Main Hoon Na

Rejoice! Director Farah Khan stamps her arrival. Bollywood has yet another star director for the future. Farah Khan’s debut work ’’Main Hoon Na’’ shows the true essence of ’’conventional’’ Bollywood. The impression a person, alien to the world of songs ’n’ fights ’n’ melodrama, has of Bollywood is corroborated with this venture. Wholesome entertainment of the late 70s-early 80s cinema augmented by the late 90s glossy cinema equal ’’Main Hoon Na’’ Farah Khan successfully blends many discrete ingredients together into a hearty meal. The optimistic Indo-Pak friendship, typical Bollywood lost ’n’ found garnished by good songs and comedy make the dish which is ’’Main Hoon Na’’

Shah Rukh Khan plays an army major (thank god not the usual college lover boy at last!) who along with his father Nasseruddin Shah, an army guy too is working on a friendship enterprise with Pakistan. Things go awry when court martial ex-army soldier Suneil Shetty makes his intentions clear. Cut to track two - SRK has an estranged step mother and brother. A reunion with them is the top item on his fathers agenda. Zayed Khan plays the step brother, a happy go lucky - live life to the fullest - kind of a college lover boy. Amrita Rao plays an army generals daughter and Zayed’s love interest. Sushmita Sen is the sweet dream-come-true teacher for any male student. Comic characters in the shape of Bindu, Satish Shah and Boman Irani have their own unique abnormalities and add the comic flavour to this cocktail. How SRK plans to satisfy his fathers wishes of friendship with Pakistan and the union with his step family while countering Suneil Shetty’s profane plans forms the essence of MHN.

Performance wise everyone performs within themselves. Shah Rukh Khan gives an admirably different performance this time around, bereft of his usual mushy-mushy emotional rants. Seeing him speak something about his country and its relations with Pakistan is a welcome relief than his usual love issues with multiple heroines. Zayed Khan is a star of the future. His diction shows promise. Though his body coordination with dialogues is not still upto the mark, it will only improve. Amrita Rao looks innocently cute and plays her part with conviction. She is certainly a breath of fresh air. Sushmita Sen looks smashing in her Manish Malhotra saris and carries herself off elegantly. Suneil Shetty gives a knockout performance as the bad guy. His dialogues and diction convey his cruel intentions aptly. Comedians Satish Shah, Boman Irani and Bindu are perfect in their interesting characters and make the viewer laugh almost everytime they appear on screen. Kiron Kher performs well as the step mother.

Farah Khan shows why she is a future force to reckon with. With her story and direction along with some part of the screenplay, she convinces the viewer how entertaining hardcore Bollywood can be. The one-take opening song, the overall choreography and loads of funny incidents are the feathers in this directors hat. Some ’’Matrix’’ like special effects make the proceedings interesting. These effects have been used in the usual action scenes and also in one comedy scene involving Satish Shah. That is some innovative use of technology! Anu Malik and Javed Akhtar once again render melodious and foot tapping music. The fact that Farah and Anu had been working on the music for more than a year is showing clearly. Anu’s music arranger and friend Ranjit Barot gives a blowing background score. Ranjit has been in the background (general sense) for a long time and its high time he gets attention. With Anu only the sky is a limit for him. Farah seems to have given a lot of thought in picturizing the songs especially the end titles song where the entire crew of actors and technicians flaunt their name placards while they dance their hearts out.

MHN succeeds in bringing a smile to the viewers face after he has had an liberal helping of this spicy and juicy Bollywood dish. For the hardcore Bollywood fan this close to three hours treat should not be missed at any cost!