Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai

This movie should be rated a lot higher. From the AMAZING acting from Anil Kapoor and ARB, it was quite the ride. The story was almost perfect, was just stretched out a bit. Highly recommend this to everyone.

The story started with a simple happy family of Avinash (Anil Kapoor) and Preeti (Aishwarya Rai) having a family outing with their two kids. On the next scene, we saw that Preeti was hated by her own father. As the curiosity of the audience started to increase, the story unfolds itself when the film showed flashback for the audience to know the real story of Preeti and Avinash. Both have a dark secret that they tried to hide.

The story coped about the stigma in India on rape victims. It was clearly illustrated in the film that a rape victim will be shunned by her own family and society. She would be doomed to be unmarried for life since her father would be ashamed to consider her as 'perished goods'. An astounding performance by the lead especially Aishwarya Rai as Preeti, the rape victim. I would suggest this story to anyone who wanted to see the taboo breaking on rape victim in India.

Humara Dil Aapke Paas Hai (My heart lies with you) Story line: A priest, whose walls are full of pictures of various Hindu Gods , has a daughter (Ash) who is raped and thrown on the streets!- meaning: the priest who is worshipping Gods – day in and day out...must be doing something terribly wrong after all – otherwise such a gory happening would have been averted by the greatest benevolent God! Eg. a true devotee like Prahlad was saved over and over again by the tyranny of his own father King Hiranyakashyap.

Such films create atheists basically who start behaving like blind and dumb blokes thinking that there is nothing as Gods after all and the film actors and actresses are the real gods – they employ them to dance along with them as extras in 'chaddi-baniyaan', give them generous tips, entertain them... basically make life worth living!!...whereas Gods.....? why in the film Ash's father was a priest but what happened to her!? She was humiliated and thrown out of her house too! So the priest threw out his DNA extension! Shows how stupid and dumb these priests are! She had be raped damn it- not a fault of hers! Had she become some call-girl or some escort female – it may be understandable by commoners ..that parents will obviously drive her out because she had been sleeping around in exchange of money or fun...but this case was entirely different – she was raped – an accident.

In comes Anil Kapoor to Ash's rescue! Anil was taking care of his father's illegitimate children! Now look at that – pious priest's daughter saved by debauch beep's son! They both play the live-in game for a while – much to the discomfort of the neighborhood ...and eventually get married! Wowza!! Happy ending! Conclusion: Priests are brainless nitwits and are not connected to God(s) in any way – or else his daughter would have returned home unscratched – they are cheating, swindling and misleading people.

Like father, like son – is not always applicable after all! Anil was not shown as a womaniser here – like until they got married, Anil did not even look at Ash with ...any kind of intentions ...rather difficult for any commoner to do – with such an exquisite beauty at home working as a governess cum secretary...at your beck and call..I mean can you imagine males?!

Under ordinary circumstances...and given the fact that Anil's father was a debauch – Anil and Ash would have done full justice to the Live-in relationship...but Hindi film after all – they cannot show a female agreeing to sleep with a male before wedlock – it is considered to be a taboo here...though many..many ...many in real life, in India - are happily involved in this 'taboo' locha!

The film is severely awful and is demeaning to rape victims. On the surface, it may be a daring film about rape but if you dig beneath the surface, what lies is a not-so-positive message about rape. Aishwarya the rape victim is shown to be a helpless victim who cannot cope all because she is a WOMAN. She needs a MAN to help her. When the society makes jibes about her and throws comments at her, she does not stand up for herself. It is all left to Anil Kapoor to do all the talking while Aishwarya does all the crying.

The director (Satish Kaushik) went down the wrong path by portraying a rape victim as weak and submissive. What would have been more effective is portraying a strong woman who rebels against her enemies in a courageous way. The director is famous for being chauvinistic. His films are usually full of weak women but he tries to hide them in controversial roles. He needs to learn that just because the role is controversial, it does not mean that the character herself is strong.

The most degrading scene in the film is when Aishwarya 'cleans' herself after just being raped. She does it to please her father who thinks that she is now dirty. Though it is commendable that Shah shows the stigma against rape victims in such a stark light, what he does not show us is whether Ash's father was wrong for making his daughter do such a thing. Thus we are left with a confusing message about rape.

The comedy too is not needed in a strong subject film like this. Even more so, the comedy is simply not funny. Ash is wooden in her role while Anil Kapoor does nothing but shout. The music is mediocre except for the title track, which is beautifully picturised (the only bright point of this film). Sonali Bendre's role is disappointing and pointless. Overall, what could have been a great movie to remember ends up being an awful mish-mash that will give some viewers severe indigestion.

HDAPH could have been a much better film had the so-called comedy scenes been toned down, reduced, or deleted all together. At times, they were so tedious that I was tempted to fast forward the DVD. I was starting to feel that the director, writers, and producers were reluctant to approach a serious topic without infusing it with massive overdoses of nonsensical nonsense. If not, then the only reason for the comedy was to pad the film to make it longer. This is about the 3rd Indian movie that I have seen recently where the comedy sequences brought the primary story line to a screeching halt and seriously eroded the impact of the film on the viewer. I would have changed my vote from a 6 to an 8 had the comedy been deleted and the rest of the story fleshed out in greater detail.

As for the rest of the story, I liked all the performances although Sonali Bendre was a little much at times. I am also constantly amazed over how Anil Kapoor's character in this film and most of his movies is easily able to beat up one or two dozen bad guys without having any idea how he became so skilled. He just does not fit the role of a Sunny Deol.

The songs and locations were good although somewhat out of place but that is OK and significantly more palatable than feeble attempts at comedy.