Reellife productions ’’Stumped’’, produced by Raveena Tandon, Priti Sinha and Popcorn Motion Pictures Pvt.Ltd and directed by Gaurab Pandey stars Raveena Tandon, Aly Khan, Viju Khote, Mac Mohan, Asha Sachdev, Anjan Shrivasatva, Vallabh Vyas, Amrit Pal, Smita Hai, Anajan Sharma, Vani Tripathi, Preti Kopikar, Sumeet Mishra, Manva Naik, Amin Gazi, Vinod Singh and Salman Khan in a special appearance.During World Cup, this film was given a lot of hype because the film is about cricket.Now, the World Cup fever has gone, this film will go totally unnoticed.
The story is about people living in one society.Raghav(Aly Khan)and Reena(Raveena Tandon)are a happily marrie couple, living in the same society.Raghav is an army man and most of the time Reena is alone.As usual, one day Raghav has to go again to fight and Reena is very nervous.It`s May 1999 and World Cup is going on.Everyone in the society watches World Cup all the time and whenver India wins any match they distribute sweets to everyone in the society.The people of the society have only one dream and it is that India would win the World Cup.At the same time, whenever they report on the television that while fighting several armies died, no one even bothers to listen about it.Later on, Reena is reported that her husband has died and then she is under a great shock.Television reporters go to have an interview with her but she is unable to say anything.What this film teaches is that, the cricketers are not the heroes of the country but those who fight for the nation are TRUE heroes.This is a film dedicated to the soldiers of India who die for their country.
The main idea of the film is excellent and the script is very different but the way this film is treated makes it boring.In the first half, there is hardly any story.The film has a confused plot.Gaurab Pandey`s direction is poor because he could make use of such an excellent script but he failed to.Kaushik Bhattacharya`s editing is not crisp and the film is full of such scenes which are totally unwanted.The film keeps getting dragged on and on.Abbas Ali`s action is good where Aly Khan is fighting on the border.Debu Deodhar`s cinematography is excellent!Music is great!Especially, Humko Toh Hai Poor Yakeen is great.I wonder why the song wasn`t shown in the film.The film could have looked excellent if the film would have started with the song Humko Toh Hai Poora Yakeen because the song has almost the whole Bollywood in it and if it would have appeared on the big screen as the opening of the film, it would have been on of the saving grace of the film.
The film released at the wrong time and the reason of its delay was that a student, who had written an article in a magazine had the same story which this film has.His article also highlighted the point that why don`t they encourage the soldiers of the country, the way they encourage cricketers and so the child filed a case against this film.This is one reason why Raveena Tandon`s film got ’’STUMPED’’.
The charcterization of the characters of this film is very poor.I expected that the film would be very close to reality but there was nothing so.The characters were so unrealistic and irritating that after sometimes they would get on your nerves.Only Raveena Tandon`s character is believable and realistic.They`ve shown a bunch of idiots living in one society.In today`s modern times no one can be so stupid like the characters of this film.
And now the performances!Raveena Tandon is a great actress and there is no doubt.She has lived the role of Reena in this film.Her dialogue delivery and her facial expressins are perfect and she is really maturing as an actress.After Daman, Satta and even Pran Jaye Par Shaan Na Jaye, this is also on of her great performances.Raveena looks very nice in her new hairstyle and she especially looked gorgeous in the song ’’Ek Sapna’’.Aly Khan is totally and completely wasted.He did not get any scope to perform.Throughout the film, he looked very uncomfortable and his talent has been completely wasted because I know he is very talented.Salman Khan in his dance number ’’Stumped’’ looks irittating because he doesn`t know how to dance still he`s trying to be Michael Jackson.The song suits his personality but then he should have danced decently.The rest of the supporting cast is nothing great.Everyone was shouting in the film, unnecessarily.
On the whole, Stumped is not a film worth your time and if films like Armaan, Haasil and Jajantram Mamantram have released with it, then one should without any hesitation give this film a miss.Poor show!