Mehbooba

We all want to find love and hope to know that someone somewhere is waiting for us. But can the bond between two souls be so tight that they remember their love for next life too? Putting aside the possibility of that ever happening one can say that this kind of souls meeting in next life is a solid theme to explore. Puri Jagannadh tried to do so in his Mehbooba.

Plot:

Roshan (Akash Puri) from India and Afreen (Neha Shetty) from Pakistan from a young age have a weird connection. They can’t explain it themselves but they feel a connection with someone somewhere waiting for them.

In search of her divine connection, Afreen comes to Hyderabad but she doesn’t come face-to-face with Roshan until she is leaving for Pakistan for her marriage. They both feel a connection but they don’t express it with each other. During his trekking trip, Roshan finds an iced Madhira, who looks like Afreen. In her diary, he finds a photo of a soldier, who looks exactly like him. What is the connection between them? How will these two identify it and if possible, how will an Indian and Pakistani marry, in this heated situation? Watch the movie for answers…

Performances:

Akash Puri lacks the charm to carry a movie like this on his shoulders. For him to be acceptable as a representative of youth or as a character in this movie, he needed to have even more strong script help as he is not as charismatic as other popular Puri heroes. The weight of bad writing and execution nabbed him completely into the ground.

Neha Shetty has looks and if she brushes her acting skills, she has a chance to survive in this Industry as a good actress. All others including Shiyaji Shinde, Murali Sharma, Ashwini Kalsekar irritate with their performances.

Technicalities::

Vishnu Sarma tried his best to bring energy and dynamism to the lacklustre scenes with his visuals but the lack of any basic strength in writing and even performances, his work doesn’t really please.

Editing by Junaid Siddique is highly abysmal. He doesn’t really try to maintain a flow between the proceedings. Well, the writing might be so poor but his effort in trying to minimize the effect of it is also missing.

Music by Sandeep Chowta is firetrucks and laugh-inducing. We cannot really believe that he is the man who scored to films like Company, Ninne Pelladutha, Satya, and Super.

Writer and director, Puri Jagannadh is not even a shadow of his earlier self in this film. There is not even one scene that we can believe that Puri Jagannadh wrote this screenplay and those scenes. He couldn’t really bring his thoughts in a cohesive manner on screen. If he is writing a love story, why does he need to unnecessarily make it an India vs Pakistan match that too with an old template as Gaddar – Ek Prem Katha, that came 18 years ago? Nobody can understand. Even his usual fire and energy is highly missing in the film.

Analysis:

Puri Jagannadh might need a break from continuous work. It looks like he is unable to identify his problem areas in scripting to improve on them. His execution as never been so poor like we see in this film. He needs to find himself again, as he looks like he is just writing what he feels rather than what he really believes and is interested in. A novel idea doesn’t make for a good film and he is experienced enough to know that. Still, he is repeating the same mistakes again and again!

Rating: 1.5/5