Saawan Movie Review

Interesting ideas don't necessarily translate into interesting films!

Saawan Kumar's SAAWAN - THE LOVE SEASON tackles a novel theme. It tells the story of a man who predicts the future. Whether it's the death of a person at 9 p.m. or a major accident on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway or the leading lady's death on a dreadful Friday, the man knows it all. He's a modern-day Nostradamus.

An exciting concept, isn't it? Sure, on paper, the concept does sound fascinating, but on film, the concept goes for a toss.

Actually, the film rests on a thin plot. It starts off as a love story, continues to have the hero and heroine romancing in Sun City for the first 40 minutes, till the desi Nostradamus enters the frame, minutes before the interval.

Again, after the intermission, the hero and heroine break into songs in Dubai, till our Nostradamus drops a bomb: He tells the heroine she'd die two days later, on Friday. Obviously, the lady is shattered, but instead of going into a depression [who'd like to rejoice after you've known of your impending death?], the hero and heroine break into two songs and make merry.

All this while, the heroine keeps hammering 'Friday' into the hero's head. On the fateful day, the lady is mistakenly shot by the cops outside a shopping mall and dies. The hero blames Nostradamus for it, breaks into his house, bashes him black and blue and Nostradamus dies.

When Nostradamus dies, the heroine, who is already pronounced dead, wakes up. She's alive now…

Hindi movies have often tackled issues such as reincarnation, ghosts and astrology and the moviegoer has embraced those themes if they're handled convincingly. Unfortunately, in SAAWAN - THE LOVE SEASON, the screenplay is amateurish and by the time the story reaches the finale, you've already lost interest in the goings-on.

To sum up, SAAWAN - THE LOVE SEASON is a good concept gone awry!

Raj [Kapil Jhaveri] and Kajal [Saloni Aswani], both from Mumbai, meet in Cape Town. It's love at first sight for Raj, but Kajal doesn't reciprocate. But Raj wins her over and all's well.

Raj confides to his father [Ranjeet] about Kajal, while Kajal tells her father [Prem Chopra] about Raj. The two fathers meet and realize that they're actually childhood friends. The engagement date is fixed -- on Kajal's birthday -- but Kajal bumps into an unexpected man [Salman Khan] in the day, who not only saves her from an accident, but forewarns her that her father would die at 9 p.m. that same night.

The father actually dies at 9 p.m. Kajal starts believing in the unexpected man and wants to know her future. That's when the man tells her that she would die on Friday, two days later. The remainder is about the girl wanting to live life fullest in those two days, before her demise.

The film has two plots running parallel -- the love story and the Nostradamus aspect. While the love story is like any other love story, the portions involving Salman are slightly watchable, although there was scope to make them far more interesting.

The comedy track -- involving Johny Lever and Bobby Darling -- is crude and appears forced in the narrative. It doesn't even raise a chuckle, forget a laugh.

Saawan Kumar isn't in form this time. The veteran has tackled drama amazingly in the past [SAAJAN BINA SUHAGAN, SOUTEN, SANAM BEWAFA], but even the dramatic portions in SAAWAN - THE LOVE SEASON lack the by-now-famous punch. Music is another sore point. Aadesh Shrivastava's music is uninspiring and barring the title track, the remaining tracks are plain monotonous. Cinematography [Rajendra Prasad] is eye-filling, especially the locales of Sun City and Dubai.

Salman Khan's role and performance are both strictly average. Kapil doesn't get any scope to display histrionics, but he does the conventional hero's part with ease. Saloni gets more footage and she does leave an impression. Prem Chopra and Ranjeet have miniscule roles. Johny Lever doesn't entertain. Ditto for Bobby Darling.

On the whole, SAAWAN – THE LOVE SEASON is a weak fare, which has some scope at the single screens and in the Hindi belt primarily due to Salman’s star presence. That’s it!