Jannat

Movie Jannat Director Kunal Deshmukh Music Pritam Cast Emraan Hashmi, Sonal Chauhan, Samir Kochar, Jawed Sheikh

Sonia Chopra

“No car, no pyar,” drawls small-time gambler Arjun (Emraan Hashmi), who’s fallen for a girl super-fast and now wants to make quick bucks to woo her. He’s got a penchant for winning bets on cricket matches—chatta dimaag, he explains his keen sixth sense. When not doing that, unshaven and ungroomed Arjun, even a little paunchy, is pursuing Zoya (Sonal Chauhan, size minus minus zero) by buying her a ring she fancied and exhausting all his credit card limits by buying stuff from her call centre. Soon, she hops into his spanking new car and they drive away to the next song. Arjun and his trusted sidekick Vishal (Vishal Malhotra, instructed not to act, only stutter) turn bookies and are making money faster than they can count. His father (Vipin Sharma, Taare Zameen Par) is an antithesis of the son, living in a chawl and revelling in his simple life; he tries warning Zoya of Arjun’s lying prowess and unruly ambition. Arjun’s covers up his wealth by explaining a spurt in his import-export business. When Zoya attempts to probe, he shoots back a ‘Na koi sawal karo, na koi jhoot suno’ dead-end, asking Zoya to trust him. Arjun is then summoned by mafia don Abu Ibrahim (Javed Sheikh, Om Shanti Om) to South Afreeka to work together. From a bookie, Arjun graduates to becoming a match-fixer, luring key players into accepting hefty bribes. Arjun is adept at playing the game and researches the players’ weaknesses and preferences before approaching them. Surplus money doesn’t calm his greed and keeps him away from home; meanwhile miserably lonely live-in-girlfriend Zoya is having an emotional melt-down with hours spent alone in malls and painting and repainting walls (yup, they’ve lifted this straight off The Devil’s Advocate). You’ll find other similarities with the 1997 Al Pacino-Keanu Reeves-Charlize Theron starrer. Like the character of Kevin Lomax, here Arjun, is thrilled that he never fails in his job, and his ambitions and greed are limitless, blinding him to what’s right and wrong. He bites Ibrahim’s bait and sells his soul; the guilt of neglecting Zoya and lying to her repeatedly is easily drowned in an overflowing pool of money. Zoya finally puts her foot down and demands an explanation. Arjun tells the truth for the first time. Next, he’s in jail; she becomes a pole dance in a nightclub to make a living (she was a call centre executive for Chrissake). The rest of the story in pretty interesting, but has snatches of Gangster, a Vishesh Films productions, too. The quality of dialogue (Sanjay Masoom, The Train, Krrish) is inconsistent—while at times it flows effortlessly, it’s extremely laboured at places. Inane pieces of conversation compare cricketers to prostitutes—Jawani khatam to kahaani khatam and yet another compares the game of cricket to girls. Cinematography by Manoj Soni (Good Boy Bad Boy, Pyar Ke Side Effects) is competent, but is suddenly jerky in some scenes. The background score is interesting, especially in the second half. The music (Bhatt fixture Pritam and Kamran Ahmed) is good with Zara sa and Jannat standing out. Quality of acting is above average. Emraan Hashmi is annoyingly smart-alecky in the first half, but his performance vastly improves as the story evolves. Also, always remaining unshaven is really not cool; wearing boring shirts or shiny suits are dated. Sonal Chauhan is pretty and makes a confident debut. Her’s is a character that really holds the story together and Chauhan does a good job of portraying the strong, spirited Zoya. Samir Kochhar looks fab and shines as ACP Malhotra (they’re always ACPs in our films; no other designation will do). The actor who plays Ibrahim’s assistant is also very good with his menacingly smile bringing out the ruthlessness of his character. A downside is the abundant use of film clichés—the hero is accompanied by a dithering sidekick, the suited-booted mob boss is always sipping wine, even in the afternoon, and is consistently surrounded by blonde wigs. The ACP, as is the norm after Dhoom, is always out-of-uniform in cucumber casuals with the first few shirt buttons open. Like the ice-cream cone crunching cop in Sunday and the fruit crazy one in Race, here too, the ACP struts in and maroes dialogues with his mouth full. Still, Kunal Deshmukh, despite being a first time director, shows chutzpah in his stylised filmmaking. It’s ironic really that the film is about cricket and its stiffest competition is likely to be the IPL. Go for it if you’re a Hashmi fan and the Bhatt formula (somewhat new tale, old clichés, good music, larger-than-life climax) works for you.