One of the most common genres explored by filmmakers in Bollywood is love stories! Each type of loves story has been shown on silver screen. So you’ll find nothing new in Jab We Met. But though it’s an interesting flick and what makes it interesting is the direction by Imtiaz Ali. Imtiaz Ali had already shown his creative direction skills in his debut movie, Socha Na Tha and in Jab We Met too, he doesn’t disappoints!
The story of the movie: Aditya Kashyap (Shahid Kapoor), a wealthy businessman, is heartbroken as his girlfriend married someone else. He walks out of his office, and aimlessly boards a Delhi-bound train from CST station of Mumbai (Since when did the Delhi-bound trains started departing from CST??). In train, he meets a bubbly and talkative girl Geet (Kareena Kapoor). Geet started talking to Aditya. Unable to bear her, Aditya gets out of the train on a station at night. Geet follows her and she misses her train, and she helds Aditya responsible for it and orders him to take her to her hometown, Bhatinda. On the way, Geet helped Aditya to get over his depression and sadness. They then talked, laughed, danced, sang and finally reached Bhatinda. In Bhatinda, Geet’s family had planned her marriage with her childhood friend Manjeet. However, Geet had a boyfriend Anshuman (Tarun Arora) in Manali and she had planned to elope. She sought Aditya’s help for this. With Aditya’s help she reached Manali. But then something disastrous happened with Geet.
As you see, Jab We Met doesn’t offer anything new, in terms of story. But though it works because of Kareena’s performance, and also because of funny dialogues and the situations. The first half had some great comic situations. Also the conversation between Shahid and Kareena throughout the first half was quite interesting. The Hotel Decent sequence was quite cool. So was the song ‘Yeh Ishq’.
What I loved most about the 2 nd half is that Kareena’s traits transfers to Shahid and vice versa. That was really wonderful, as hardly any love story has shown this. And the climax too was wonderful and tickles your funny bones.
The film rests on the power-packed performances of Shahid and Kareena. Kareena Kapoor was perfect for the character of Geet. I don’t think any other actress would have done complete justice to Geet’s character (Amisha Patel might had done). She performed as per her character demanded. Even in the 2 nd half when her character undergoes a change, she didn’t disappoint. There was no overacting from her part and certainly, it was one of the best performances of her career.
Shahid Kapoor’s performance was not equally good as Kareena’s but though, he doesn’t disappoint. He was looking in his new look and gives a great performance. He got better in the 2 nd half and looked cool in the song ‘Nagada’!
Tarun Arora doesn’t impress initially but really makes one laugh in the climax! Dara Singh’s character was a boring one because of which his performance, though good, doesn’t impress much. Pawan Malohtra was completely unrecognizable and gives a nice performance. Saumya Tandon’s character reminds you of Mandira Bedi of DDLJ! Others were good.
Pritam’s music was as usual foot-tapping and cool. The songs which are excellent are ‘Mauja Hi Mauja’, ‘Yeh Ishq Haay’, and ‘Nagada’. Other songs don’t satisfy as most of them sounded similar.
S Natarajan Subramaniam was excellent and 100% perfect! The lensman brilliantly captures the outdoor locales. The locations were equally good, especially in the song ‘Yeh Ishq Haay’.
Imtiaz Ali deserves a pat on his back for handling the movie in a perfect manner. He saw to it that the movie doesn’t become a run-of-a-mill kind of product, and made the movie interesting throughout. Even his screenplay was perfect. And he did a great job as a dialogue writer too! Really, he is one of the finest filmmakers of Bollywood today! Great work, we are waiting for your forthcoming flicks!
Some of the best scenes of the movie:
1. The first scene of the movie
2. Kareena’s entry
3. The scene where Kareena misses her train
4. The scenes of Ratlam
5. The song ‘Nagada’
6. The intermission point
7. Shahid’s progress in the 2 nd half
8. The scene where Shahid and Kareena meet at Shimla
9. The last 30 mins of the movie
On the whole, Jab We Met is a cool, timepass entertainer which doesn’t bore even for a moment. Kareena and Shahid rock, so is the cinematography, direction, dialogues and screenplay. In short, it’s a must watch!!
My rating- ½
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