Have you heard of a doctors’ conference in front of a campfire? Have you seen doctors working in candlelight even when the power system is working just fine? Welcome to Armaan’s hospital where you will see all that and more…..a hospital with no wards, no orderlies, no life-support machines since the hospital apparently doesn’t have UPS or generators and has just the four doctors, a cardiologist, a neurosurgeon, a pediatrician and an anesthetist!!!
Although “Armaan” boasts of a mighty star cast led by Amitabh Bacchan and a powerful pen-wielding team – Honey Irani and Javed Akhtar, the end product is so unbelievably shoddy that you’d think the Ramsey brothers attempted a family film. Why do I watch this then, you ask, well, it’s like a freaky train wreck and I cannot look away. And I am a masochist. I keep torturing myself.
Back to Armaan, the film opens with Amitabh as the 50-something doctor fighting to save the hospital he so ardently built. His foster son-cum-neurosurgeon-cum Gracy’s boyfriend-cum-Preity’s husband Akash Sinha (Anil Kapoor) looks neurotic himself. Instead of portraying him as a passionate doctor -- which is perhaps what the writers set out to do -- they end up making him a cross between grouch and buffoon, the latter made entirely possible by the ridiculous weave. In fact, everyone seems to be having a bad hair day, from Amitabh’s gray bangs to Anil’s rug to Preity’s poodle cut, it’s a hair-raising situation!
Colleagues Anil Kapoor and one-hit wonder Gracy Singh fall in love, after a tough surgery, where the neurosurgeon screams his lungs out at his anesthetist for not lowering the patient’s blood pressure enough. Hello, what about the doctor’s own BP??? He throws a fit and walks out. Well, if this is what surgeons do, I don’t ever want to go under the knife, ever!
Ok then, Amitabh dies after suffering with the bad script and even worse writing. Anil marries Preity, daughter of billionaire (I think) Randhir Kapoor, although it’s totally left to our imagination why she falls for him in the first place. Her love is blind…..and deaf…..and mental, I am sure! The story goes on and on, we can all take a guess from here.
Amitabh is just the consummate professional; he just walks through his role with panache. That cannot be said about the rest of the cast though. Anil Kapoor delivers a dud, he’s way too over-the-top with his histrionics and that toupee makes him look stupid and takes away any sincerity he may have attempted. Gracy Singh looks jaded and displays just about enough spunk as a sack of wheat. Face it, she ain’t got what it takes. Preity is cute in parts and extremely grating on the nerves in others. But she at least tries to do some justice to her role.
Nothing to write home about Shankar Ehsaan and Loy’s music save for that “Mere dil ka tumse” ditty sung by that evergreen Asha Bhonsle. Cinematography is beyond comment, since a lot of scenes were shot in candlelight. Is this a new cinematic technique?
Of course, the film has potential for a few laughs--- check out the surgery scene where our neurosurgeon blathers on and on. His commentary is worse than Sanjay Manjrekar and Navjot Sidhu put together. And the high-five in the operating theatre, “yes we did it, we did it”. God, kill me now!