This movie is a throwback to the depressing Indira-licence-Raj years of the 80s when movies were our one and only source of entertainment. Hence they had to be long, gushing over with cringe-worthy melodrama (and SRK is the apt ham to pick for that), with lots of ballad like songs, and full of the salt of the earth feel.
This movie has all that (except for the other masala staples: fights and comedy!?) and it’ll probably appeal a lot to the older generation (in their 50s?) as a remembrance of yesteryear movies. For young folks like me though, it was a little boring, illogical, had convenient shortcuts (Zinta’s side of the 22-year saga was presented in one short breath as ’’her husband wnet abroad and her folks died’’ so gave up her lifelong Lahori hearth and home, and upped and went to live in SRK’s village!) and dragged on and on with no end in sight.
The melodrama especially was sickly, and eye-roll-worthy. The story was your usual ’’boy-sees-girl and falls in 22-year-long-sentence-endurable love’’.
Yash Chopra should’ve hired someone from Lahore to depict it accurately. He got it ALL wrong! The 1940s Lucknowi-style clothes, behavior, greetings, sherwani, hat etc. were most embarassing because they reeked of ignorance. As anyone who’s been to Lahore recently knows (the cricket matches were a huge opportunity), Lahore prides itself on being Pakistan’s fashion capital.
People pride themselves on their modernity. You’d be hard put to see any Muslim doing the Adab-Arz greeting in Lucknow today, let alone in the heart of Punjab, Lahore! They’re Punjabis! He ought to have gotten at least one person from Lahore to give him some tips. There were so many blatant mistakes.
The music was old-style but catchy. Lata Mangeshkar sang amazingly well for her age, but she should stop singing for younger actresses now. It doesn’t fit anymore, and only lessens her stature and historical prestige.
Plusses:
* Lush colors, song picturizations and dances.
* Some of the songs are good, and worth buying the cassette for.
Minuses:
* Excessive and mindnumbing melodrama
* Illogical and they take convenient shortcuts wherever required to present more unlikely melodrama.
* Totally inaccurate impression of Lahori society/people.
You may watch this movie once to enjoy the colors and song/dance picturizations, but the story itself is mindnumbingly boring and done to death.
The music though is recommendable for easy listening for songs like Aaya Tere Dar Par, Do Pal, Main Yahaan Hoon and a couple others.