A scene in Sapnay.
Film: Sapnay
Director: Rajiv Menon
Imagine a foreign returned educated young hero who is so shy that he can’t express his love for the heroine. The heroine on the other hand wants to become a nun and serve the church and help people. These are just some of the absurdities you find in AVM’s Sapnay. The shy hero engages an expert barber, known for beautyfying women with his tonsorial art to make the heroine love the hero. Loving a girl by proxy turns out to be a dangerous thing. At a meal he organises, the barber tries his best to make the heroine dance with the hero. But fails. Instead it helps the barber in getting a contract with a music company for bringing out an album, provided the heroine also sings as she has good voice. Then the barber hits upon another idea of presenting the hero as philanthrophist. He makes him present clothes to poor urchins. The impressed heroine goes out with the hero to a secluded place but she is angered by his attempt to kiss her. She comes to know that the hero is not a philanthrophist but that it was all a pretence to win her over. She also learns that the entire thing had been the barber’s idea. This makes the heroine sympathising with the barber who had even risked himself to protect her from hoodlums.
Fed up of these tricky situations, she decides to go back to the missionary to become a nun. By then the hero realises that the heroine doesn’t love him but the barber who too loves her immensely. So the hero sacrifices his love to stop the heroine from becoming a nun.
The film is filled with too many songs and dances, making the pace of the narrative dull and drab. Rajiv Menon fails to make the film gripping even with all these absurdities. This may be because the film is partly dubbed and partly reshot from the origional Tamil version (Minsara Kinavu). It looks like a patch-up work. A love triangle that is nothing but a tangle. But for Kajol’s sparkling performance while dancing as well as while emoting, the film would have fallen flat. Both Prabhu Deva in the role of the dancing barber and Arvind Swamy as the hero unable to express his love fail to impress.
A R Rehman fails miserably to come up with catchy numbers. His music is noisy and melody is conspicuous by its absense.
Film: Duniya Dilwalon Ki
Director: Kathir
It is yet another love triangle against the backdrop of college life – the kind which used to be made in the Sixties. It is about two thick friends who, unknown to each other, fall in love with the same girl. One is rich and the other is poor. The two fall apart when they realise that both love the same girl.
It is Tabu’s lively performance that holds the film together. Newcomers Vineet and Abbas lack screen presence nor do they have acting ability to give depth the sensitive love story an emotional grip. Even A R Rehman’s music is as noisy as the film. Barring Mustafa, the other numbers lack catchy tunes.