Yesterday being a Saturday, I was home early. My parents were around to baby-sit and WFM and I suddenly found that we could think of going out and seeing a movie. Of all the films in nearby theatres ("Har Dil Jo Pyar Karega" and "Tera Jadoo..."), HDAPH one was the only one that seemed appealing. We rushed to "Premiere", a new theatre in Parel, just north of the F-North Ward office and were pleasantly surprised to find that they also had ample basement parking, a definite plus-point for repeat visits. We had no tickets and there was a house-full board up at the entrance but we were hoping to get lucky. Which we did, and how! A manager's assistant came up to the theatre entrance and shouted to the world that there were four extra tickets in the office for anyone willing to walk down and get them. Obviously we did just that.

By the time we got to our seats, the film had already started and we had missed the credits. It was only later that I realized that this was a home production produced by Boney Kapoor, directed by Satish Kaushik and starring Anil Kapoor.

This movie is yet another addition to the genre of "Dil", "Pyaar", long-titled, musical (with songs in foreign locales), emotional, feel-good love stories with cute children, big houses, rich parents, friends, sacrifices, ...I hope you get the picture. The twist is that Preeti (Aishwarya) and Avinash (Anil Kapoor) come together when he gives her refuge in his house, after she witnesses a murder, agrees to help the police prosecute the murderer, gets raped by the murderer's brother (an interesting role by Puru Kumar, Raaj Kumar's flop hero son), leaves her house to save her family's "izzat" (prestige), and is refused shelter by her friend's parents who live in a house opposite Avinash's. Avinash incidentally lives alone with two children, who are actually the progeny of his father and a former secretary. The children call Avinash "Daddy" and soon start calling Preeti "Mommy". If this sounds a little confusing, it is!

The story moves along jerkily through misunderstandings, fights between Avinash and Puru, verbal duels between Avinash and his father (a typecast Anang Desai essaying one of his usual television serial roles), the entry of Kushi Malhotra (Sonali Bendre in a short but neat role) from the US who loves Avinash hoping to marry him and Preeti sacrificing her happiness for all and sundry. Preeti's friend Bubbly played by Tanaaz Currim (echoing her role in "Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai) helps her through her ordeal.

Avinash is a little unbelievable and sometimes tiring; rich, caring, virtuous and like all such characters, prone to launching into morality lectures at the drop of a hat. Anil Kapoor though as Avinash is good. This strategy of playing slightly elderly, mature characters (Taal, Biwi No 1), is definitely paying off. Aishwarya is also very good, but in danger of becoming another Meena Kumari, with all her "rona-dhona", "all-sacrificing" roles (Taal, etc.). The rest of the cast unfortunately is unnecessarily loud and unbearable.

Avinash lives in a supposed secular, upmarket New Delhi colony and is surrounded by cartoonesque characters of different ethnic origins; a Tamil couple (Himani Shivpuri and Anupam Kher), a Bengali couple (Johny Lever and an unknown), a Sardar couple (Jaspal Singh Bhatti and an unknown) and a few others. All these people are side-shows supposedly for our entertainment; they have precious little to do with the main story and if they hadn't been around, the movie would have been over an hour earlier and we would been well in time for the twins' next feed, without having to run out of the film ten minutes before its end. The only time the whole gang is really funny, is when Johny Lever, who celebrates festivals when he feels like, does a Rakshabandhan and makes his wife put "barfis" (sweetmeats) on cowdung and then explains how "barfis" and cowdung are sister and brother because they actually originate from a cow.

One thing that struck both of us was the number of children between the ages of 2-7 watching this film with their parents. Though not an "adults only" film, it is not meant for kids; there is gratuitous violence, a rape, crude language and too many uncomfortable moments. Aren't we as parents supposed to control our children's viewing habits, or is it that these days, "sab chalta hai?".

We were home in less than seven minutes, the new flyover at Dadar taking us from Chitra theatre to the Hindu Colony junction in less than 2 minutes.

The film is obviously forgettable and passable. The best part of the film? The trailer of Fiza, starring Hrithik, Karishma and Jaya Bachhan. If the film is even half as good as the trailer, we have a mega-hit in the making; and I'll have fun reviewing a film by Khalid Mohamed, the Times of India film critic, who is the director of this film.