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Fanaa

Fanaa : Review
27th May 2006 01.00 IST
By N. K. Deoshi

Despite all the hype, Yash Raj Films’ latest offering Fanaa turns out to be a mere timepass film. It neither provokes thought nor jars the senses. It as much stirs you gently, strikes an emotive chord now and then, and leaves you unsatisfied.

The movie, though based on a good story, is dogged by poor script and mediocre direction by Kunal Kohli. However, what makes ‘Fanaa’ watchable is Aamir Khan and Kajol , both of who rise above the limitations of the script and show glimpses of their histrionic genius.

Besides Aamir and Kajol, the movie stars Rishi Kapoor , Tabu , Sharat Saxena and Lillette Dubey. Shiney Ahuja and Lara Dutta appear in blink-and-you-miss cameos.

The movie tells the story of a blind Kashmiri girl Zooni Ali Beg (Kajol) who comes to Delhi with a bunch of friends to perform at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on the Republic day.

In Delhi, their tour guide is Rehan (Aamir Khan), a colourful, joyful, flirtatious young man with a poetic line or a couplet for every situation.

For Rehan, at least, it is love at first sight when he comes across Zooni. A bit of romantic shayari by Rehan elicits a few befitting couplets from Zooni also, and we know that seeds of love have been sown in both Zooni and Rehan’s hearts.

At the inevitable moment of parting (when Zooni leaves for Kashmir), Rehan takes the crucial decision and literally carries Zooni in his arms out of the train.

The two decide to get married and Zooni’s parents too agree to her choice. Before marriage, Zooni undergoes an eye-operation that restores her sight. But the first she sees of Rehan are his tattered, burnt clothes. Rehan dies in a terrorist attack.

Enters Tyagi (Tabu) a special agent with the Anti-Terrorist Unit. According to her, the bomb blast is the handiwork of a very clever planner, someone who stays in the shadows and whose identity no one knows. And the next aim of the terrorists (belonging to IKF) is to steal a gadget that triggers off a nuclear missile or a bomb, material for which the IKF has already stolen.

And it turns out that the henchman of IKF is none other than Rehan, who is still alive.

To tell the further story would be spoiling the suspense. But it can be said that Rehan and Zooni meet once again, but she is not able to recognize him as he ‘died’ before she regained her sight.

What follows next throws the two lovers into emotional turmoil. Zooni eventually has to make a choice and she chooses the lesser of the two evils.

An interesting, offbeat story like this could have been made into a compelling movie. But ‘Fanaa’ fails on several grounds. Even if I discount the apparent lack of subtlety that Kunal has shown in telling the story, it is hard to overlook the obvious stereotypes and hard-to-believe action scenes (the gun-battle, choppers crashing down from the sky) that give the movie a look of pulpy fiction. Add to this the sub-plot involving the nuclear threat and a number of uncalled-for songs.

The main weak point of ‘Fanaa’ happens to be its script. The shayari in the first half is a bit overdone. Even the dialogues are a bit too filmi than real. And in the second half, the lines given to Kajol’s son are poorly written, ineffective and lack subtlety. Kunal Kohli has not been able to extract a performance out of the child artist and most of the sequences involving him end up looking superficial.

Only Aamir and Kajol are the saviours of this film. The two actors show few sparks of brilliance and create an incredible chemistry between their characters. Kajol’s performance is particularly superb when Rehan returns to her life and she suspects and senses something familiar about him. Aamir, as expected, delivers a noteworthy performance. The frivolous flirt of the first half (the tour guide) credibly transforms into a serious, stern-looking terrorist camouflaged as an army man in the second half.

On the sidelines, Kiron Kher and Rishi Kapoor are natural. Tabu’s dialogue delivery has a hint of her Hyderabadi background, and that is a downer.

In a nutshell, ‘Fanaa’ offers nothing stellar and nothing extraordinary. The film just about manages to stay a notch above being a mere timepass flick.

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