Jaan-E-Mann, directional debut of Shirish Kunder, who tries to mix comedy and romance in the movie but does not get much success, leaving few good scenes apart.
Let me directly move on to the story.
The movie starts with Agastya Rao (Akshay Kumar), a NASA astronaut who is having a romantic time in the space (Yes, no kidding) with his blonde girlfriend. The story goes few years back when Agastya starts story telling to her girlfriend. (There are couple of flashbacks in the flashback too)
Flashback No. 1:
A phone wring from Vakil Chachu (Anupam Kher) interrupts Suhaan Kapoor (Salman Khan) from dreaming about getting a super star award. The next moment he gets to know about demand for Rs. 50 lakh from his ex-wife, to whom he had given divorce a year back.
But wait!! Who is she? And why divorce? Okay, we take you to the flashback no. 2
Flashback No. 2:
A song which tells past life of Suhaan Kapoor in just 5 minutes. Suhaan Kapoor marries his long time girlfriend Piya (Priety Zinta). Piya leaves his parents just for Suhaan. On the other hand Suhaan gets role in a movie but director of the movie asks Suhaan to stay away from his wife as it will affect his film. Suhaan decides to stay away from Piya for 2-3 months. Months passes by, Suhaan does not get success in his acting career. He goes back to Piya but there is no one in their house. Piya already left him and settled in New York.
So now what? How will they pay 50 lakhs to Piya. After trying their luck with their brains, they land up praying the god and guess what? God helps them.
Agastya, who is looking for Piya (returns after 7 years) knocks their door but he finds Suhaan and Vakil Chachu rather than Piya.
So why is Agastya looking for Piya? Well, for this we will have to jump to flashback no. 3
Flashback No. 3:
Oh, those lovely college days. Agastya aka Champu (that’s what Piya calls her) who is some kind of weird character, falls in love with Piya. But Piya is in love with rock star of that age, Suhaan. Agastya breaks down and leave the college when he gets to know about this fact.
Flashback No. 1 continued…
I have no idea why Agastya could not recognize Suhaan. (May be Suhaan had long hair at that time, haha) So Agastya is back in Mumbai after knowing that, Piya got divorced and stays alone.
Now our Vaikil Chachu suggests a great idea to save Suhaan from paying 50 Lakhs. He suggests Suhaan to get Agastya and Piya married so Suhaan wont have to pay 50 lakhs to her. (There is some Indian law which states that)
So now, Suhaan and Vakil Chachu, suggests Agastya to go to New York, find Piya and get married to her. But to make things go smoothly, Suhaan joins him and helps him to make his job easier.
So will Piya and Agastya get married? The rest it to watch.
The movie stars with a really boring first half with some typical Anu Malik style songs. But as the movie moves on, it catches the pace in 2nd half but again it looses in between. The movie has few very good moments and it has its share of bad moments too.
I really liked the style of going into flashback and narrating the characters but sometimes it was kind of overdose of visual effects.
Director gets confused in the movie between comedy and romance. The actors were doing exactly opposite of what situation demanded. Take example of the scene when Suhaan gets to know about demand for Rs. 50 lakh from Piya or the scene where Vakil Chachu suggests idea about Agastya and Piya’s marriage.
The movie also leaves few questions like, why did Piya could not even talk to her Husband? why did Suhaan did not try to visit Piya? (even if he knew her address)
Let me sum things up now:
Story: The story was nothing great, the director fails to narrate it well. The end of the movie is very much predictable.
Music: Anu Malik should start buying CDs of recent music albums and learn from them. The music is just too bad. Humko Malum hai songs picks up well as romantic song but as they add storytelling in it, the song becomes another piece of Junk.
Acting: Salman Khan is too loud in the first half. But he manages to do well in the 2nd half. (apart from few bad scenes) Akshay Kumar is good, the movie belongs mainly to Salman. Priety Zinta does her job very well. Anupam Kher is wasted in the movie. He should opt out from these kind of movies. He is such a great actor, I still don’t know why he ends up doing these kind of silly roles. Aman Varma needs some rest and he should concentrate on his television career.
So overall, I would give this movie 2 stars out of 5. The movie might not be liked by “multiplex audience� but it has good potential overall. (After all, people love Salman doing all those kind of stuff, remember Mujhse Shaadi Karogi?)
Why don’t Bollywood just stick with their “Running around trees”, “dancing in the rain”, “week long celebration drama in big homes” thingy and keep the Geek, Scientist thingy when they can actually do it?
after reading story (specially flashbacks ) I felt it like turning brain.
I like couple of songs in this movie.. specially sau dard is good..
crap crap.. lol..
Well I didn’t have much hope from the movie. It didn’t exite me enough that I could go for that movie. Songs…well Anu Malik’s days are over now. He better retire :p
i beg to differ from you at various places……….read my review at http://ktima.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/jaan-e-mann-review-2/
i have no expectations from the movie and in the end i must say… i have a smile on my face. not saying that it is a good or bad.. but it brings smile…