Salaam-e-ishq

The second story is of ‘love outside marriage' and the actor in crime is Anil Kapoor with Juhi Chawla playing his wife and Anjana Sukhani(remember the forgotten ‘Humdum') playing the other women. The story is common, the situation is common and the ending is also common. So no guesses for it! The only positive is Juhi chawla who makes an impact even in that short role. Then there is Shiven (Akshaya khanna), a high society young man who although gets engaged to the lady he loves, i,e, Gia (Ayesha Takia), is confused as he finds it difficult to let go his bachelor life for love and suffers from commitment phobia. He tries all the tricks under his sleeves to break the marriage and on the way keeps tickling the funny bone of the audience. He is one actor who looks really funny in a role performed with alacrity. But again no guess for what happens in the end. Govinda who recently made a comeback with ‘Bhagambag' plays a humble, good-hearted taxi driver called ‘Raju' who dreams of a gore mam as his dreamgirl. The gori maim played by Shannon Esrechowitz eventually comes to his life but before ‘Raju' could savour the feeling he realizes that she was on a search mission for her Indian boyfriend. Raju makes sacrifice and helps her to find her love. It's a concept that has been used tried and tasted before. Shannon shines in the role as she churns out broken, misspelt hindi and thus is quite refreshing in the role while Govinda is ok.

Salman Khan, ‘the cool dude' also has a role to play. He plays Rahul, the supposedly boyfriend of an over ambitious item girl, ‘Kamini' portrayed by Priyanka Chopra who as a publicity stunt declares to the media that she has got a boyfriend, only to find Salman dropping in as her boyfriend from nowhere, leaving her completely bemused. What follows next is an unnecessary nagging of the film as ‘Rahul' keeps on playing unpredictable game (although uninteresting) with ‘Kamini' and on the way boring audience to the hilt. Salman plays his usual self, a true rockstar and does well. But what disappoints is Priyanka Chopra's acting who keeps on shouting ‘Babu, babu..'(her secretary played by Tinu Anand), trying to make comedy out of situation which are in no way funny rather it ends up irritating the audience. If all that was not enough than there is Sohail Khan and Ishaa Kopikar, a newly wed couple who just can't get the taste of their honeymoon with mishaps happening everytime they try to get intimate--a plot incorporated in the film, deliberately to inject laughter but in the end leaves the audience yawing. In fine, Salaam-E-Ishq is a film that could have been a good film had there been less characters and less sub-plots. It seems as if in between all these stories and characters there is a story that struggles to be told. Nikhil Advani had all the money and all the stars and everything in hand to make a film but he disappoints as he ends up making a film that is banal and lacks originality. So, in a word it is a film that is just a ‘one time watch'. But if you are a movie-buff and like multi-starrer films anyway then grab your pop corn and watch the film but just a advice don't expect too much from the film.