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Salman's date with fame... Tere Naam
"Tere Naam", now showing at cinema halls across Delhi.
TERE NAAM
(At Odeon and other Delhi theatres)
RIDING ON myriad controversies and record advance booking comes back Salman Khan, courting name and fame with "Tere Naam". For a large part he succeeds and manages to pull off the lover boy act yet again. As the obsessive lover, the role may be blending the reel and the real at times, but it takes nothing away from the performance of Salman, who breathes life, tears and smiles into his role. Now ragging a college fresher, now being the decent boy next-door, he is charming all the way. It is an act he has mastered over the past decade or so. It is an act, which takes some beating, something which Salman manages with élan in the second half of the film as a chained, mentally disturbed lover. Not quite Majnu, but this Radhey-Nirjara romance will find plenty of takers among the Salman faithful.
He has for company Bhoomika Chawla, who makes the most impressive debut since Bhagyashree walked into the hearts of cinemagoers with "Maine Pyar Kiya" and just as easily disappeared. Her tantalising innocence, her beguiling simplicity, her bewitching way keep you gaping, she asks many delightful questions. If at one place her dupatta tripping from the shoulder gives rise to hope, at another, you feel like putting the same dupatta back in place. Such is her innocence, so lovely is her manner. With her `lost-in-the-woods' expression she complements Salman's now exuberant, now exasperated lover to the hilt.
This tale opens as the usual college romance. The brat. And the beauty. One short of manners. The other of words. One firing on all cylinders, other like a candle which can melt but can't burn. The girl meets the boy, they fall in love. There are no villains, hardly any worthy rivals. But love is always impatient. As much with circumstances as people. Same is the case here as our hero is bashed up for standing up for a woman - heroine's sister - about to be wronged in the unmentionable street. And sent to an asylum.
Does love conquer all? Does it beat steadfast in the heart of someone whose mind is no longer in place? Love can hurt but is also assuages. Go ahead watch this action-packed romance. Salman has seldom been better in recent years. And Bhoomika brings back the exhilaration of first love, the elation of the first shower of youth.
FOOTPATH
(At Sheila and other theatres)
Fottpath, now showing at cinema halls across Delhi.
LOOKING FOR a sunshine film this monsoon? Look anywhere but don't head towards "Footpath", you won't get anywhere. Build no hopes here, there is nothing, absolutely nothing in Mahesh Bhatt-Vikram Bhatt's "Footpath" that we have not seen in the past. And in a better manner too.
Just how many times can we walk down the street of sin and hope for salvation? There was "Sadak". There was "Gunaah". There was "Jism". There was... well, plenty else. And almost all of them handled with greater care and confidence than "Footpath" which is the latest take on the life of those born and living on streets of sleaze, growing up to be close to those with nefarious designs all over. And ultimately paying the price.
The same blood, the same bullets. The same booze, the same babes. Vitriol, violence. Death, drugs, devastation. Sin, passion, love, rain, romance. And then the final retribution. What's the good of it all?
It is sad considering this tale of four youngsters - Aftab Shivdasani, Rahul Dev, Bipasha Basu and debutant Emraan Hashmi - falling foul to circumstances in the innocent years and then taking to evil, has some fine performances by all three men.
Meant to showcase Hashmi as star material - the youngster does show some spark - it falls flat the moment director takes recourse to homilies about adult education, drug trafficking and the like. From then on the film runs either like a documentary, or dies a hundred deaths before the ubiquitous `the end'. Not even Bipasha's well exhibited ample charms can infuse life into a horse flogged too often.
Undertake this journey to "Footpath" at your own risk.
ZIYA US SALAM
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