Yeh Lamhe Judaai Ke Hindi Movie
Shah Rukh Khan, looking the way he did 10 years ago, frowns at an oversized femme fatale Navneet Nishan and growls, "Take off your clothes."
Fortunately, this unaesthetic piece of scrappy cinema spares us the ordeal of watching her do a Mallika Sherawat. But don't heave a sigh of relief. There are many other tortures and ordeals in store for any brave-heart who sits through the mothballed, mildewed story of a singer who loses his song. And his sense of bearing -- much like the film, which knows not what it wants.
That "Yeh Lamhe Judai Ke" has been pieced together from fragments of dates doled out by King Khan and Queen Tandon is evident in the yawning (yawn yawn!) continuity holes in the narration. Now you see them, now you don't in this hideous game of hide and shriek.
To take a very important twist in the stale tale: the entire cast heads for SRK's climactic stage performance -- which never happens!
"He wasn't feeling well," a starlet whimpers as a passing explanation. You could say the same about the director. Though the illness here is far more grave.
Stage show or no, this is strictly a no-show and a huge disservice to SRK who plans his career with the meticulous care of a monk spacing out his chants.
The only high points of "Yeh Lamhe..." are the two star names on the posters.
Once you walk into the film you just might walk out with a different opinion on SRK and RT. They play childhood friends Dushyant and Jaya who get estranged by his ambition and stardom. When she finally visits him for a rapprochement he rudely thrusts a bulging bag into her belly.
Ruder than Devdas, yes? Enter Navneet Nishan and Mohnish Behl (looking 10 years leaner and gawkier) to plot and plan Dushyant's bankruptcy and downfall. Does he really need help?
SRK, poor guy, is required to do a vaudeville version of "Devdas". He's either drinking and stumbling down badly-lit streets in search of his lost love (or is it the lost script?) or looking with lurid contempt at 'Chandramukhi' Navneet Nishan while 'Chunnilal' Mohnish cackles so hard you think you're missing the joke -- until you realise you've been sitting through it for more than two hours.
Halfway through the film, the director runs out of his stars' dates.
Raveena's character is hastily bumped off (truck does the trick). SRK appears in the rest of the film in sporadic glimpses on posters, stock shots and, worse still, in dialogues among a bunch of squeaky youngsters trying hard to conceal the absence of the lead pair with a dumb charade. It fooled no one except the distributors into buying this prized con-job.
For those who can actually bear to be around till the end, "Yeh Lamhe..." appears to be an architectural marvel. How does the plot hold the story together without the stars??? The tragic romance about star-crossed lovers turns into a makeshift murder mystery in the last half-hour. By the time the demented narration stumbles to a finish, you wonder how the producer ever dared to release an unfinished, incoherent jumble of babbling balderdash and musical items (staged with the clamorous elan of mice scrambling for leftovers in trashcan).
Every voice from Mohnish to Kiran Kumar to even Avtar Gill is dubbed by alien throats. Can you imagine a more spurned and unwanted film than one where Gill refuses to dub?
The prize for the worst performance since the inception of the talkies, goes to the guy who dubbed SRK's voice. He hams so hard on the soundtrack you cringe each time SRK opens his mouth.
If you're a fan of SRK do yourself a favour. Pretend this, ha ha, film was never released.
MOVIE REVIEWS