Director Sirish Kunder has made a commendable debut in Hindi cinema as a director. This editor-turned-director has made an impressive attempt to make Jaan-è-mann what it is. Superb editing, exotic locales and a heart warming love story. I had never imagined that special effects could be of such an imperative to a romantic love story. This movie delivers the best in technicality. Scene transitions are superb, dream sequences, going into and out of flashback has its own style and the film is full of jolly and merry instances. But all that does not make a movie great if it lacks its soul, the screenplay. Sirish Kunder, in his first screen writing attempt, has clearly shown his incompetence and inexperience.
Kunder, though has filled the film with lots of one-liners, pretty catchy dialouges and an amazing score, technically the script has pitfalls. Lack of adequate character conflicts, the trait of the film gone missing somewhere and, and most importantly, a novice screenwriter makes the movie lose its charm. Jaan-è-mann could be a thoroughly entertaining if we set the screen writing rules aside, but beyond that, if you're planning to watch a movie by experienced professionals, this one is definitely not your cup of tea.
Lets look at various aspects one by one:
Salman Khan - Good performance. Thank god he's given up laughing like hyena. We see veteran in this movie. A sad an miserable shade of his character makes home in public's heart.
Preity Zinta - After KANK, she's my ultimate favourite. This angelic beauty looks great throughout and she's still watchable as a college girl. And my God, she does great Russian accent.
Akshay Kumar - I like the way he laughs, he..hee..heee. Akshay has come a long way into romantic comedy from action movies and he's good at it. He's in fact good in any character he gets into.
Anupam Kher - This one actor knows the heights of performance, although he plays a person without, um.. much height.
Anu Malik - The track "Humko Maloom" is great. Fabulous. But not all songs are ones we can say "are really great." Worked late night and wrapped up in a haste?
Gulzar - Is he trying to be different or did the producers ask him to do so? Why does he need to use so many English words in songs? I feel bad calling a veteran bad but he fails to live up to the expectations.
Farah Khan - Great. At least this is the best she can give to her newlywed husband Sirish Kunder. She's put her heart and soul into it making choreography one of the strongest aspects of this movie.
Sirish Kunder - Editing - superb! Space sequence - superb! Visual transitions - superb! Should definitely go ahead and make more movies. But before that, I urge him to buy the book "Screenwriting" by Syd Field and read it once.
Apart from this, the production design is laudable. The baby who plays Preity Zinta's daughter is really sweet. Enormous curtains hanging down from the roof look exhilarating. New York, as always is breathtaking. What's even good is the actors' chemistry and the way the entire movie has been set up.
If you're finding it hard to choose between Don and Jaan-è-mann, my choice would definitely be Jaan-è-mann. It's a value for money but not yet the film I can call the best film of the year.
