Hrithik Roshan’s First Flop Clocks 23 Years, When Actor Spoke About Failure Post-Stardom

Hrithik Roshan and Amisha Patel together for the first time since Kaho Na…Pyar Hai. And the audience said, “No thanks!”A shocking apathy grips the narrative of Vikram Bhatt’s long-in-the-making love story. Shocking, because after Ghulam, Kasoor and the recent Raaz we expect a certain storytelling freshness and a technical polish in Bhatt’s cinema. What we get instead is a fagged-out film feverishly trying to pass off star power as absorbing cinema.

Though Bhatt had promised a fresh retelling of the boy-meets-girl story, Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage takes the leap from the frying pan into the fire , as far as pushing the formulistic cart down the road of mainstream moviemaking goes.

Amisha Patel looking positively distracted is Sapna, the dreamy-eyed Alice-in-blunder land who confides her miseries and misgivings in her Bhabhi (Nishigandha). Both the ladies have much to worry about. The men in the family are in the business of organized crime. Kiran Kumar as the patriarch Dholakia and Mukesh Tiwari as his volatile son Raman seem like hysterical replicas of Ajay Devgan and his faithful henchman Ganesh Yadav in last week’s Company. They swear and snarl at every slight, imagined or otherwise.

After a clumsily staged shootout when Sapna’s “Sapno Ka Rajkumar” Rohit(Hrithik Roshan) skids down Mumbai’s slippery highways on a motorcycle to rescue the damsel in distress, the film rapidly becomes an extended music-and-dance session with the lead pair meeting flirting romancing and dancing at the dandiya sessions during the nine evenings of the Navratri festival in Mumbai.

For a film to uphold a musical format for an extended period the music and songs have to be of an extraordinary quality. For a love story, and that too one which has the Kaho Na…Pyar Hai reputation to hold, Rajesh Roshan’s music score is inexcusably wishy washy.
Hrithik’s dancing, though still a wondrous sight, is totally out of character(with such dancing skills Hrithik’s character Rohit should be training for professional dancing, not engineering) . His sole-tricks cannot hold up the feeble songs . Or for that matter, the pale soul-less and uninviting film which flatters only to deceive.

The characters are all loudly unidimensional: the timid rich girl, the affable workingclass boy, the girl’s tyrannical father , the boy’s genial happy-go-lucky parents….no filmmaker can do much with such trite stereotypical material. For all his intelligence and vision, Vikram Bhatt doesn’t even try to infuse new life into the pale-going-on-stale drama. We’ve seen the whole boy-girl routine in much better condition, even in the recent Aftab-Amisha starrer Kya Yehi Pyar Hai.

The absurdities compounded with the absurd ditties make the film oppressively unproductive. After a series of songs that take us from the venue of the sweaty Navratri dandiya dancing to the open-air fantasy land of Australia, when Rohit elopes with Sapna with the help of his predictably boisterous friends, the narrative bends into an ostensibly non-conformist shape.

Rohit hides Sapna in an all-boys’ hostel of an engineering college where the students quickly and protectively rally around the couple. The prolonged climax suddenly has the soft dancing engineering hero abandoning his gentle nature to resurface as Rambo with rippling muscles. As the climactic violence erupts like a a sudden viral fever, blood oozes stylishly out of Hrithik’s forehead. The same bloody stuff trickles out of Amisha’s poison-laden mouth after she decides to dance with death if not with love. But the time the bloody hell is sorted out and the hysterical out-of-control film comes to a screeching halt , we wonder who (un)made the film: Vikram Bhatt or some other proxy kitsch-creator like Raj Kumar Kohli or Guddu Dhanoa.

The prevalent tackiness takes us by shock. Hindi cinema’s favourite best friend Vrijesh Hirjee appears in one campus canteen shot and then vanishes. He’s the one that got away easily, we guess. In one of the never-ending song sequences Hrithik and Amisha are put on a mo’bike in a studio with a backprojection showing the moving streets of Mumbai. Evidently producer Mohan Kumar still lives in those not-so-good-old days when such tacky technique was permissible. But for today’s audience that watches and appreciates Hollywood-calibre films like Raaz and Company , the shoddiness of presentation is inexcusable and unacceptable.

