As commercial Hindi movie making is poised to move into 2006, everyone’s been chasing the 'hatt ke' themes like adult comedies, stylish con capers, violent vendettas, pre-marital relationships and what have you. And now, in a hark back to the days of yore comes Suneel Darshan’s latest film about an age-old theme that’s about a basic requirement of the human heart friendship. No harm in a theme like that, for we’ve seen what the Rajshrees and Mister Sippy have achieved with films dedicated to the theme of friendship. And Suneel Darshan’s Dosti, with a good star cast of Akshay Kumar, Bobby Deol, Kareena Kapoor, Lara Dutta, Juhi Chawla and others, also boasts of decent production values. But one was also hoping to see where next the treatment of the friendship theme would go where would a respected director like Suneel Darshan take it after the Dil Chahata Hai milestone? Only by virtue of choice of storyline, Dosti turns out to be a very filmy kind of film that goes back in time.
Dosti is about two friends played by Akshay Kumar and Bobby Deol. Karan (Bobby Deol) has always been a loner, neglected and ignored by his rich supersuccessful careerist father (Kiran Kumar) and Socialite mother. Worse, even his kid sister doesn’t seem to like or get along with him. So one day, as a kid, ticked off by both mama and papa who are too busy with a party in progress, Karan rushes out of the house, kicking a football furiously, till he loses footing and soon, in fully filmi fashion, is dangling from the edge of a precipice, screaming his lungs out for help. Until, in fully filmy fashion again, a hand enters frame and literally pulls Karan from the jaws of death. Meet Raj, with whom Karan instantly bonds and becomes his best friend. OK, Karan is the rich kid, and hence, in fully filmy fashion, Raj is churchmouse poor, with a tyrannical mama to boot, in FFF again. And one day, when maniacal maama starts thrashing young Raj, Karan, who cannot take it, picks up a rock and hurls it (yes,in fully filmy fashion again) at maama’s head. And before long, young Karan, who’s found a soul mate in Raj, announces to his parents that henceforth, Raj stays with us! Rich parents make token protest, but Karan is determined, and so young Karan and Raj grow up to become Bobby Deol and Akshay Kumar respectively!
While Bobby is the quintessential extrovert philanderer in whose dictionary a dalliance long enough to last a whole night equals commitment, and who ends up in women’s hostel rooms more often than not, Akshay is his buddy who bails him out of tight corners with hostel wardens by turning up in fully filmy fashion as a fake inspector in the nick of time and whisking his buddy away before the real cops can be called.
Bobby learns Akshay is in love with but cannot express it. So he plays matchmaker, and hey presto, Akshay’s lady love, played well by Kareena, slips him the engagement ring. Oh sure, her brother and bhabhi object to Raj’s unemployed, homeless and carless status, but in fully filmy fashion dost Bobby quickly fixes that with some emotional blackmail with papa. Kareena and Akshay exchange engagement rings, and friends decide they will marry the women they love on the same day. BTW, Bobby still has to find the woman he loves. And very quickly does in the form of Lara Dutta, who, hold your breath, accepts him as a boy friend on probation, to be confirmed only if she likes him after the trial period. Hmmm
A large part of the rest of the film till the interval is devoted to some truly filmy tests Bobby’s lady Lara puts him to, and his wooing of her. In the meantime, Akshay, who cannot tolerate anyone bad mouthing his dost Bobby, has actually slapped Kareena’s brother (Mahesh Thakur) for speaking ill of his best friend, and Kareena breaks the engagement! Soon, Fate conspires to bring the two friends apart. As personal drama gets tinged by tragedy, the story lurches ahead in bits and starts, encountering one musical speedbreaker after another as songs break the flow time and again, much like the days of yore when a song would thrust itself into a storyline at exactly its slowest points. At times you actually wish you could fast-forward the very mediocre songs composed by Nadeem Shravan. However, Boogie Woogie is a good tune that’s filmed very stylishly, and the qawwali too is interesting, and is used well as background music. Dulhaniya is popular, and I suspect that’s more due to the promos than the actual musical score, but nobody’s complaining on that count.
Dosti is perhaps the most ‘filmy’ Hindi film to be made in the last one or even two years. Suneel Darshan’s earlier hugely successful film Raja Hindustani too was based on a truly filmy storyline of a rich heiress falling in love with a poor taxi driver and had the sort of truly heightened emotions you would find in dramatic pot boiler, but RH had the luxury of unveiling the superbly sexy new avatar of Karishma Kapoor that catapulted her to supestardom. Dosti could have been a good friendship yarn but it goes over the top with sometimes cliched emotions and lines, especially in the scenes where a broken-voiced Akshay Kumar actually hams a bit from a hospital bed, mouthing dosti cliches to ensure Bobby remains by his side.
Bobby, back to his longer hairdo look reminiscent of Gupt, puts in a good, spirited performance, and is matched by Akshay Kumar as the more restrained of the two friends. Akshay is good too, with a smooth dialogue delivery and good timing, except for those couple of scenes mentioned above. Lara Dutta plays Bobby’s oomphy love interest well, and Juhi Chawla too puts in a competent performance as a pleasant doctor who bonds with her patient in a mature, caring and supportive way.
The filmyness apart, a strong aspect of the film is the extent to which Akshay and Bobby are comfortable with each other they share a mutual chemistry which shows very palpably. Their off-screen chemistry translates into some captivating scenes with a decent emotional graph. Without doubt, the Akshay-Bobby chemistry is the film’s high point. Except when they start mouthing somber dosti-ki-duhaai dialogues. But having said that, KK Singh’s and Rumi Jaffrey’s dialogues (why on earth do so may films spell that department as ‘dialouge’?!) are also quite comic in the funny situations.
Excellent cinematography and production values. Director Suneel Darshan gets 3 stars for capturing the Bobby-Akshay chemistry and for getting the good performances he has out of Bobby in particularly and Akshay Kumar too. And if only they had cut out two songs, and some very filmy cliched situations, the story would have moved a lot faster. But alas, that didn’t happen, so even though it’s got an optimum 14 reels’ length, it did tend to drag somewhat. Don’t know how the multiplexes will receive Dosti, but it should definitely score in the B&C centres. Overall? Two and a half stars.
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