Asambhav (2004)

What has Rajiv Rai done to himself? Once a hit director of films like Tridev and Vishwatama is now making one bad film after another. I was initially excited at the thought of Rajiv Rai returning to the action genre but that soon fizzled out. As a Rajiv Rai fan I thought I should at least give it a go but I left after an hour. One reason for me leaving the film so early so the amount of Paki- bashing in the film, this was not in Rai's previous venture.A lot of directors have tried Paki- bashing but I did not expect it from Rajiv Rai Another letdown was the music. Rajiv Rai's have always had good music until now. There is only one good song and that is Tere dekh dekh Ladgayan. The performances are not upto scratch, not even from Rai Loyalist Naseer-Uddin- Shah. Avoidable fare from once my favourite director.

The president of India as well as his daughter as kidnapped and held hostage at a remote location during a visit to Switzerland and it is up to Captain Aditya Arya (played by Arjun Rampal in one of his many action-hero roles) to be deployed there and save them with his military/James Bond-like skills.You can always trust Naseeruddin Shah to bring it as a bad guy any day and any time, and he does just that as Sameer 'Sam' Hans a man with unclean hands and strong ties with terrorism groups. His men lure an Indian pop star named Alisha (played by Priyanka Chopra) to Switzerland under the pretext of making her an even bigger star but it all turns to hell when her best friend/sister is murdered for overhearing a terrorist plot. Her luck changes when she meets Captain Aditya who promises to help her escape from the clutches of evil. Too bad the pairing of Chopra and Rampal was particularly very bad here. They had zero chemistry in this film, it was painful!Look for passable action scenes featuring Rampal, and okay dance numbers featuring Chopra. The star of the show is truly Naseeruddin Shah in major bad guy mode. Mohan Agashe, Yashpal Sharma, Tom Alter among other co-star in this action packed adventure. Look for an eye-popping item number by Mumait Khan in the song 'Mashuqa Rubi.' Strictly for fans of specific stars in the film only.

I saw this movie with some hopes, despite its dull performance at the box office. I was disappointed. Low points: Stereotypical bad guys - I mean come on, the whole Pakistani/Kashmiri/Jihad plot is just so OLD. I am really sick of movies featuring this subplot as they just never offer anything new in terms of villain motivation or behaviour. You can predict what they'll say before they do and it's certainly not good for relations between the two countries. Find a new source of bad guys already, Bollywood.Direction: The director had some snazzy techniques of using a split screen. Then he overused it way too much by putting this technique in every few minutes.Priyanka's character: Unneccessay side plot without any character development or motivationBad music: absolutely no memorable or inspiring musicPredictable storyline: enough saidGood points - Arjun Rampal: Arjun is looking as gorgeous as ever, so if you're female you'll probably enjoy this movie. He's also quite a good actor and very good in an action role.Naseeruddin Shah: This guy is a scream every time I see him. His villain was one of my favourite parts of the movie he was so campy.All in all the world would not have been at a loss if this movie had never been made. However, Arjun Rampal is quite good and very nice to watch, so rent it on video and fast forward the boring/bad bits.

Well, besides the great views of Ticino and Locarno, Switzerland, the movie has a recurrent theme: Kashmir and Indo-Pakistani War. Besides the fact that Arjun Rampal is doing a good performance, I found pretty hard to understand who had the money, who finally is good and bad, and why there are so many changes in the gangs' composition. I kind of was lost but enjoyed watching it. It's action, action, action and lots of blood. Well, it's not Devdas or Yuva. But the mix between Bollywood and the famous scene in Switzerland is well done.