Review: Jannat

Emraan Hashmi needs a better script and a director who’ll take him beyond the set expressions of happy-sad-happy-sad-sad, quips Khalid Mohamed.

Jannat
Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Sonal Chauhan,
Direction: Kunal Deshmukh
Rating: **

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Hubble, bubble, just check out his stubble. At times, this hairy forest is thicker than the Amazon jungle, and at times it’s thinner than Kareena Kapoor in a nimboo bikini. Also, believe it or collapse, the man also sports a Sadhana-style fringe.

Good heavens! That’s Emraan Hashmi attempting a hairy style statement in Jannat directed by first-timer Kunal Deshmukh. Frequently, you crave to just run up to the screen and give Mr Hashmi the hair cut of his life. Also, when he wears a shiny suit, must he ask the heroine, “So, how do I look?” Wisely, the heroine remains as silent as an Egyptian mummy.

Why? Because she (Sonal Chauhan) just doesn’t like Emraan Hashmi to play flush, paploo jhaploo or rummy. Neither does she approve when she learns that he’s a cricket match fixer in cahoots with one of those Abu-types - a white suit who deals in drugs, war ammunitions, terrorism and pure teakwood acting. Quake.

Truly, how you miss Amrish Puri. Comparing this movie’s villain (Javed Shaikh, imported from Lahore) with Sir Puri is like comparing Himesh Reshammiya to Laurence Olivier. Blasphemy.

Anyway Emraan has this sixth sense to predict the outcome of cricket matches (IPL guys, BAN him now), amasses truckloads of money and lives with his girlfriend Sonal in a Cape Town villa. Platonically! Meanwhile his honest old dad (Khadi Shirts) suffers in a parishad zilla. It seems all that dad wants out of life is an after dinner-Kolkata saada paan with kachi supari. No kidding.

So, the first-half of this 15-reeler gets your goat, especially when Sonal and Emraan bleat on and on about a rather unimpressive, mall-shop diamond ring. Ping! By and by, the screenplay gets on the cricket field. Now, Emraan even tells a potential corrupt captain, that cricketers are “like prostitutes..they last as long as they’re young. Then they drink or shoot up stuff. And some of them become TV commentators ..and some get on to needless laughter challenge shows.” Oh, is that bold or are those ghastly generalisations? Let the BCCI, Sharad Pawar and Navjot Singh Siddhu deal with them. We are only spectators, right?

More: a player is fixed up with two girls at a pole dance joint, given a stash of cash, and yoo hoo, a shootout ensues in which a rather cute old gora is shot dead (by himself). Bob Woolmer.. get it? Despite such jolts, the second-half is a sheer snooze fest. Throughout you wait patiently for the songs (composed by Pritam and Kamran Ahmed) to stir up some relief. In vain. The songs are picturised indifferently, a montage number with Emraan-Sonal eating ice cream is a quotable example of how to ruin excellent music. As well as ice cream.

Kiss spotters are likely to be disappointed too. The closest you get to the Hashmieseque lip-a-loola is a smooch in silhouette. Tsk. Surprisingly for a product from the Bhatt Bros (they could have been our Coens, but well..), the cinematography and the editing aren’t up to scratch.

Of the cast, Samir Kochar as a sandwich-gobbling cop is not bad. Sonal Chauhan has miles and miles and miles to go. And Emraan Hashmi needs a hair stylist, a better script and a director who’ll take him beyond the set expressions of happy-sad-happy-sad-sad. Really, if this is Jannat, what could Hell be?