Tum Mile

Vishesh Films, Kunal Deshmukh & Emraan Hashmi trio is back with another romantic movie written around a plot based on real life. After his successful directorial debut in “Jannat”, this time Kunal tries his hands on a (so called) disaster movie depicting the unforgettable trauma faced by Mumbai on 26th July, 2005. The tough days which are still fresh in the mind of every Mumbaikar, saw Mumbai in a very unimaginable state with a flood like situation leading to huge physical and monetary losses everywhere in the city.

So obviously there were enormous expectations from the movie, coming from a director, who already had a well made realistic movie to his credit. Moreover, “Tum Mile” was also being projected as the first major attempt in the genre of “Disaster Movies” in Hindi Film Industry though its promotional campaign, TV Promos and Posters. But after watching it, you actually feel like cheated by its promoters because the film which was heavily advertised with the scenes depicting the Mumbai Floods, actually has only a few minutes talking about the disaster and too not in a very convincing way.

It starts nicely with a well written in-flight sequence, where both Emraan & Soha get to meet each other after many years and remember the good times spent together in flashbacks. The movie moves ahead following the same pattern of “Jannat” wherein first the romance is established between the lead couple and then the real plot is revealed after a few romantic numbers. But in “Tim Mile”, Kunal stresses too much on the romance part and pays very less attention on the disaster element which actually should have been given the center stage.

Till intermission the narration keeps moving into the past and present lives of the couple and along with that also tries to establish the base for the Flood sequences. But the excessive emphasis on the romance part fails to create the required curiosity level, which is a must for a disaster movie. The strong build-up leading towards the watery climax is simply missing.

Post interval, the viewer becomes desperate of watching the flood stuff and really wants to see how it is done in a Hindi movie, but he still has to wait till the end. The main over-publicized rain scenes actually come only towards the climax and those too finish off too soon without making an impact with no worth seeing graphical creations as expected. In addition to this there is no account of any mass human suffering, pain or loss faced by the people due to that unexpected natural calamity. Though the flood sequences has  been shot competitively in a street set which must have been a tough task for the whole team, but in the end it is too plain to make you feel for it. 

Otherwise, the movie has a good romantic story going on with a few good scenes and dialogues coming at regular intervals. Both Emraan & Soha have given good performances as required by an intense love story. They emote and relate well on screen. But Emraan now has to move on to some completely different roles in his career. He looks like doing the different & improvised versions of his own lover boy characters from his previous movies. Soha on the other hand gives a mature performance as a true lover caught between the choice of her career and love. Mantra, as Emraan’s friend makes a good impact throughout and Sachin Khedekar is hardly there for only one scene.

Hence, it all comes down to the wrong promotion of the movie, where it doesn’t deliver what it promised. Also, the writing falters at many places which is clearly visible to the least interested viewer too. For instance, a person coming to check your Electronic Meter abroad in a pure Indian style, people moving out of a drowning bus leaving a small child alone, the child’s mother is also shown out of the bus crying for help. The script also majorly fails to use the flood sequences resulting into the re-union of the lovers. After one hour, anyone can guess that the story will now end in the floods where Emraan would save Soha and they will both fall in love again. And that’s where Kunal fails to make an impact this time. There is no surprise climax in “Tum Mile” which was incidentally one of the major attractions of his “Jannat”.

Musically, the soundtrack again has some good songs from the ever consistent Pritam. Though not as compelling and rich in lyrics, as his other recent hits, but still they sound good while watching the movie. However as usual, not all songs were needed in the script, which also needed crispier editing. Cinematography, Graphics and Art direction is fine, but nothing path breaking. In fact it is nowhere close to the other epic disaster movie “2012” which also releases this Friday. So, if you want to see a real disaster movie with breathtaking sequences and magical graphics on the screen then your choice should be clear after reading this.

Rating : 2 / 5 (Blame it on the misguiding promotional campaign)

(from bobby sing at www.bobbytalkscinema.com)