Salaam-e-Ishq: Saudações ao Amor

Salaam-e-Ishq is the second new Indian movie i have ever seen, and so I speak from a western view point. This movie is quite good, especially the first 2 hours. The characters are diverse, and so are their stories. Many dialogs are absolutely hilarious. Passages from comedy to drama episodes are done carefully, and the movie rolls by in a dynamic, entertaining way. However, towards the end of the second hour the movie starts to stretch. Some scenes are unnecessary, and some songs are too long and could have been saved for the ending. As a result, by the time the conclusion comes, one starts gazing at the watch. Also,towards the end, the drama is in some cases exaggerated and not every actor and actress manage to pull it off well. For the rest of the movie, performances range from excellent to satisfactory. This movie should have been edited down to about two and a half hours and would have been perfect. Still, it's a good one to see with your friends, or someone you love. The great comedy and the diverse issues make it worth it.

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.

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.

The movie is watchable ,but far from breathtaking. It has some great moments worth watching , but I can personally skip half of it.

There are 6 stories - some of them way too extended and some of them way too neglected.

The cast was overall good ,but the performer who really stole the show was Juhi Chawla (in those couple of minutes she had on-screen). She was the only one really acting. She delivered her role very well and made her character pretty believable.It is a miracle she did that with such a poor character story line. Govinda did a great job. Anil Kapoor and Vidya Balan were also good in terms of acting. All the others were simply okay by my opinion.

Overall not the best Hindi movie I've seen.

The movie is fun to watch. It is an entertainer too. However some chaos erupted due to the huge star cast & mix up of stories. But it had to happen. 6 couples and more than 3.5 hrs is not an easy task after all.

Govinda's story is sweet & fun to watch & so is Akshay & Aisha's. Salman Khan again went over the top with Priyanka, need to work on it. Anil Kapur & Juhi are gud but nt much to do though. Similar was the case with John & Vidya. Sohail & Isha had just 4 scenes but of course there story ws nice & fun. Sohail seems to working gr8 on his comedy skills.

The transition between stories and scenes are good. And the song & music is just amazing. Cinematography is real gud too. But Nikhil needs to come up with a nice story to tell with similarly gud presentation. He needs to come out of shadow of Karan.

But still a nice attempt & a fair treat ;-)