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 am a bit surprised that I didn't come across any reviews mentioning how similar this movie is to "Notting Hill" from Hollywood. Honestly, it feels like they've taken the script and scenes from the movie without much thought. On a brighter note, Akshay's acting was on point, and Katrina looked stunning as always. All things considered, I'd give it a 6.

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

Love (that is, male-female love) is one of the most interesting topics of all the discussions especially when the discussing people are young. Love is also one of the most popular themes for works of fiction, may it be stories or novels or plays or movies. Indian society has seldom been liberal enough to accept love and choosing of own life partner on the part of the young generation. Still love stories have been the most popular ones in Indian movies. Perhaps half of the movies made in different languages of India are having male-female love only as the theme. Why when the Indian society has always considered love as something not desirable and the youths have always been expected to follow the dictates of their elders in matrimonial matters ? Because what's tabooed only attracts the most. It contains a fascination, the fascination of a forbidden fruit. And when adolescence dawns on human-beings, barring exceptions, who does not feel an attraction towards the opposite sex ? Social restrictions can check and affect concrete actions but not the feelings in hearts.

But then what's love ? Attraction motivated by (indirect and hidden) carnal needs ? Liking for someone ? Infatuation for someone ? Or something else ? How do we come to know that we are in love with someone special ? How does it dawn on a female that she is in love with a particular male or on a male that he is in love with a particular female ? Well, it dawns through a feeling. A feeling in one's heart which finally envelops his / her whole personality and pervades all his / her thoughts. Yes, love is a feeling and that's why it can't be described or elaborated, it can only be sensed.

Bollywood film director Raj Kanwar has directed some good movies. He has a mixed track record consisting of some hits and some flops. Humko Deewaana Kar Gaye (2006) is a flop movie directed by him. However when I saw this movie, I found it to be a fairly good movie - a love story which underscores a very significant fact that I have asserted supra - 'Love is a feeling'. You know it when you feel it. This feeling only is the biggest and in fact, the only evidence of existence of love for someone in your heart.

Humko Deewaana Kar Gaye (left me crazy) is the love story of Aaditya (Akshay Kumar) and Jia (Katrina Kaif) who run into each other in Canada. On one hand, Aaditya is already engaged to Sonia (Bipasha Basu), on the other, Jia is the betrothed of Karan (Anil Kapoor). Love blossoms in their hearts with a feeling that they are comfortable in each other's company, they love to be in each other's company and they want each other's company for their lifetime. Through his association with Jia, Aaditya comes to understand that he is not meant for Sonia and Jia only can fill the vacuum in his life. On the other side, Jia understands through Aaditya that love is nothing but a feeling and that feeling she has developed for Aaditya and not Karan.

The twist in the tale arrives through a mistake by Aaditya's drunkard friend Nawaab (Vivek Shauq) making some tragic facts of Jia's personal life public which, in turn, leaves her heartbroken and misunderstanding Aaditya for that. Jia gets married to Karan and then only she comes to know that Aaditya is innocent regarding this bad taste giving incident happened with her. But it's too late now. However the story gets a final twist in the climax to have a happy ending for the lovers (and the other ones associated with them too).

Except for the melodramatic and unimpressive climax of the story, Humko Deewaana Kar Gaye is overall a good movie which touches the audience, especially the romantic hearts, at many places. The romance of the lead pair in Canada is lovely with the beautiful surroundings adding immensely to it. The sequence of the lead pair moving together in a cold, snowy night is not only very romantic but also very emotional. Life, in the real sense, is only a collection of moments. And there are certain moments that we cherish forever. The romantic moments spent in the association of the sweetheart are such moments only. During them only the feeling of love is felt with utmost intensity.

The scene in which Aaditya refers to the wife (Upasana Singh) of his friend Gurpreet (Gurpreet Ghuggi) in a derogatory way and thus generating a wrong notion in his friend's heart for his wife's past leading to a rift between the husband and the wife plus the following scene in which Aaditya only takes corrective action for the unintentional wrong done by him and reunites the couple, are highly touching and underscore the significance of mutual trust in marital life.

The movie contains ample comic and relief moments too. The comedy done by Late Vivek Shauq, Gurpreet Ghuggi and child artist Master Abhay Kanwar alongwith Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif generates abundant laughs for the audience. There is a lot of fun and entertainment in the movie before the principal twist in the story thereafter it becomes heavy with sentiments.

Technically the movie is admirable. Canada appears to be very beautiful on the screen. There is only one action scene in the movie (in the climax) and that's been executed very well. Editing is good but should have been tighter to reduce the length of the movie. Background score is good. Dialogs contain the essence of the movie.

Humko Deewaana Kar Gaye is by no means any extra-ordinary movie. It's a routine love story whose direction is also more or less routine only. However, by default perhaps, it strikes the romantic hearts in a latent way and finds a quality within itself.