Starring: Karan Nath, Jividha Sharma, Aroona Irani, Aditya Pancholi, Rajat Bedi, Vishal Khanna
Directed by: Kuku Kohli
’’Aisa kyon hota hai, ki mohabbat dil se dar nikal deti hai’’. ’’Hindustan ke har ghar se ek lota pani hi Pakistan ko nakshe par se bahane ke liye kaafi hai’’. As is evident from the above-mentioned lines, Yeh Dil Aashiqanaa (YDA) is a love story with the Indo-Pak tension, terrorism to be specific, as its backdrop. Directed by Kuku Kohli who gave us Ajay Devgan and Phool Aur Kaante, Yeh Dil Aashiqanaa is a time-pass film, Bollywood formulae notwithstanding.
It starts with Karan (Karan Nath) and Pooja (Jividha) falling in love on a college campus in Pune. They sing songs, break college rules and even get suspended - all in the name of love. Everything seems to be fine. Karan’s mother (Aroona Irani) and his bhaiyya-bhabhi too are happy with the match. The problem starts when on a flight to Mumbai, Pooja’s plane gets hijacked. Worse, her only brother (Rajat Bedi), who’s her ma-baap and everything, is involved in it. Big brother is hand-in-glove with Akhmash Jalal (Aditya Pancholi), the head of a terrorist organisation, who has devised the hijack to free their leader Ashraf-Ul-Haq-Malik (Vishal Khanna) who’s captive under the Indian government.
When Karan hears about the hijack, he risks his life and limb, manages to sneak into the plane (he knows all the secret doors as his late father was in the Air Force), single-handedly kills all the hijackers, frees his ladylove and becomes a national hero. But the trouble doesn’t end there. In fact, national hero is now in danger, as Jalal wants to kill him. Ladylove can’t let hero face the music alone, so she elopes with him. Wild car and helicopter chases later, Karan kills both Jalal and Malik. And the two lovebirds live happily ever after. While the hijack and the rescue operation don’t look entirely believable, worse still are the constipated expressions of the Indian government officials and military forces when all this is happening.
On the plus side are the action scenes (Kala Singh), melodramatic yet effective dialogues (Tanveer Khan), the title song (Nadeem-Shravan) and the sincere performances from the lead pair. Though Karan will have to work out harder as he looks puny in certain scenes, Jividha should take care of her make-up as she is not a natural beauty. Aditya Pancholi is subtle while Rajat Bedi should do something about his voice.
All said and done, Yeh Dil Aashiqanaa is a typical masala film, strictly for frontbenchers.