Avantika Ahuja (Kareena Kapoor, looking gorgeous!) and Ehsaan Khan (Saif, looking haggard) are fellow professors in a Delhi college which allows them to wear jeans, flirt openly and even kiss in the staff room. I want to teach here too!
After an endless round of coffee and conversations, a beautifully shot melodious, ‘Shukran Allah’, song and some super costume changes later Avantika finally succumbs to Ehsaan’s charms. He manages to convince Avantika’s skeptical father that their opposing religions will not be a hindrance in their relationship and manages to convince her that women should not be the ones to sacrifice their career and before you know it Ehsaan accompanies Avantika to New York, where she’s been called to resume her teaching job.
After a bit of the requisite newly-wed cootchie cooing, spending time in luxurious hotel room and doing the tourist bit later the couple start looking for a home and settle on a spacious one in an Asian neighborhood.teaching seems like a very lucrative profession…hmmmmmm
After getting Ehsaan a teaching position in her college , Avantika inexplicably spends the entire day at home as a result of which she discovers that she has some really conservative, and strange, neighbors called Bhaijaan (Om Puri, holding a single grim, more like constipated, expression throughout) and Aaapa (Kirron Kher (speaking in a heavy South Indian dialect which is supposed to be Afghani, btw. Don’t miss the fake penciled eyebrows!) and their suspicious, and unkempt, brood.
With ample time on hand, Avantika starts keeping a watch on her neighbor’s activities and realizes that not only are they ‘terrorists’ who like blowing up airplanes but her husband too is involved with them. not a very pleasant surprise, eh? Infact Ehsaan Khan is a dreaded, most wanted by the FBI terrorist who has strangely been able to get into America, live and work there, all without a hitch.
A pregnant, with information and child, Avantika is placed under house arrest, ignored by Ehsaan, scowled at by Bhaijaan and his ilk and is generally miserable until,
through a series of incidents she comes into contact with Riyaaz (Vivek Oberoi, good) who needs her help to get to know more about the terrorists.very popular they are, everyone wants to get to know them! and together they decide to avenge them/destroy them/set things right calling 911 would have been so much easier and less messier, guys!
If you need to know anymore, about the terrorists or otherwise, watch the movie yourself.
Saif and Kareena have great on-screen chemistry, though Kareena far outshines Saif with a sterling performance. She looks great and is superbly outfitted. Saif looks sufficiently mean and conniving enough to play a deceiving guy, a role in which he always seems to excel in. Vivek Oberoi is good, doing his best in a very weak role. The supporting cast disappoints. The film is beautifully shot with the starkness of the cold winter of New York matching the grim and somber mood of the film perfectly. Wish equal attention had been given to the script and editing so that the final product could have been what it wasn’t, taut and on edge.
The intention of the story was right, what was missing was the intensity.