STARRING

Akshaye Khanna, Genelia D’Souza, Paresh Rawal, Om Puri, Manoj Joshi, Rajpal Yadav, Archana Puran Singh, Sameer and others.

DIRECTION

Priyadarshan

STORY

The film revolves around the family of Janardhan Wishvnabhar Rane (Paresh Rawal) and his two sons played by Akshaye Khanna (Gaurav) and Manoj Joshi (Chirag). Janardhan is a widower but did not marry as he wanted to give best possible upbringgin to his two sons. Now, when Gaurav and Chirag are grown up, Gaurav takes care of every necessity of his father and in the process even fights with him.

Gaurav is especially careful in protecting his father from the romantic ways of Madhav Mathur (Om Puri), who is Janardhan’s best friend and desperate to marry someone as soon as possible. Gaurav thinks that Madhav will spoil his seedha sadha dad.

On the other hand, Madhav and Janardhan are always in search of a suitable bride for Madhav, but land themselves in trouble every now and then. Gaurav somehow comes to their rescue every time.

Meanwhile, Shikha Kapoor (Genelia D’souza), who is a college friend of Gaurav, starts making calls to Gaurav just for fun. Shikha stays with Anuradha (Shobhana), who is Janardhan’s first love. But this fact is unknown to Gaurav and Shikha.

However, soon Gaurav and Shikha discover the truth about their past relationship and embark on a journey to unite Janardhan and Anuradha. How and when, they along with Madhav, try and succeed in arranging the love marriage of Janardhan and Anuradha forms rest of the film.

PERFORMANCE

Akshaye Khanna in the character of Gaurav is natural and performs his role with consummate ease. His taking care of father like a kid is endearing and will appeal to the Indian audiences, though they may not like his bossism over his father. Paresh Rawal has got an author backed role in Janardhan and lives up to the standards of a Priyadarshan film. Paresh’s portrayal of the timid nature of a man, who is in sixties is very good. Paresh has given once again a stellar performance in this film.

The cute young thing Genelia D’souza does good work as Akshaye Khanna’s friend and the chemistry works on the silver screen. Archana Puransingh, in the character of lady cop, does a very good job and her encounter with Paresh Rawal is watch worthy. Om Puri, as always, has made the film more interesting by his live wire acting and roving eyes.

But Rajpal Yadav, the fine actor who excels in his comic acts, has nothing much to do in the film and is underutilized. Shobhana, who plays the love interest of Paresh Rawal, deserved a better deal from the ace director. But Naseeruddin Shah has added sparkle to the film.

The direction of Priyadarshan is very good but he has not been able to achieve the previous landmarks of Garam Masala, Bhagam Bhag or Bhool Bhulaiyaa. The first half of the movie is laugh riot but the same can not be said about the second half, which has more of a serious drama than comedy. A crisp editing of about thirty minutes could have made the movie much better experience.

However, the music by Vidyasagar is not up to the mark and can be said to be a big let down for the film. Only the title track is likely to find some favour with the audiences, others are just average. The cinematography by Piyush Shah is top notch and he has beautifully captured the locales of Kerala. Dialogues are good and add value to the film, but editing needed more teeth.

STARDUST VERDICT

In nutshell, the comic act of Akshaye and Paresh in the first half is likely to attract the audiences to the theatre, but its second half will go against it. An average fare at the box office.