Sheetal Talwar and sunil Lulla presents a film directed by Pankaj Kapoor, written by Pankaj Kao.. Running time 154 minutes .
Cast: Shahid Kapoor as Harry, Sonam Kapoor as Aayat Rasool, Anupam Kher as Maharaj Krishna, Supriya Pathak as Fatima,Aditi Sharma as Rajjo
The worst thing to do in an epic film is to use the commercially appealing elements from 90’s Hindi films to bring out romance and evoke a sense of history. This was the first time in Bollywood where a son risked his career to make his father a director there by ruining it on different levels.
The film starts off fairly well with the detailed village life through the lush green farmlands of Punjab on cold chilly mornings. Harry (Shahid Kapoor) is a typical cocky village guy with a heavy Punjabi accent. Harry who had always fantasized about gori mem(Fair foreign girl) happens to meet Aayat (Sonam kapoor), a well cultured, demure girl from Kashmir who had recently moved to Punjab. It’s love at first sight topped with their tacit conversations. Their romance is short-lived as Aayat leaves Punjab without bothering to leave any trace for Harry. Coincidentally the couple reunites seven years later in Edinburgh when Harry(now an Indian Air Force pilot) is on an exchange program. He looks unprofessional as a pilot of IAF and its funny to see him sitting in a MIG-21 but hovering with completely unrecognizable planes. Little do you know the couple is separated again. Truly speaking I could not sit through the whole 3 hours of the film (which was just to fit the 90s film format). It starts from 1992 spanning over a period of 10 years uncomfortably making its way into 2002. I slept off after the kargil war and woke up to see World Trade centre collapsing which was followed by Godhra riots. Yes, the characters “coincidentally” get caught up in all these uncanny events happening at geographically different locations.
It succeeds to execute every plot abruptly. when you are just about to feel romance it cuts abruptly to a tragedy and just when you are about to empathize with it, it cuts you to cheesy and cliched romance. It’s like Pankaj Kapoor made the film and then realized that he forgot to insert one romantic scene per 15 minutes. Bollywood has taken its own leap changing the form of romance in films producing the likes of commercially successful Jab we met, Love aajkal and Veer Zara. I see no point whatsoever in reviving the old romanticism with mossy and stodgy story of 1942 love story unless you have something different to say.
What was most disappointing to see was the deeply rooted rural characters magically getting transformed to completely alien and well spoken high status people much more comfortable in a foreign country to the extent that Sonam kapoor becomes a professional ballet dancer in mere three years (probably to show the couple gracefully dancing to the tunes of an alien song again). Imagine Veer-Zara gracefully doing ballet to the tunes of an English classic. Do I say anything more ? Sonam Kapoor with poor acting skills looks more comfortable and at home in Edinburgh than in India like she was eagerly waiting for her makeover.
However, there was one moment where I felt that this film was getting interesting; when Harry’s sister kisses uncomfortably on the phone reciprocating to her to be husband’s request. This kind of rustic romance would actually have taken this movie to a different level. Another good thing about this film is that it rhymes with “Awesome”.
I would strongly discourage you to watch this film. It came as a big disappointment from the powerhouse actor. He says “The film goes haywire if you don’t strike the balance between art and commerce.” What I do not understand is what did he think he was compromising on ?
Imaging Cinema 
i wanted to watch the film watching the promos,but after this i supposed to not to watch
Kranthi, same here. I hope the review has helped, thank you for reading.
The movie was more of a general knowledge session but wait i could have read about it in 10 mins. A disaster, expected atleast pankaj kapoor (who supposedly has a better sense of art) to do much better.
Yeah, I am his fan too. But now i think he just got lucky enough to work with good directors.