Jab We Met

Some people hinted that my last review was a bit wrong in the sense that I gave too much away! Sorry about that! My bad, as the kids would say!

For my next installment (I promise to do this a little differently! we have Jab We Met. Firstly, I'd like to comment on the name. It's rubbish. Simple as that really, it's not cool, it's not innovative, it's just a lazy mixture of English and Hindi which has no bearing to the film, especially as large chunks of it are set in the Punjab!

The film is a typical Bollywood love affair starring Kareena Crapoor and the wonderful Shahid Kapoor. You may have noticed the intentional spelling mistake which pretty much comes from my hatred for her. I think she is a terrible actress and quite frankly the name of her character in Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, pretty much sums her up - Poo! My feelings for Shahid Kapoor are much the opposite, he's such a nice boy, well mannered and softly spoken. Plus I was a huge fan of the family friendly hit of 2006 - Vivah. I'm glad he broke up with Kareena, he could do a lot better!

Moving on to the film, it starts off with Aditya (Shahid) walking off in a daze, he eventually finds himself at the train station and decides to board the train at the platform. Here he encounters Geet (Kareena) an annoying, loud mouth (nothing new here!) sikh girl on her way to say goodbye to her parents before she runs off with her boyfriend Anshuman. Geet blabbers away at Aditya who does his best to ignore her, even contemplating suicide at one point (we feel for you man, you had to live with that monster!). Obviously he doesn't go through with the suicide - otherwise it would be a bit of a short film! But instead he gets off at the next stop, worried Geet follows him and in doing so she misses her train. Geet makes Aditya take her back to her home in Bhatinda where he ends up staying as a guest and does all the usual Bollywood family eating, singing, dancing shenanigans that we've seen a hundred times. Meanwhile Geet's elders decide they want to get married to a sikh guy but she has a boyfriend so she and Aditya escape in to the night and head for Malina (I think it was) where Geet's boyfriend Anshuman lives. Once in Malina, the two part company. If the film ended here, I would have been fairly happy as it was pretty amusing and the light hearted moments made this portion entertaining. The crazy thing was, I actually found Kareena to be pretty good here and for once her obnoxious, irritating persona fit that of her character Geet perfectly.

Unfortunately it didn't end there so I will rattle off the rest of the story to you as quick as possible because the less I remember about it the better! So after the two part ways, Aditya returns home and decides to make the most of his life, he finds fresh vigour and enthusiam and becomes a hugely succesful. But suddenly Geets relatives turn up, she hasn't been seen for 9 months, so Aditya heads off to find her, promising to take her back to Bhatinda within 10 days. Aditya meets up with Anshuman who reveals that he dumped her long ago and he did not know where she had vanished to. Luckily after a song, Aditya finds Geet and prepares to take her back to Bhatinda. At this precise moment Anshuman comes to his senses and decides he wants Geet after all and being the gentleman that he is, Aditya steps aside. The three head off back to Bhatinda for the finale. Who will Geet choose? Well you would have to be a retard or someone who has never seen a Bollywood film in order to get that question wrong!

A very disappointing second half which killed the progress of a decent first half. It also showed us how ugly Kareena really is and she really needs to consider wearing a brown paper bag over her head. Shahid plays his mild mannered hero part with ease and is likeable. But the storyline was weak and the latter reels lacked in all aspects. Could have been pretty good ends up below average for me.

2 out of 5