If it wasn’t for Tabu, Rajat Rawail’s Dil Ne Phir Yaad Kiya would qualify as one of the most insignificant films in recent times. The bland credit titles make a peculiar announcement: “Re-introducing Vinay Anand.”
They might as well have told us there and then that this is director Rajat Rawail’s feeble and fidgety effort to remake Ramesh Talwar’s 1978 drama Doosra Aadmi about a distraught but beautiful woman (Raakhee) who mistakes a younger man (Rishi Kapoor) to be her dead husband (Shashi Kapoor), much to the annoyance and disgust of the young man’s wife (Neetu Singh).
Tabu encores Raakhee’s role with a soul-searing sensitivity. There are moments in this erratic work where her eyes hold you spellbound. In spite of her fluctuating avoir-dupois (a result of the film’s tedious duration of shooting), Tabu’s performance as Roshni, the dark and grieving model, makes the film worth a dekko.
Alas, director Rajat Rawail takes too long to get to the point. Tabu enters the storytelling midway through. By then the film has got itself in a veritable mess, trying to get the intended comedy and distended songs out of the way to devote the post-intermission session to the dramatic tensions that develop in Rahul (‘re-debutant’ Vinay Anand)’s marriage with Sonia (Pooja Batra) after Roshni muscles her way into their lives.
The comic antics of Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Dinesh Hingoo and a bus-load of offensively high-pitched buffoons in Mauritius are in such poor taste that they kill viewers’ interest in Tabu’s section of the story. Gone are the days when audiences could sit through 75-odd minutes of tomfoolery in the cinema of Nasir Husain and J. Om Prakash before digging into the meat of the matter.
Rawail should have got down to his storytelling from Reel 1. He should also have avoided replicating not just the screenplay but also individual scenes and even songs from Doosra Aadmi. A homage when carried too far becomes a parody. In spite of Tabu’s pillar-like support of Rawail’s doddering drama, it ends up being more farce than homage.
Towards the climax Rawail runs completely out of steam. So he turns steamy. Doing away with Doosra Aadmi he turns to Hollywood’s much-imitated Fatal Attraction for climactic release. As Tabu chases wife Pooja Batra with a growl, knife and gun (not necessary in that order), we can only shake our heads in embarrassment and dismay.
Sorry, Mr. Rajat Rawail. But your namesake Rajat Mukherjee got there first in Pyar Tune Kya Kiya. Ironically, Rawail’s scrambled drama-thriller even shows us a song from Mukherjee’s film as it blares on the television in a corner of this cornered concoction.
While Tabu makes a brave attempt to hold the show together, Vinay Anand’s “re-introduction” is a bit of a joke. No matter how many times you take the horse to the pond, you can’t force the water down its throat.
Vinay Anand’s uncle Govinda makes a sporting guest appearance as Tabu’s dead love interest. Would someone please tell Govinda that body-hugging T-shirts make him look embarrassingly obscene?
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