Humko Deewana Kar Gaye

Akshay Kumar, India's answer to David Hasselhof, stars in yet another Bollywood melodrama about a doomed love triangle. Hum Ko Deewana Kar Gaye is one of his least entertaining efforts, mainly due to the fact that the film lacks the action sequences which make Akshay's films bearable.

Hum Ko Deewana Kar Gaye revolves around a pretty standard love triangle. Akshay plays Aditya, an auto engineer who is engaged to Soniya, a fashion designer. While on a business trip to Canada, Aditya falls in love with Jia, who in turn, is engaged to the rich and powerful Karan. Everything proceeds rather predictably, with Jia and Aditya slowly becoming closer without being unfaithful to their fiancés.

The film is not particularly bad, just overly formulaic and unusually boring. Hum Ko Deewana Kar Gaye focuses on the developing romance between Aditya and Jai, ignoring the usual action sequences that Akshay is famous for. There is only one fight scene in which Aditya battles three thieves. The musical interludes are also less entertaining than usual. There is a fun musical number in a restaurant when the family drink spiked juice and another hilariously over the top segment in which Aditya and Jia sing while riding a motorbike and dance on top of snowy mountain peaks. Unfortunately, such scenes are few and far between.

In addition to the inimitable Akshay, the cast includes several rising Bollywood stars. Katrina Kaif is lovely as the emotionally torn Jia, while the ridiculously beautiful Bipasha Basu shines as bitchy Soniya. Vivek Shaq also offers some much needed comedy relief as Nawab. Despite these fine performances, the film really revolves around Ashkay and he provides further evidence for being the cheesiest actor ever to grace the silver screen. And yet, I see all of his films. Go figure.

Hum Ko Deewana Kar Gaye is worth checking out on video or DVD, when you can fast forward all of the romantic rubbish and enjoy the hilarious dance numbers.

"I think so (sic) it's destiny," groans our hero caught in a love jam that throttles him from both ends. Indeed, we think so too.

Akshay Kumar's films are becoming classier by the month. There's a certain restrain in his presence here. The way he conveys the pain and hurt of an impossible love, is quite surprising for an actor who until recently was counted among the wooden.

Director Raj Kanwar's recent efforts to polish up his act have yielded tepid results. Dhai Akshar Prem Ke and the box office hit Andaz were louder than the lyrical aspirations of their creator.

Kanwar gets it more right this time. The theme of 'love versus obligation' is nothing new to our cinema. Then redemptive hope lies in the treatment. And we aren't let down completely in the way the jukebox- symphony moves forward.

There's a certain elegance in the movement of the mix 'n' match love story. Aditya (Akshay) and Jiya (Katrina) engaged to marry the wrong life partners must move towards that inevitable mutual embrace at the end when the scrambled game of musical chairs finally ends.

In between there are several musical pieces choreographed with an eye-catching élan. One of them filmed in a commodious banquet even has yesteryears' cabaret queen Helen breaking into a sassy jig.

Such moments are well-knitted into the tale of star-crossed love.

Though the film suffers for Raj Kanwar's trademark humbug (superfluous loud Punjabi characters grooving garishly to Bhangra-pop beats, crude gay jokes between Akshay and Mohan Joshi, co-incidences peeking out of an otherwise-smooth narrative ) there's a touch of self-conscious suaveness in the storytelling that goes a long way in keeping the central romance from collapsing under the weight of self-importance.

The initial encounters between Aditya and Jia are deftly visualized. Vikas Shivraman's camera frames the good-looking pair with arresting valentinian vibrancy.

The dialogues, you feel, could've gone easy on the rhetorics. Often-times you feel the lovers, fighting off their respective engagements to court true love, are reading their lines out of an invisible prompter.

But Akshay Kumar-Katrina look terrific together. Akshay's controlled performance spotlights the character's virtuosity in the midst of luscious temptation.

Watch him in that almost wordless moment when his screen-friend Vivek Shouq (in a hideous blow-dyed hairstyle) confesses he was behind the lovers' break-up…Akshay gives a clenched interpretation to a role that doesn't allow him to 'do' much on screen.

Katrina is passably competent in a tailor-made role, giving a mild emotional spin to a couple of scenes. But her inadequacies surface when pitched against Shernaz Patel (in a deplorably minuscule part) or even against Bipasha Basu who, in the brief role of Akshay's ambitious fiancée, brings a fleeting finesse to her under-written part.

But pray, what's Anil Kapoor doing playing Katrina's arrogant self-important fiancé? From the start you know this couple is doomed.

Don't look for surprises in this smooth-and-shiny romance. …Or originality. Bits and pieces from various Hindi and Hollywood creations surface intermittently.

But the queasy limit is the climax where Katrina is stuck upside down in a hit-and-run car. The whole sequence is lifted from this year's Oscar winner Crash..

That's some quick thinking.

i loved this movie and have the DVD i have watched it over 20 times everything in this movie is so good the songs the scenery acting everything its a love story between akshay and katrina and how they both fall in love with each other and then overcome the obstacles thrown towards them by them been engaged to sum1 else its very sweet and even though katrinas voice was dubbed she did a very good job acting wise akshay was great this guy can romance a 23 yr old at the age of 39 and look 25 only akshay could do that anil and bipasha also add a good touch to the movie but akshay and katrina carry this movie out fantastically watch it stuff the bad reviews this movie is a real tear jerker romance

this film is bollywood's classic love melodrama. in terms of plot it offers nothing new or interesting.

but what is does offer is the fresh pairing of akshay & katrina, one of the positives of the film. director raj kanwar is famous for such melodramatic films and HDKG is no exception. there are many songs in the movie, and they keep irritating. the dialogues are okay, the technical features such as editing and cinematography are okay too, nothing brilliant. this is the type of film females will enjoy more as opposed to males.family audiences will be more suited to this film than others. the music is allover average, Fanaa is a great track and the title song is passable

hdkg gets a mediocre rating more because of the fact that it offers nothing new, rather than the film being bad. i suppose, when you see too much of something, you start looking at it in a bad light??

now to the performances. i have always maintained that akshay has the potential to be the amongst the top. he tries hard in hdkg, and succeeds. it is a restrained performance, another feather in his cap and makes the fact more prominent that hes amongst the best superstars today. katrina is a revelation. she looks great and acts well. a pity that her dialogues are still being dubbed! the rest of the cast are OK.

in the end, the film is bad but isn't good either. watch it if you're an akshay/katrina fans or if love dramas is your cup of tea!

Aditya (Akshay Kumar), who is engaged to Sonia (Bipasha Basu), travels to Canada for his job. While there, he makes the acquaintance of Jia (Katrina Kaif); they first become friends, then fall in love. However, Jia is also engaged, to powerful and possessive industrialist, Karan (Anil Kapoor). When a misunderstanding comes between Jia and Aditya, they both return to India to plan their separate weddings, while still in love with each other.

The plot is mostly predictable, but still generally enjoyable. The music ranges from okay to good, but choreography is well below average; this is a shame as Kaif is an excellent dancer but had no chance to shine. Kumar and Kaif had good chemistry together, and she wasn't as stiff as she has been in other movies. Kapoor was simply perfect for his role. The ending, to me, was rushed and somewhat weak. All together, the movie was a nice time-pass, but not spectacular.