Dosti - this film's no friend to cinema

Deol, Dutta, Kapoor, Kumar in Dosti
Image: BBC Shropshire Entertainment website

So Hindi movies have got slicker and sharper than the pitiful efforts churned out in the 80s? Think again.

While Akshay Kumar and Bobby Deol are never going to win serious acting awards, with Kareena Kapoor and Lara Dutta added to the cast, you would think that the end product would be less torturous than the 136 minutes of brutality Dosti turned out to be.

One of the main problems is the film is not sure what it's supposed to be - comedy, romance or family melodrama? Trying to fit in all three fails disastrously.

Subtlety is at a premium from the opening sequences as Karan Thapar (Deol) is neglected preposterously as a child by his busy parents, played by Lilette Dubey and Kiran Kumar. In an early scene, young Karan storms out and kicks his football from their farm, bearing a striking resemblance to a city mansion, towards the Himalayas! He slips down the ravine but is rescued when the ever originally named, Raj Malhotra (Askhay Kumar), appears from nowhere. 

So the two friends become adults in Chandigarh (while the parents haven't aged a day), which the film claims is right next to Gurgaon (in fact hundreds of miles away). In one of the scenes (visibly filmed in Shimla) the number plates are so fake it seems they're painted on planks of cardboard. Despite these glaring issues, there's nothing early on to suggest this will be anything worse than an average flick. When Anjali (Kareena Kapoor) is introduced as Raj's love interest and the playboy Karan pursues Kajal (Lara Dutta), there are even some moments of genuine humour.

But then it all goes wrong. 

Both weddings are called off as hastily as they are arranged. Anjali is married off within hours, and Raj is diagnosed with an incurable bone marrow problem. In his final days, Raj decides to bring Karan's family together and get his marriage with Kajal back on. Achieving this is ridiculously easily.

In quite the farcical finale, we are told there is a cure for Raj's problem but there's no point flying to the US to save him.

Despite seeing his life squeezed out by the minute, Raj frolics away with his doctor at Karan's wedding until an epileptic seizure (is that a symptom of bone marrow disease?) precedes a predictably emotional climax.The final scene sees Karan celebrating his businessman of the year award despite never working a single day.

When you stop drying the tears of laughter streaming from your cheeks, you might go away thinking it's the script and plot which are diseased in this film more than any of the characters.

Shikaar - someone should hunt down Jas Pandher

If you saw Indian Babu and went away safe in the knowledge that it would surely end the career of Jas Pandher after only one film, we have bad news for you!
His father Surinder (owner of Southall-based Himalaya Carpets and Himalaya Palace Cinema, and a one-flop disaster himself in the 60s) has bankrolled a second successive shocker.

Jas Pandher plays Vijay Sanyal, whose bank manager father is murdered at the start of the film by head villain Damania (Danny Denzongpa) and his associates - and not a moment too soon after an abject performance where he struggles to remember his lines!

In the scene where he is shot, the father slumps to the floor, apparently dead. But near the end of the film, when the story is recapped, he is shown staggering back home to reveal the identity of his killer to his son - who then runs off, after his mother has also collapsed and died, leaving his sister stranded.

Or so you think...

Having grown up to become a car thief - while none of the villains aged a single day - Vijay begins his 'shikaar' by enticing his targets to Mussorie where he plans to sell them a hotel he takes over after marrying Madhu (Kanishka).

One by one Tej Sapru, Shweta Menon, Shakti Kapoor, Ashish Vidhyarthi, and Prem Chopra (who plays Nikhil Chopra, 'Son of Prem Chopra' - the joke wears thin after one mention) are knocked off by a mysterious killer - who looks uncannily like Vijay.

It looks a straightforward case for the amnesiac cop played by Raj Babbar - but lo and behold the climax reveals the killer to be his sister, played by Saadhika.

As you may have gathered, the plot has gaping holes in it, while the script is laughable. The soundtrack is lame and songs are erratically woven in to fill the huge vacuum.

Pandher's acting is non-existant - he rarely takes off his sunglasses in the movie, an attempt to hide his expressionless face, while he tilts his head from side to side and raises his eyebrows while 'delivering' his lines.

Apart from the guy who plays his father - who could very well be his off-screen dad - the other actors aren't too bad. In fact you have to feel for poor old Danny, who must be wondering what he let himself in for.

It's not the worst film we've ever seen - but it's not far off - and hopefully this is the end of Jas Pandher's career.

You could say it got as a good as it could for him when he starred in a commercial for his dad's shop and, arms outstretched, uttered the immortal line: 'We sell carpets, sofas, tables, chairs and furniture too!'