Salaam-E-Ishq

Ya, ya - I've heard all about how long this movie is. But then a monumental epic never hurt anyone - as long as it's entertaining. Nikhil Advani's Salaam-e-Ishq has all the right ingredients - an incredible cast, rocking music and six delightful stories about love. The Problem? When the theatrewallah gets into scissorhands mode, viewers are in for some trying times.

How did Anil Kapoor get his arm in a sling? Apparently, he fell down (a colleague informs me). But shouldn't I see it on screen instead of wondering why Kapoor is sling-free in one frame and sling-full in the next. Media reports suggest that Advani, bombarded with complaints of the film being unbearably long, decided to make a few cuts himself. Bad move cos there's nothing worse than bad editing.

Anyway, that's not the only problem. Advani also has problems weaving in the six love stories together - the stitches are quite visible in some cases.

My favourite couple - Govinda and Shannon. The taxi-driver falling for an American was quite an original concept. Can't say the same for the Haryanvi combo of Sohail-Ishaa though. That track could have been safely edited out.

John Abraham and Vidya Balan have done some good work too and so have most of the others (including Priyanka Chopra). But Advani lacks the finesse of Karan Johar (who btw has a phone-in cameo in the film). In Johar's hands, Salaam-e-Ishq would have been gold. In his protégé's hands, the film is not the blockbuster it could have been.

Watch out for Kailash Kher's 'Ya Rabba' number. It left several in the audience teary-eyed and is easily the best song of the film.

Its been quite a few years since the release of " Kal Ho Na Ho", the movie which had completed the troika of hits for Dharma Productions and had launched Karan Johan's assistant Nikhil Advani in the director's seat. This time around Nikhil is back with "Salaam-e-Ishq" (which incidentally is his first movie out of Dharma Productions) which lets us know that he is all set to run his own show.

As this movie is the second release of Nikhil Advani as a director and as it also flaunts of a multi star studded star-cast they are many expectations in the minds of the audiences as they expect a movie which is supposed to re-create the "movie magic" displayed in the director's previous work. But on the contrary, what we get to witness is a movie which has nothing new in it and has employed exhausted story lines most of which a normal Indian movie-goer has already witnessed on screen over and over a zillion times.

The movie keeps moving back and forth between five main story tracks (Yes!! five and not six) each of which try to portray a different shade of love. The characters of each story try to depict everyday characters who are either in love, waiting to fall in love or running away from it. Each of the stories move around in different paths in their own respective circles until fate makes them cross paths at the end.

The movie falls short in many aspects be it the script, the story telling or the pace which just never seems to be fast enough throughout the movie. Though the movie makers have taken pains to provide the movie a good cinematography and have even taken care to polish their product with new graphical techniques, they have missed out upon one of the basic building blocks i.e. the screenplay on which the progress of the entire plot and hence the movie depends upon. The end result: a three and a half hour long movie with a story which has more than a dozen characters, most of whose roles aren't well figured out

The actors and actresses have tried to put up their best for their respective roles: Govinda as the happy-go-lucky taxi driver who is waiting for his "dream girl" to materialize, John who plays the role of a concerned husband as his wife is suffering from amnesia, Akshaye as the man who gets quirky before his marriage and decides to runaway from it, Priyanka who plays the role of an item-girl dreaming to make it big one day and Anil Kapoor the middle-aged family guy who is tired of his "boring" married life.

During the movie there are certain times when the audiences gets to laugh and this helps them get rid of some of the boredom they are burdened with and thus keeps them awake. Also the main song sequences are well pictorised and choreographed, so the audiences get to see the the makers aren't amateurs and are capable of delivering quality entertainment.

But despite this in the end the movie fails to gain the approval of the audiences who find no ingenuity and uniqueness in the movie and are mostly not impressed (if not disappointed) by the poor quality of the product which the director and the story writers have created. If only the right kind of treatment would have been given to the script and the roles of the characters were better framed, the movie could have done wonders.

i won't vote. i am shocked to see the rating: 8.6/10 whereas movies like rdb and lrmb got 8.5 and 8.8. this movie is hopeless, it has no theme and the story/scripting is weak. it entertains you in parts: for example the jokes and few songs. akshaye and givinda's stories are the + points of the movie. priyanka and salman's pair is the most boring one. priyanka's acting is pathetic. akshaye did a good job. his character will entertain you. esha and sohail will entertain you with their jokes, i call it honeymoon jokes. but i thought there will be a surprise: how do they merge the 6 stories into one. but there's no such thing. it was boring, i don't know why they didn't think of it ? with 6 love stories they could have made much better story and script. now a days most of the bollywood movies bore me except few:

you may watch it if you are too bored, otherwise go for happy feet.

conclusion: boring theme, few jokes and it's too long.

What annoys me about this movie is that it could have been a classic. I mean come on this movie had so many stars in it and they couldn't afford a decent editor. I watched on a movie channel recently and with the adverts put in it was over 4 hours. I could see that the director was aiming for an epic love story on the lines of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Hum Aapke Hain Koun, which were long movies but he went too far.

Another problem with Salaam e Isnq is that there were so many stories and not all of them are good, I mean what was the point of the Sohail Khan storyline. They could have cut that part out and concentrated on the decent stories. The Salman Khan- Priyanka Chopra, Akshaye Khanna- Ayesha Takia story lines were an improvement but were still quite weak Amongst the good ones were the John Abraham-Vidya Balan, Govinda storyline and the Anil Kapoor- Juhi Chawla storyline.

The climax could have been thrilling but instead was a bore (I mean come on spending over 15 minutes on the climax you have got to be kidding me). On the other hand it is definitely not the worst film of the year and there were a lot of entertaining moments. The songs also were very good, especially the title song and Tenu Leke. If you have a couple of hours on your hands then you should give it a go. Could have been another Kuch Kuch Hota Hai instead becomes a Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna.

Salaam-E-Ishq tells an epic tale of six couples. Oblivious to one another and separated by miles of distance, they are tested by life's two eyes: Tribulation and Success. Yet somehow, through destiny and fate, these six couples are brought together by the phenomenon of love…

Shah Rukh may be the greatest start since Amitabh and Amir may be Bollywood's most authentic "actor/performer" but love him or hate him, Salman Khan has some magical element that no other ever has. His pairing with Priyanka is spot on....hopefully they do more projects together.

This is one long movie...goes over 3 hours but it is not laborous and if anything, it is needed to tell the tale of 6 couples coming together from different parts of the globe.

You would have to be mad to walk awaywith the feeling of contentment after watching this. Any movie that hasSalman Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Anil Kapoor, Juhi Chawla, Sohail Khan,John Abraham and Vidya Balan will ensure a top viewing just by theirpresence alone. Nikhil Advani does a great job putting it all together.

The movie has everything...heart break and tears and laughter. John Abraham, Govinda and Akshay Khanna I'd have to say have given the performance of their careers. Vidaya Balan is not dolled up and the viewer can truly appreciate her acting talent here. Sohail Khan, while not having a major role, will make you laugh just with his facial expressions alone.

Guaranteed this one will have you back for more. Not a candy floss date movie but one to watch to really appreciate the good points of life and take some lessons out of it.