Apne

Normally I avoid Sunny Deol movies. I made the mistake of recently watching 'Fool and Final' (actually I'd forgotten that Deol was in it). The reason I watched Apne was Shilpa Shetty, Kiron Kher, Victor Bannerjee and Divya Dutta (all three have very small roles). With some alterations in the screenplay, better actors, a better director, better background score and a few more better things, 'Apne' could have been a worthwhile flick.

I'm going to be nice by calling it mediocre as Dharmendra had a lot of expectations from it and I'd feel mean by being really really honest. All this 'high-tech' effects were crap (e.g. the x-ray view, moving camera, slow motion and rib cracking garbage just made the film more tacky and gave it a pretentious 'appeal'). The appearance of the title track in the background echoing throughout the whole film is highly irritating. In fact none of the songs stand out (most of them are abysmal) thanks to Himesh Reshammiya.

Anil Sharma's direction is very poor which is not a surprise considering his last two flicks. Sunny Deol is much less annoying than his other flicks but hé still irritates. Ditto for Bobby Deol. Dharmendra gives a good performance as the stubborn and obsessed father. Bannerjee and Shetty make their presence felt in smaller roles. Katrina Kaif merely plays the standard bimbo doctor. Kirron Kher is good in some scenes and over the top in others.

The screenplay takes (or steals) a lot from 'Million Dollar Baby', 'Rocky' (can't remember which one) and 'Cinderella Man' among other boxing flicks. In spite of so many sources, 'Apne's screenplay is pretty messed up. You're better off rewatching 'Life in a Metro'.