Movie Review: Phir Milenge

Saw Phir Milenge, the Hindi movie starring Salman Khan, Shilpa Shetty, Abhishek Bachhan. The story is based on the successful Hollywood film, Philadelphia. To give you a quick synopsis: Salman (Rohit) and Shilpa (Tamanna) are lovers. Abhishek (Tarun) plays a lawyer. Salman goes to US, picks up AIDS unknowingly and infects Tamanna while in India (pre-marital sex). Then, he return s to US, finds out that he is infected with AIDS, returns to India. Meanwhile Tamanna gets to know that she is HIV+, gets fired because her boss can't stand having someone infected with HIV in his office She wants to sue, can't finda lawyer, until a happy-go lucky Tarun comes along to fight the legal battle of his life. This in short is the story. Some key highlights and thoughts:

• The movie is well made and definite worth watching. Revathi (former south indian actress) is the director and has done a really nice job. Can you imagine, there were scenes when I felt Salman-bhai was actually acting! Hats of to Revathi.
  
  
• Abhishek Bacchan, the Ajit Agarkar of Indian films. Appears in almost every film but can never turn a hit. But someone appears to have taken it upon themselves to make a success out of this guy. While his papa might be the one, I always wonder who Ajit Agarkar has as his prime sponsor. When the onus of carrying an entire film is not on him, Abhishek usuually does a decent job (though there are many movie watchers who can never be convinced of this!), as I think he did here. (If you belong to the "I can't stand this guy" group, I have a request, please forget that he is Amtabh's son when you assess his performance. Its completely unfair to the guy).
  
  
• Shilpa Shetty for once gets a chance to act and does a fine job. One could argue that her glamorous looks right through the film are a shade inconsistent with the theme of the film.
  
  
• Music is decent, but I'll need to hear it a few times before I latch on to any of the songs in a big way.
• Salman Khan was bearable. I am glad he didn't show his body for a change. I was expecting a raunchy dream sequence given Salman-Shilpa duos typical portrayals, but I was pleasantly surprised not to see one.

In summary, a very well made film. No unneccesary masala, histrionics etc. simple, to the point, and well presented. I hope Revathi directs more films. The movie had a strong south indian feel to it (it felt like watching a malayalam movie). Some of the actors, the one who acted as Tamanna's sister and her boss, both spoke slowly and carefully like they were not native hindi speakers. Plenty of lines in English were thrown in, perhaps to suit ome of the actors who prefer english over hindi, if possible!