Mehbooba - Not Half Bad (Mehbooba (DVD))

Member Name: anonymili

Product:	Mehbooba (DVD)
Date:	21/08/09 (61 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good acting, fabulous locations throughout

Disadvantages: Story not credible in several places

Mehbooba is a Hindi language film starring Ajay Devgan, Manisha Koirala and Sanjay Dutt released in July 2008. Mehbooba means "lover".


WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

Varsha (Koirala) is a happy go lucky Indian woman brought up in New York. Shravan Dhariwal (Dutt) is a spoilt playboy business tycoon who is used to getting his own way and he takes a fancy to Varsha. One of Varsha's friends , who was previously a "girlfriend" of Shravan, warns Varsha of his intentions and Varsha ends up insulting him in front of 100s of people when he tries to get fresh with her. He exacts his revenge by going to her father and begging for her hand in marriage, only to take her virginity once they're engaged and then cruelly dump her. Totally heartbroken and losing her father (who dies of shock due to Shravan's treatment of his daughter), Varsha runs away to Budapest to stay with a friend of her father (Khan) where she changes her name to Payal. In Budapest she is constantly harassed by Karan (Devgan) who insists she is the woman of his dreams (his "Mehbooba") that he has been painting on canvas for 8 years without ever having met her. Despite her heartbreak he manages to eventually win her over after a lot of effort and getting engaged, Karan go to India to prepare for their marriage where his brother is waiting to greet him. Guess who his brother is?! What happens when Varsha/Payal arrives in India to meet her in-laws? Can this story have any kind of happy ending?


THE GOOD AND BAD BITS

Mehbooba took 8 years to complete. Apparently. I haven't been able to find out what the delay was but I also understand the film was a bit of a flop. I don't understand why. I quite enjoyed it. It might be because it stars two of my favourite Bollywood actors or it might be because of the spectacular cinematography used throughout the film or the lavish and excellent choreography in the song and dance routines. I'm not saying I loved the film but I did enjoy the journey, the acting and the colourful and picturesque locations used throughout.

Sanjay Dutt played the spoilt playboy flawlessly. Although I found it somewhat confusing that the older brother who is the head of the business empire was the one who was the philandererPictures of Mehbooba (DVD)

Shravan meets Varshaand not the younger brother's character who was based in Budapest. Shravan is seen as a businessman to be reckoned with who's built this huge empire but still he seems to have time to sleep with anything female that moves. Where does he find the time? Karan is based in Budapest and he seems to have been doing nothing for 8 years aside from painting portraits of his true love on canvas - a true love that he's, umm, never actually set eyes on. Strange... That part of the story could possibly have been changed to make it a bit more credible.
There is a scene when Shravan dumps Varsha after sleeping with her where he tells her that all women can be bought, some for money and gifts and others with the promise of marriage. I found this quite an amusing line because it was actually true where this story was concerned. A girl who's so chaste and pure suddenly sleeps with a man because they're engaged? One would have thought she could have waited till she got married if she's managed to hold onto her virginity all these years...

Varsha's father delivers a line to his daughter to convince her to marry him by saying that Shravan might have been the town bike but he never proposed marriage to anyone before so of course he must really love her and must have changed for the better. Well, he didn't actually call him a bike but you get what I mean... The father seems like a bit of an idiot, the daughter just goes along with her father even though this playboy who she believes has suddenly had a change of heart, just days after she slapped him across the face and insulted him in front of 100s of people, had also used her friend like a disposable plaything! Why are women so stupid sometimes? Do we really become so stupid over a guy? I guess some do! There's a scene where Shravan is surrounded by half naked women whilst he's on the phone plotting to get Varsha into his bed which just made me cringe. The women hanging around him just did not seem true to life. How many women do you know who just hang around guys with loads of other dopey women like themselves whilst a guy is talking about bedding yet another woman? UGH!

The chemistry between Dutt and Devgan was really good; one could believe the brotherly affection they showered on each other was for real. I also found Koirala's scenes with both of her leads very credible. She is a beautiful actress and as well as doing some duds she's done some good films. Her acting in this film was one of her better efforts, even if her character was somewhat flawed but that was down to the screenplay and direction rather than her acting. Kader Khan, although only a supporting actor, had excellent rapport with both Devgan and Koirala's character. Khan's a fabulous character actor and I always prefer it when he plays the good guy as opposed to the villain as he really puts his heart into it.

Shravan is already in India waiting there when Karan turns up from India to announce his wedding. You can clearly see the love and affection the brothers have for each other. Karan is eternally grateful to his brother for everything he's done for him in life. It's not really explained why but one assumes it's because his brother has been so successful in business and has always kept his younger brother. Ok I'll buy all that because the scriptwriters expect me to buy it. BUT why does Karan not know anything about his brother's life in the US? Why does he not know what sort of life his brother leads and how he treats women? Why does Payal (aka Varsha) never ask Karan what his surname is? Would she not have put two and two together if she had known the two men had the surname? Or even had some inkling? Her principles seem rather fickle to be honest. She's living in a huge mansion in New York yet accepts a sports car as a gift She just gives in too easily where marriage is concerned with the first guy and then supposedly being so heartbroken she doesn't really find out that much about the second guy. It doesn't exactly ring true for someone who's so devastated at the betrayal of the man she loved who also caused her father's death.

So, yes, it's just a story, a Bollywood one at that. We ARE supposed to suspend disbelief when it comes to plots but I did say I enjoyed the film didn't I? Well, yes, I did! In spite of the issues I've raised above, I did enjoy the film from start to finish. There were probably a few too many songs in the films for my liking. They were very entertaining to watch and as I said before the choreography was great but I can't really remember any of the songs, they just weren't catchy enough to leave an impression. If I heard a song from the film right now I wouldn't recognise it.

One thing I recall at the start of the movie was what I felt was excessive thanks given to every Tom, Dick and Harry for their contribution during the opening credits. This could have and should have been left for the end of the film when one could easily just switch off or leave the cinema hall if that's where one was watching the film. I find it very tedious when directors do this and it almost spoilt what were actually quite nicely animated opening credits.

Oh and one huge niggle I had with a scene in Budapest, Payal/Varsha tells a policeman that Karan is bothering her and he takes Karan by the arm and says "Chalo" with means "Come with me" in Hindi. How would a policeman in Budapest know Hindi? Why was it even set in Budapest? Why not set it in London or another English speaking country and then have the policeman say "Come with me" in English?!

I didn't buy the huge change one of the main characters went through from halfway through the film; it was too neat and tidy and I really got a bit worried at this stage thinking the director was going to mess up the story for the sake of family loyalty. I also didn't get what happened to the lawyer friend of Payal/Varsha's father who took her in as if she were his own daughter but who couldn't make it to India for her wedding to Karan? Of course, I'm not going to commit review writing suicide by telling you the ending but I was satisfied with it and felt it was the only way they could have gone with the story without upsetting the viewing public.


OVERALL RATING

Ok it might seem that I'm really slating the film now with all the things I've mentioned above but hopefully it won't put you off checking out the film for the overall experience of it as I'm quite happy to give it a solid 3.5 out of 5 stars.


TECHNICAL

Director/Producer/Screenplay: Afzal Khan
Starring: Ajay Devgan, Manisha Koirala, Sanjay Dutt
Supporting cast: Kader Khan, Reema Lagoo
Duration: 164 minutes
Certification: 12
Lyrics: Anand Bakshi
Music: Ismail Darbar
DVD availability: amazon.co.uk (£12.98), erosentertainment.com (£1.69) - prices correct at August 2009

Summary: How did this take film 8 years to finish?!