Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na – Movie Review

Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na
[rating:4/5]

When I first saw the promos of “Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na” with the short version of ‘Kabhi Kabhi Aditi’, I thought here is one movie that is trying the “Pyar Mein Kabhi Kabhi” formula. For people who have never heard of PMKK, it was this young adult movie that came out about half a decade ago, launching a bunch of young actors and filling the radio waves with some amazing music(‘Woh Pehli Baar’ and ‘Musu Musu’ are still my favorites). Guess what I was right… The question (after a week or so of the release) though is why did PMKK flop while Jaane Tu was a big hit?

My next contact point to Jaane Tu came with the music… I simply loved the soundtrack! AR Rehman was again brilliant but what really was amazing was the lyrics. So I decided to do some background work and find out about the lyricist… It turns out Abbas Tyrewala was also the director and writer of the movie!!! Now I really wanted to watch the movie! I had told a friend a while back that if the movie and the lyrics were written by the same person and the lyrics was good, almost always the story and writing would be good too.

Now to the actual review…

The Good things about this movie:
* Writing/Music – 10 min into the movie I knew that this movie was good. The writing is so good in this movie that I feel this can be easily used as the benchmark for writing an entertaining movie. The opening was perfect, the characters very well thought out(at least the ones that mattered). The comedy was really good, not the usual amalgamation of slapstick and one liners fitted into the script. The dialogs were smart and young, thats what holds you. Even in situations were we knew what would happen, like the scenes towards the end where the lead is jailed and the airport climax… Basically that meant there wasn’t a point in the movie you could let your guard down and say nothing interesting is happening.

That my friends is a sign of really good writing :)

* Genelia D’Souza – Eyes, thats all I could think of when I saw her. Genelia is seasoned south indian actor who knows she is good. Her amazingly expressive eyes are brilliantly used in the movie and she easily out shines every other actor she shared the screen with.

* Comedy – Very well placed, some of the characters are so well woven into the movie that their very presence is funny. The inspector and the horse riding bad/good guys for example.

* Veteran Actors – All the veteran actors were perfectly cast and they fit into this romantic love story perfectly.

What is worth watching out for is the timing of scenes in the movie… This movie is a perfect example of setting up the audience for a twist or a joke(almost always in a short time frame).

Finally, Imran… I am writing about him only coz of the craze that has suddenly started on him. Firstly the acting from his side was ok, he had his moments where he was really good, for example the scene in the rain where he confronts Meghana and asks her to ‘get real’ was really good. On the other hand he was very ordinary in many scenes. Fortunately for him this role suited him perfectly, doubt he had to do a lot of work to get into that specific character. Personally i will wait for at least a couple more movies before judging his capability.

All in all this is a fun movie and if you like smiling for a while you should watch this one.