- An uncompromising film on true love from the legendary and unforgettable director Yash Chopra which is fascinatingly distinctive and contemporary.
- Samar (Shah Rukh Khan) meets Meera (Katrina Kaif) in London and they fall in love. Samar however meets with a serious accident and Meera vows to God to leave Samar, if he saved him. Samar angered with God, becomes a bomb disposal chief in the Indian Army. Here he meets Akira (Anushka Sharma). Is she able to unravel the mysteries, does Samar win the battle, or does God surrender to his love.—Official source
- It quite turned out to be driving a skeptical audience to predict the entire plot in the first quarter hour, but several twists and grooves kept them absorbed to the center plot in fine. A typical "Yash Raj Films" banner title with four crispy short words and the obvious protagonist Shah Rukh Khan, the swansong of ardent late Yash Raj was drenched in suspense, thrill and sated romance playing hide and seek with the impeccable beauty of Ladakh and London. The last film directed by Yash Chopra: Yash Chopra died while directing this film. The film was complete except for one last song-the title song. After Yashji died, Aditya, his son decided not to shoot the song. The song was added at the end of the movie with a montage of Yashji directing JTHJ.
The film starts off showing Major Samar Anand (Shahrukh) and Akira (Anushka). Samar Anand is a bomb diffuse expert in the Indian Army and Akira is an intern for the London Discovery Channel. Samar saves Akira from drowning and gives her his coat. When she takes off the coat, a diary falls out and Akira starts reading.
This is when we go back ten years to London to see the story of how Samar met and fell in love with Meera (Katrina). The movie goes back in time and shows the entire flashback of Samar, a waiter and a young musician, and Meera (Katrina Kaif), an NRI and a high class successful businesswoman. Meera craved to marry a British and was engaged. The NRI caught glimpses of the young musician performing on the streets apart from trading wishes with Lord. Despite promising not to "cross the line", she was all swept off her feet by charming Samar juggling fedora, in a dickered deal that he would teach her Punjabi song and she'd guide her to speak flawless English. They fell in love until the eclectic climax hauled at an accident Samar encountered following which Meera took down her chance of getting along him wishing her last.
Meera is introduced to us in a church, where she has a few seconds flashback to her childhood. I always get stuck on details and I of course caught that the girl who played Meera as a child has a British accent. But Meera's accent isn't British. Isn't it funny how Katrina Kaif has spent almost all of her career playing an Indian girl who grows up in England when she has only spent a few years of her life there in reality.
Meera is a weird girl. She loves making vows to God. She asks for something and vows to give up something in return. I think this role could have been played convincingly, if only a good actor had been cast. The casting of Katrina as Meera was the worst idea. Almost everyone I've spoken to about this film feels that Katrina ruined this movie. She has the same expressions in every scene, actually she doesn't have an expression. She looks as if she's staring at a blank wall the entire time.
Katrina had done a fairly good job in Mere Brother Ki Dulhan but after that, she had some Botox done for Chikni Chameli. Her face is not as swollen in JTHJ as it was in Ek Tha Tiger, but it still had an bad impact on her facial expressions in my opinion. Also, the role of Meera is not an easy one. She is a girl who is stuck between emotions. She is struggling between love and her promises to God. Only a versatile and excellent actress could have portrayed Meera well. Katrina was not able to express any of the emotions that Meera should have been feeling and this is why her relationships with God and Samar are unconvincing. She is neither able to convince us of her love nor her bond with God.
Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh are in a scene of the movie. Neetu Singh is Meera's mother, who had fallen in love with another man and left her husband and daughter when Meera was fairly young. It was interesting to see Neetu hug and kiss who could possibly be her real life future daughter-in-law. For some reason Rishi and Neetu are always given these special appearances as a role model real life couple. Has anyone noticed Rishi Kappor's ever growing girth? I'm afraid it's going to pass the earth's circumference soon. I think he accepted this special appearance just to drink wine in England.
Let's come to the kiss scene. I've already mentioned that it was bad. The kiss was not good, it was unconvincing. But I have to say that everything else about that scene was perfect. If we were to take that exact scene, exact location and background music and replace Shahrukh and Katrina with two other people, it would have been great. I loved how it was totally quiet in the beginning of that scene. It was a simple scene but there was intensity to it. Of course the actual kiss ruined it and where there should have been goosebumps, there was laughter. People in the theatre laughed when Shahrukh said "Meera, if I kiss you, then would you slap me?" Best dialogue of the year!
The most important scene of the film is when Samar gets into a traffic accident and his heart stops. This is the moment when both Samar and Meera's fate changes. Meer suddenly realizes that she is responsible for this. Because she had made a vow to God that she would not cross the line and get into a relationship with Samar. But she did. So to fix things, she makes another pact with God on the spot. She says that if God saves Samar's life, she will never see Samar again. It seems like the believably of this entire film depends on the believably of this one scene. So did you believe it? Meera certainly believes it. She literally walks away while Samar is being taken to the hospital. She doesn't even follow him there!
I don't know why but this scene reminded me a lot of an episode in Gossip Girl. It's the same scenario there.
When Samar gets out of the hospital and finds out why Meera is avoiding him, he naturally gets furious and decides to make a pact with God himself. Meera thinks that if she's with Samar, Samar will die. So Samar decides to show her that her whole ideology is *bullshit (pardon my language), by going away to India and putting himself at risk every single day until he dies. Wow what a great way to prove that Meera is wrong! Did he ever wonder if Meera would even find out that he has died, if he does indeed die? So funny!
So Samar returns to India, thinking that Meera is going to marry her fiancee and he joins the Indian Army to become Major Samar Anand-the man who cannot die. Everyday, he diffuses bombs without wearing any protective equipment but has never been hurt. By the way, can someone go up to the rank of Major in ten years?
