Main Hoon Na can easily be called one of the most awaited movies of 2004. Weeks before its release, the only 3 words on everyone’s lips were ’Main Hoon Na’!
Talk about movies and the first movie that comes up in the discussion was Main Hoon Na. Some people were dying to watch it (like me!) and others were just curious. But whatever may have been the case, it was hugely popular even before its release even though its music wasn’t exactly a masterpiece.
As Farha Khan plainly put it, the movie wasn’t supposed to be pathbreaking. It was supposed to be whatever it is. A typical hindi movie which you can watch just to escape reality, and leave logic locked up back home.
Criticise its flaws all you may want to, but I would still rate it higher than Kal Ho Na Ho. I found some parts of KHNH terribly hard to accept as logical. Main Hoon Na maybe illogical, but it is illogical throughout. It doesn’t promise to be logical and then turn into a weird mixture.
Since its only been 3 days since the movie’s release, I guess most of you may not have watched it yet & so I won’t spoil your fun by giving out the entire storyline down to the last joke!
So lets start with a little background info on me, my aims and ambitions in life, my CV, and basically an excerpt from my autobigraphy.
Hey hey hey! Do you I see you running away? Noo.....Come back!!!
Main Hoon Na is a hotchpotch, a khichdi similar to its music. As you must have read a gazillion times already, it has the Indo-Pak topic woven into its story, it has the college campus romance, the terrorist angle, the hero having problems ’re-uniting’ his mom/dad/step sibling etcetera etcetera etcetera.
Though the plot is not one which has all these aspects intricately woven into one masterpiece, thankfully, neither is it one immensely convoluted maze of a story.
And no -in-ur-face or gross humor or humor of the ’masti’ n ’kantaben’ type! lol
(except one joke which was GROSS)
The lead role of any armyman is played by Shahrukh Khan, who is involved in the Project Milaap towards building a friendship between India and Pakistan.
But he has to leave the actual ’battlefront’ and go to a college in Darjeeling to save the Army General’s(Kabir Bedi) daughter(played by Amrita Rao), whose kidnapping can cause serious hindrance to the success of the project.
Now this is a bit hard to digest because even if the general’s daughter does get kidnapped, I don’t think that a General, who plays a pivotal role in the Project Milaap will end the mission only because his daughter is in danger. So sending the the ’best’ army man in the country to save his daughter is a bit weird.
But anyways, apart from this, Major Ram Prasad Sharma (heehee, thats shahrukh) has to find his step brother Laxman Prasad Sharma (lol@ Zayed Khan) and step mom (Kiron Kher) who left him and his dad 20 years ago. Obviously he also has to nab the terrorist Raghavan Dutta(Suneil Shetty) who plots to kidnap the general’s daughter and thus end Project Milaap. So theoretically, its a one man movie, conforming to its somewhat egocentric title: Main Hoon Na. But it is anything but that.
What I thought about how main hoon na would be- And how it turned out to be:
I thought: My assumption about MHN when the release was still 2-3 months away was that it would be like yet another romantic movie with shahrukh still playing a lovestruck somebody’s role.
What it turned out to be: Very different from what I had expected. Where Shahrukh’s love for/crush on the teacher at the college (who’s sushmita sen) is given due amount of footage, and not any more+not any less than needed. Isn’t an out and out romantic flick at all.
I thought: If its an action role, Shahrukh is completely going to make a fool out of himself and look really stupid, after all, badshaah and a couple of other movies in which he attempted to be the action hero were disasters!
Turned out to be: Nothing like that! Shahrukh actually looked convincing! I mean not convincing, obviously we know how they showed those action scenes, but atleast neither SRK nor the scenes turned out to be hilarious! (LOL because that’s what I expected)
I thought : Zayed Khan the neanderthal would ruin the movie!
Turned out: That even neanderthals can act sometimes. I think he performed well in the movie. An infinite improvement over ’chura liya..’
In the early part of the movie I resented his hair (non) cut. Later when he actually cut his hair, I started feeling that the long hair suited the neanderthal more than the short one.lol. But he didnt ruin the movie, that I can say.
I thought: Shahrukh would overact like he did in K3G.
Turned out: That he restrained himself from doing so successfully, and acted well. I mean He’s Da Best!!! (lol thats the inner srk fan in me speaking)
I thought: Amrita Rao had a better role.
Turned out: That she was required to just look pretty and just be there. Even though her role is important, she doesn’t have much to do in the movie. But she acted well..wasnt the best but good nonetheless.
I thought: Sushmita had a longer role.
Turned out: She wasn’t actually ’heroine’ of the movie, but more like the love interest of the hero, who is absolutely essential in bollywood. Not that essential to the plot though. But Sush looked really beautiful. The scenes between Sush and Shrukie (Thats srk) were really enjoyable n funny! Sush acts well, looks great, and is much better than trASHWARYA.
The rest of the actors were okay.
Bindu was....ok (lol), Satish Shah had a gross role (lol), Boman Irani was good, but he could have been given a longer/better role. But he was great at whatever he was doing. Watch out for his ties, amazing ties! Love them! LOLOL
Even though people have been praising the choreography, and I didn’t think it was great. The song ’Chale Jaise Hawaaein’ was choreographed as if some 3rd or 4th grade kids were supposed to dance on it. The rest were okay, tumhe jo maine dekha and the qawwali was good. I liked the concept used in the last song. Quite a change from the usual boring credits thing.
By the way, the only person who’s name was there in the song but who wasnt present and dancing, was Gauri Khan.
And there’s tabu in the movie too, tell me if you could catch her in the 1/4 of a split second of a role(?).
And jahan shrukie, wahan KJ nahi ho aisa to ho nahin sakta..So we come to know that Shahrukh’s costumes were designed/chosen by Karan Johar.
Direction was good I would say, the comedy was fun, action sequences well managed (so what if they were lifts from other movies like the matrix), only one song seemed out of place, ’chale jaise hawayein’, sush and shahrukh share a chemistry(lol) ( better than preity n shrukie, I daresay) And yes! The use of the RD burman songs was great!!!!!!!
And who can forget those violins! LOLOL
Watch the movie, enjoy the 3 hours, come out of the theatres and forget about it. But do watch it once.
I know this review isn’t really great...I don’t really like what I’ve written but please leave your comments even if you think this review was ok. :)
Ananya the ’Gal_who_loves_shahrukh_khan’
lol!