has been perfectly cast as a lovely but vulnerable girl who is at a crossroads of her life. She performs brilliantly, and this film should definitely give her a huge professional boost. Anil Kapoor as the tough talking and menacing Karan Oberoi looks convincing though rather unkempt, and Bipasha Basu does well in her limited role. Vivek Shauk sports a strange hair colour and is just about ok, as is Bhagyashree. Helen's is a refreshing return just for the pleasure of seeing her on screen again even if in a miniscule role, which also describes the size of Ranjit's and Ahmed Khan's roles. Raj Kanwar Junior is convincing as the precocious brat he plays.
One's still trying to understand why there are so many songs in the film, why the film wasn't of 14 instead of 17 reels, and why, most important of all, an excellent buildup till the interval was allowed to go astray. HDKG is a great looking, well shot film with some excellent performances and an excellent premise that lasts and holds you till the interval and the next quarter, but the climax and the resolution let it down. Nevertheless, check it out.
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