Cinematographer Pravin Bhatt (the director’s father) struggles hard to instil some desperately-missing sense and sensibility in a progressively declining narrative. Some moments such as the one at the outset where the couples faces are caught in a sensuous silhouette while the goons search for them are stylishly shot.

Amisha Patel , doing an encore of her role in Kya Yehi Pyar Hai faced a wardrobe crisis and repertoire of frozen expressions. A greater tragedy than any that her morose character could imagine befell the character when audiences laughed loudly at the actress’ emotional scenes. As for Hrithik , he quickly needed to reinvent himself as an actor , removed from a dancing star. Even his best moments in this film , like the sequence at Macdonald’s where he pretends to puke to get an empty table, are not what one expects from a star of his charisma.

Going by the hoardings splattered all over the frames, almost the entire film seems to be sponsored by Coco Cola. No wonder it’s so thanda.

Subhash K Jha had spoken to Hrithik Roshan soon after Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage flopped miserably. In spite of a series of recent debacles, he was upbeat and defiant. Far from being daunted, he was more determined to give all of himself to his forthcoming films. “Well, a true hero is one who has the capacity to rise after he falls. That is how I have always wanted to be. Life is wonderful. It always teaches you new things.I object to my professionalism being questioned.They said I cancelled the shooting of Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage because my wife [Suzanne Khan] had a headache and that I manipulated my concerts to get a particular actress into the troupe because I was interested in her.They said I delayed Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage because this actress did not like Amisha Patel and that Suzanne was pressurised into marrying me after she found out about my supposed affair.They even claim an eyewitness had seen me change in an actress’ van. That eyewitness has now conveniently gone back to his village.Either people who write such things think I am stupid or think they are too smart. I even offered to pay to bring the supposed eyewitness back . There was no response.I have no time to deal with such slander. I can imagine why Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan allowed these gossip magazines to get away with their lies — they just didn’t have the time or support system to deal with such a situation.People ask me whether I am upset about Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage flopping. This will shock you — but I feel good about it.Initially I was disappointed. But it made me realise a lot of things. I used to think that if a film sinks, everyone connected with it sinks too. In spite of Aap Mujhe… not being appreciated, I have been liked in the film. All the papers and television programmes praised me.Karan Johar told me Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage made him realise I am a star. He said the only people who are praised in bad films are superstars like Amitabh Bachchan. That jolted me out of my anxiety.

Sooraj Barjatya had not complimented me so much for Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, where he found me nice but not good enough. It takes a lot for an actor to be recognised beyond an unacceptable product. For the audience to still have faith in me is quite amazing. Every major star has had a string of flops. That happens in every career. What is the fun of running without faltering? When you stumble, you enjoy the run more.I have always tried to be fair to everyone — I rationed dates to Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage and Na Tum Jaano Na Hum equally.I didn’t foresee that both films would be released at the same time. That was stupid. Actually Aap Mujhe… started right after the release of Kaho Naa…Pyaar Hai without a bound script. At the time I was in no position to demand anything. But I trusted Vikram Bhatt. I enjoyed listening to him narrate the subject. The film went through many changes thereafter. I enjoyed working in the film. It isn’t a bad film. The story was old and cliched. But then, so was Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai. I hoped Aap Mujhe… would rise above its plot in its treatment. That didn’t happen.But its look went against it. Everything about the film looked downmarket. There were no colours or striking locations. The look was very 1980s.Aap Mujhe… would have been a big hit in the 1980s. Vikram Bhatt’s film [Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage] was a family matter [its producer Mohan Kumar is Hrithik’s relative]. With Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage I felt like I was fighting a one-man battle. Somewhere, all of us failed. It is as much my failure as the producer’s or director’s. Sometimes it is best to leave yourself in the director’s hand. Other times it could be lethal.A positive outcome of Aap Mujhe… is that it made me realise I am a star. I didn’t realise I was so huge. I always thought I was just a small part of a film. I was proved wrong.I worked as hard in Aap Mujhe Achche Lagne Lage as in Kaho Naa…Pyar Hai.I did my best. But it wasn’t enough.”