The flashback is over and we are back to present day where Akira is trying to get a full time job with the Discovery Channel. And she gets approval to do one documentary where she will be following and shooting Major Samar Anand defusing bombs.
Major Samar Anand is very different from the happy-go-lucky Samar who was doing odd jobs in London. He is serious, not very friendly and HOT! Sharukh looks yummy in a beard! Akira, the girl who jumps in freezing lakes, who wears shorts and sleeveless tops in Kashmir and who has dreams of working in conflict zones and sleeping with lots of men, falls in love with Major Samar Anand.
Anushka was a savior for this movie. Her fresh acting, expressive face and full on attitude makes us take a breath after watching the palanquin that is Katrina Kaif. Anushka added a lot of quality acting to this film, but this film became a turning point for her in not so great ways in real life. This film and Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola are the last films where we get to see a natural and cute Anushka. After this film, Anushka went for Botox/cosmetic surgery to change her features, particularly her lips. She looks like a different person now. They say that the pressure of being called "not so pretty" by people like Aditya Chopra from her very first film and her admiration of Katrina Kaif's looks finally took a toll on her and made her go for surgery. It's sad, because I love Anushka as she is.
It twisted to the scene when Major Samar defused another bomb without any safety precautions as he haggled his chances of survival with Lord's choice of bringing Meera back to him. Meanwhile the gutsy prevaricating Akira lounging on her part of romance into Major Samar's unrequited love story, pranced up to the military arena in volleyball shorts, to set up her career in the Discovery chronicling the seemingly Sergeant William James; of course falling for the romance hero and getting reciprocated intermittently. Finally a second accident put up a black rose to his ten-year old memory bedding him at the hospital to retrograde amnesia. Meera was summoned; later she revealed she was not married and kept her love ringing through the last decade while Major Samar proved his charisma aplomb in defusing 98 consecutive bombs without security gears. Meera proved her mettle in the first part in helping him recover and later Akira, the pert with her quirks and pizzazz brought him to present day Major whose memory metamorphosed his ability to defuse a bomb inside a train in London.
Akira finishes her documentary and goes to London. Her boss loves the documentary but Samar Anand has to come to London to meet them so that the story can be approved. Akira begs Samar to come and he does. But what luck! As soon as he arrives in London, he gets run over by a car. So realistic? Because of the accident, he develops retrograde amnesia, where he forgets the entire past ten years. His memory is back to the first accident he had in London with Meera. When he wakes up, he doesn't recognize Akira and keeps asking for Meera.
Akira finds Meera and convinces her to see Samar at the hospital. When Meera sees Samar in the hospital, it's like they never separated. Both are just as in love as they were before. Meera starts playing Samar's wife for a while in hopes that his memory will return soon. Was this part necessary? Of course not, but the script needed a way to get the two to spend time together I guess.
Samar meets Akira for what he thinks the first time and Akira gets to see the old Samar. She's shocked when this Samar says that his family were all in the army but he doesn't want to join because he's scared of guns and bombs. She realizes that the old Samar was full of life and Meera is very important for him.
One day, when Samar is at the subway station, there is a bomb found on the train. By impulse, he goes to the bomb and starts telling the police the characteristics of the bomb. He starts diffusing the bomb, by the time he has finished, all of his memories have returned. He leaves the scene by saying that he is Major Samar Anand from the Indian Army.
Major Samar took his final bet on life precariously as Meera succumbed to her emotions and gave into her wisdom of love on the spot of bomb diffuse in a white chiffon dress. Both the shift of persona in the characters of Samar and Akira were glaring towards the latter half as the climaxes play the musical chair. A. R. Rahman's music background did not cater for his cliche in most of the scores, neither the Punjabi song suited SRK's chords, but all-in-all, the three-hour long saga gave us superficial medleys of Baazigar, Veer Zaara and traffic-stopping guitarist "Karan" and "Raj" from the career of the 47-year old romance hero dubbed as a 28-year old in the movie.
Samar tests Meera by asking her to come to a church so that they can marry again. Meera refuses and Samar faces her. Samar says that he has now understood that Meera loves God more than him. He is going back to India, he will continue living and loving her. Akira sends Samar off at the airport. This scene is very touching. Samar says that before he does, he will ask God for another life to love Akira. So original isn't it? Samar leaves by telling Akira to not become like him and Akira says that it's too late. Aww.
Now the last scene, Samar is again diffusing a bomb somewhere in Kashmir and in the vicinity he sees Meera, in a plain but beautiful white dress. Yashji loved his heroines in white-from Sridevi to Madhuri to Juhi, they all wore white plain dresses in Yashji's movies. Yashji always portrayed his heroines like angels and Katrina also looks like an angel in this final scene. Meera says that she has also spent these ten years, sad and lonely, dying inside every day like Samar. It took her ten years to understand a simple thing, that God hasn't kept Samar alive without her, he kept Samar alive for her. Samar asks, why she didn't understand this sooner. Meera says that she had said from the beginning, that it takes her time to understand things.
Samar walks away to diffuse one last bomb, he tells Meera not to make any vows because even God can't keep him from returning to her. The film ends with Akira's presentation about Samar and Samar and Meera coming together at last. Samar asks Meera to marry him and she says yes. Samar also quits the bomb diffuse unit, he doesn't want to die anymore.
In conclusion, the movie is okay. I think the expectations for the film were too high and with the casting of Katrina and some issues with the script (Meera's relationship with God), the movie fell short of the expectations. But it still did well at the box office. If nothing else, it's a tribute to Yashji, so I think it's worth seeing because it's Yashji's last film.
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