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Director :
Music :
Lyrics :
Starring : |
Anant Balani
Tabun Sutradkar
Zameer Kazmi, Subash Ghai, Sameer, Usha Uttup, Neisha
Perizaad Zorabian, Victor Banerjee, Divya Dutta, Khalid Siddiqui
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By Kshama Rao
In Joggers' Park, in the climax, Justice Jyotin Chatterjee (Victor Banerjee) righteous daughter (Divya Dutta) asks him to make a choice between personal desires and family honour. She tells him if he chooses the former, then his family would spend the rest of their lives in shame just the way they had taken pride in being his family when he was judge for 40 years. This when, Chatterjee is all set to attend his young girlfriend Jenny's (Perizaad Zorabian) birthday party. Alas! Director Anant Balani and producer Subhash Ghai take the safer route lest our family audiences get offended and make Chatterjee choose family honour over his so-called personal desires. It would have been more interesting instead for Chatterjee to attend that party and then probably find out what he feels is not really love but just a passing attraction, an infatuation. It would have been more fun if the film ended at the party. But that was not to be as the film ends at the airport, four years later after Chatterjee and Jenny have buried their 'personal desires' under 'real love and responsibilities'. Now, JC as Jenny calls him fondly is a French-bearded, suave man while she is happily married and is a mother of a three year old.
Joggers' Park starts on a promising note with a retired judge being persuaded by his family to start life afresh, socialise and be more outgoing. And so begin his early morning walks to Joggers' Park. There he meets Jenny, a part-time-VJ-hotel manager-blah-blah who admires Jsutice Chatterjee. She claims to have read all his interviews and even unabashedly quotes him in girlie conversations. JC had said once at a gathering of silly college students that 'you can't fall in love as falling is not a positive sign'. Yet, after a few mornings, JC finds himself hopelessly smitten by the ever-grinning Jenny. He who had shied away from public contact for 40 years finds himself getting involved in Jenny's personal problems. For instance, she uses him to sort out a family property dispute case. He also helps her in finding a house. All this in between long and often boring dialogues of love, chemistry, pyaar ka ehsaas and samaj ke riwaaz!! Phew! How you want to jog out of the theatre!!
Finally, after two and a half hours the ordeal ends with a newspaper editor leaving a parcel of some photographs of Jenny and JC in friendly clinches with the latter's fuming daughter. And then follows that personal desires v/s family honour climax.
The story of a bond between Jenny and JC could have been either handled light-heartedly or very seriously. Balani decides to do both. The initial scenes between the two friends are quite nicely handled but along the way the director must have developed clammy feet to go all out with the story. Interestingly, the director shows the relationship on a very platonic level, not even passionate dream sequences. Also, one can see the difference Jenny has made to JC's boring life (he suddenly sports designer glasses, wears trendy t-shirts and even sends cool sms's) but how has he changed her life (barring the dispute case) is not really clear. Last but not the least the hurriedly put-up climax.
Add to that below average performances by the supporting cast. Usha Uttup's energetic and exuberant rendition of the title track, (which keeps coming every few seconds lest you forget the film's name) sadly doesn't rub off on the audience. And of course, the unabashed product endorsements! They even have Perizaad dancing with bright Asmi jewellery banners behind her.
On the positive side are Banerjee and Perizaad trying to infuse their characters with as much life as possible and making a fair success of it. Perizaad though needs to improve her Hindi diction because at times she sounds like an English teacher in a Hindi classroom!
All said and done, the next time Ghai comes up with a concept - he's credited with the film's concept - he should go jog in the closest park!
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I think the reviewer should refrain from giving out details about the plot as she has. It kills the fun in watching the movie. That said, most Hindi movies are lame and predictable. However, that still does not licence Ms. Rao to publish the climax of the movie in such a brazen manner.
- Rohan
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