Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage (2002)
Starring: Hrithik Roshan Amisha Patel
Director: Vikram Bhatt
Music Director: Rajesh Roshan
Synopsis: dreadful piece of romantic rubbish has no redeeming features
Reviewed by: Faiz Khan

 

Hrithik Roshan's first solo release after the phenomenal success of Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai proves to be an unmitigated disaster. Amisha Patel confidently proclaimed that Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage would be the biggest hit of the year. It seems rather more likely that it will be remembered as the biggest shite of the year.

Quite how Vikram Bhatt could direct a slick and entertaining thriller like Raaz and then follow it up with this tired collection of clichés is something of a mystery.

Rohit (Hrithik Roshan) is a happy-go-lucky college student who accidentally witnesses a gangland attack on Sapna (Amisha Patel), the sheltered daughter of underworld don Dholakiya (Kiran Kumar). Living in a gilded cage, Sapna has no freedom and even fewer choices. She is virtually under house arrest, guilty of nothing more than having been born into the wrong family.

Having rescued her from the obligatory gun-toting villains, Rohit naturally falls head over heels in love. He then somehow manages to weedle his way into a musical group hired to perform during the nine days of Navratri celebrations at Dholakiya's mansion.

Love blossoms.

Apparently.

Quite when the happy couple actually find the opportunity to sneak away from several hundred dancing revellers to whisper sweet nothings to one another is anyone's guess, but Bollywood has never been one to let practicalities get in the way of romance.

Song follows song.

Dance follows dance.

Hrithik is given every opportunity to remind us what a superb dancer he is, but after a while one begins hoping that the film itself might finally decide to get on with the story.

Sadly...

it never really does.

Sapna is already engaged to the gloriously gormless son of one of her father's associates, but she eventually escapes with Rohit and takes refuge in his boys' hostel, where the two briefly live in blissful ignorance of the chaos about to descend upon them.

The college then treats us to a chorus of "We Wish You A Happy Life", while the lovebirds jiggle away to yet another hideous song before Dholakiya and his army conveniently arrive to put an end to all this happiness.

Needless to say, the path of true love doesn't run particularly smoothly.

Having dragged his daughter home, Dholakiya decides the most sensible course of action is to beat Rohit to within an inch of his life in a succession of scenes that are both unnecessarily violent and surprisingly unpleasant.

Will Rohit rise like a phoenix?

Will true love conquer all?

Will the ending resemble a modern-day Romeo and Juliet?

You probably already know the answers.

There are no surprises here.

The film simply creaks towards a thoroughly predictable finale and ends to the enormous relief of everyone concerned.

Fresh from the success of Raaz, Vikram Bhatt delivers a surprisingly ramshackle piece of work that barely gets out of first gear. There is scarcely a flicker of genuine romance, very little charm and almost no originality. Instead, the film lumbers from one uninspired scene to another, held together by third-rate songs and situations that seem to have been borrowed wholesale from better films.

In fact, the whole enterprise often feels like a bastardised version of Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai—almost as though someone had taken that film apart, copied a few ideas, thrown in another hero called Rohit and hoped nobody would notice.

Hrithik Roshan is completely wasted. We are introduced to him via yet another ridiculous football sequence designed to show off his physique. Clad in tight shorts, sporting bulging muscles and looking considerably older—and almost twice the size—of everyone else on the field, he spends much of the film looking every inch the superstar trapped inside an utterly ordinary script.

Unfortunately, the screenplay gives him almost nothing to do beyond dance, flex his muscles and endure one stale cliché after another.

Amisha Patel fares even worse. She spends much of the film looking as though she is permanently on the verge of an epileptic fit and never once succeeds in generating any believable chemistry with Hrithik. Hers is a remarkably insipid performance and does little to dispel the suspicion that she was fortunate lightning struck with Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai.

The supporting cast hardly warrants discussion.

Rajesh Roshan's music is equally disappointing. Apart from providing excuses for yet more dancing, the songs quickly become a chore rather than a pleasure.

Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage has virtually no redeeming features. It is a tired, derivative and spectacularly uninspired film that squanders two popular stars on a screenplay assembled from recycled ideas and exhausted clichés.

An unmitigated disaster...

for all concerned.