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Aap
Ka Suroor***ing
Himesh Reshammiya, Hansika Motwani
Directed by Prashant Chadda
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With different avenues opening up for anyone who is talented enough,
India's most popular vocalist has gone up against all odds and proven
his worth as a bankable actor in his debut film, Aap Ka Suroor. However,
bankable just proves he's popular, not good. With conflicting opinions
about his being the gritty nasal or serenading voice, there can be
only one opinion about his acting capabilites: they just could not
get worse.
Directed by Prashant Chadha, Aap Ka Suroor is a typical Hindi flick
with the usual mix of romance, slapstick humor, run off the mill dialogues
and action thrown in. The movie revolves around how HR (the "acronym"
used for Himesh Reshammiya throughout the film) gets convicted for
the murder of a journalist and how he tries to exonerate himself of
the blame solely because he wants to get married to Riya (Hansika
Motwani), the girl he is madly in love with. HR plays the role of
a popular singer and is therefore found crooning whatever he can at
every possible point in the movie.
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Sixteen
year old Hansika fits in well and it's hard to imagine her as the
same little girl who was seen in pigtails as recently as Rakesh Roshan's
Koi...Mil Gaya. AKS is Hansika's first film as a leading actress and
she has done satisfactory job. Malika Sherawat features as Ruby James,
corporate lawyer of the company planning to sign a music contract
with HR. One has a good laugh when Ruby exhibits much of her "professionalism"
by posing seductively and telling HR to "Call me any time of
the day…or night". This made her sound more like a bar-dancer
rather than a lawyer, but then that's probably what the director was
aiming for in the first place or he would have cast someone like Konkona
Sen Sharma or Nandita Das instead. It makes one wonder how Veer Zaara
would have ended had Mallika Sherawat been Shahurukh Khan's lawyer
instead of Rani Mukherjee!
Apart from creating characters restricted to one's figment of imagination,
there were also many technical faults in the plot, which once again
reminded one of the bad execution of the storyline. For example, the
miraculous appearance of desi auto rickshaws on the streets of Stuttgart
in Germany and the inability of the German cops to catch a mere fugitive
and that too a well-known singer, is rather bizarre. |
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Over
to the soundtrack. AKS has been a litmus test for Himesh Reshamiyya
as he has a triple role of lead actor, composer (with Sameer) and
playback singer. At a glance the soundtrack bears his signature stamp,
especially in songs like 'Tanhaiyyan' and 'Yeh Tera Mera Milna', which
are somewhat irritating but nevertheless stick in the mind. For HR
fans, they are perfect. The opening song, 'Assalaam Alaikum' and later
the Zubin inspired 'Ya Ali' reconfirm that Reshammiya believes in
the benefits of pleasing the gods (though definitely not while wearing
a burqa). But in an otherwise decent soundtrack, the remix of the
Sholay original 'Mehbooba Mehbooba' comes forth as a disaster and
that too, a completely unnecessary one. |
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Apart
from all the raised eyebrows, Aap Ka Suroor has done extremely well
at the Indian box office and that says volumes on this one man's popularity!
And HR has done his marketing right. AKS promos were intriguing, the
soundtrack sounded good and the film had a feel good factor. The animated
cartoon version that he churned out for the song 'Yeh Tera Mera Milna'
was innovative.
More than anything, it is a well known fact that he is the only singer
who usually appears in almost every video of his, even if it is any
other film's song. In his determination to stay put in the eyes of
the audience and in his soaring ambition to leave no stone unturned
in climbing the topmost rung of the ladder, HR has very impressively
churned out a boxoffice hit out of an average-business doing movie.
--Zara Farooqui *YUCK
**WHATEVER
***GOOD
****SUPER
*****AWESOME
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