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Saawan
Movie
Review
Saawan Kumar's SAAWAN - THE LOVE SEASON tackles
a novel theme. It tells the story of a man who
predicts the future. Whether it's the death of a
person at 9 p.m. or a major accident on the
Mumbai-Pune Expressway or the leading lady's
death on a dreadful Friday, the man knows it
all. He's a modern-day Nostradamus.
An exciting concept, isn't it? Sure, on paper,
the concept does sound fascinating, but on film,
the concept goes for a toss.
Actually, the film rests on a thin plot. It
starts off as a love story, continues to have
the hero and heroine romancing in Sun City for
the first 40 minutes, till the desi
Nostradamus enters the frame, minutes before the
interval.
Again, after the intermission, the hero and
heroine break into songs in Dubai, till our
Nostradamus drops a bomb: He tells the heroine
she'd die two days later, on Friday. Obviously,
the lady is shattered, but instead of going into
a depression [who'd like to rejoice after you've
known of your impending death?], the hero and
heroine break into two songs and make merry.
All this while, the heroine keeps hammering
'Friday' into the hero's head. On the fateful
day, the lady is mistakenly shot by the cops
outside a shopping mall and dies. The hero
blames Nostradamus for it, breaks into his
house, bashes him black and blue and Nostradamus
dies.
Hindi movies have often tackled issues such as
reincarnation, ghosts and astrology and the
moviegoer has embraced those themes if they're
handled convincingly. Unfortunately, in SAAWAN -
THE LOVE SEASON, the screenplay is amateurish
and by the time the story reaches the finale,
you've already lost interest in the goings-on.
To sum up, SAAWAN - THE LOVE SEASON is a good
concept gone awry!
Raj [Kapil Jhaveri] and Kajal [Saloni Aswani],
both from Mumbai, meet in Cape Town. It's love
at first sight for Raj, but Kajal doesn't
reciprocate. But Raj wins her over and all's
well.
Raj confides to his father [Ranjeet] about Kajal,
while Kajal tells her father [Prem Chopra] about
Raj. The two fathers meet and realize that
they're actually childhood friends. The
engagement date is fixed -- on Kajal's birthday
-- but Kajal bumps into an unexpected man [Salman
Khan] in the day, who not only saves her from an
accident, but forewarns her that her father
would die at 9 p.m. that same night.
The father actually dies at 9 p.m. Kajal starts
believing in the unexpected man and wants to
know her future. That's when the man tells her
that she would die on Friday, two days later.
The remainder is about the girl wanting to live
life fullest in those two days, before her
demise.
The comedy track -- involving Johny Lever and
Bobby Darling -- is crude and appears forced in
the narrative. It doesn't even raise a chuckle,
forget a laugh.
Saawan Kumar isn't in form this time. The
veteran has tackled drama amazingly in the past
[SAAJAN BINA SUHAGAN, SOUTEN, SANAM BEWAFA], but
even the dramatic portions in SAAWAN - THE LOVE
SEASON lack the by-now-famous punch. Music is
another sore point. Aadesh Shrivastava's music
is uninspiring and barring the title track, the
remaining tracks are plain monotonous.
Cinematography [Rajendra Prasad] is eye-filling,
especially the locales of Sun City and Dubai.
Salman Khan's role and performance are both
strictly average. Kapil doesn't get any scope to
display histrionics, but he does the
conventional hero's part with ease. Saloni gets
more footage and she does leave an impression.
Prem Chopra and Ranjeet have miniscule roles.
Johny Lever doesn't entertain. Ditto for Bobby
Darling.
On the whole, SAAWAN – THE LOVE SEASON is a weak
fare, which has some scope at the single screens
and in the Hindi belt primarily due to Salman’s
star presence. That’s it! |