Ho-hum, Indian's off the gun!
Sukanya Verma
A big-budget action flick with state-of-art SFX, splendid locales, glamorous stars. And bad music.
That sums up Dharmendra's Indian. Not to be mistaken for Kamal Haasan's Hindustani, which had all that, except it boasted of some fantastic music by A R Rahman.
Initially, this ambitious Sunny Deol-starrer had appeared jinxed as the original heroine, Aishwarya Rai, and filmmaker Pahlaj Nihalani washed their hands off the film after launching it with some fanfare.
However, Deol stuck to his guns and roped in the leggy Shilpa Shetty and South-based director N Maharajan.
Composer Anand Raaj Anand, who had earlier given some decent tunes in Masoom, Major Saab and Pardesi Babu, sorely disappoints.
Mercifully though, the album consists of only six songs.
Beginning with Udit Narayan and Alka Yagnik exchanging vows of everlasting love in Rab di kasam. It's just about okay.
Deewane is fast-paced and is rendered by Alka Yagnik and the much-in-demand Shaan. This one gets you to groove, to some extent.
Yeh pyaar sung by Sunidhi Chauhan and Richa Sharma sounds like a pale version of Mehboob mere (Fiza). Too bad for Chauhan, who appears to be getting stuck with the 'item number' rut.
With a title like Indian, can a patriotic number be far behind?
And so you have Roop Kumar Rathod singing Watan waalon, a regular desh-bhakti song. Mind you, Watan is nowhere in the same league as Ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyon (Haqeeqat) or Mere dushman mere bhai (Border).
Jaana maine is mush unlimited, but with an impressive use of violins. Also, one gets to hear Abhijeet and Sadhna Sargam after a considerable period.
The last, and the least interesting, song, Thaath nawabi features music director Anand Raaj Anand and Alka Yagnik sounding thoroughly sozzled in this eminently forgettable score.
Leaves you with nothing, this music.
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On the sets of Indian