Review: Subhash Ghai’s ‘Yuvvraaj’ is old wine in new bottle
Pratik Dogra
New Delhi, Nov 21: ‘Independent we may live…but united we stand’ is Subhash
Ghai’s take on the aesthetics of an ideal joint family in modern times. His
school of film-making involves a simple story, told with great grandeur and
pomp. And his latest opulent extravaganza – ‘Yuvvraaj’ happens to be no
different.
The story of ‘Yuvvraaj’ is about the circumstances that lead to coming
together of three estranged brothers after their father’s death. The plot
revolves around Deven Yuvvraaj, played by Salman Khan. He is a choir singer in
Prague, who was disowned by his father due to the sibling rivalry he shared
with his mentally challenged elder brother, Gyanesh (Anil Kapoor).
He is in love with Anoushka (Katrina Kaif), daughter of an affluent doctor, Dr
Banton (Boman Irani). But Dr Banton refuses to accept him as his son-in-law due
to his poor finances. Consequently, Dev signs an agreement with Dr Banton that
if he becomes a billionaire in 40 days, he could marry his daughter.
An emotional roller coaster journey awaits Dev as he sets off to London on his
mission to inherit his share from his, now dead, father’s Rs 15000 crore
property. On reaching, he realises that there’s nothing left for him in his
father’s will as all the wealth has been given to Gyanesh. He then plans,
schemes and conspires with his younger brother Danny (Zayed Khan), who he meets
after 12 years, to wrest the millions from Gyanesh.
But subsequent chain of events make the three brothers rekindle their
affections for each other and make them understand the significance of family
bonds. United by love, the brothers fight a plethora of greedy relatives and
fulfill their father’s last wish of his family being a united joint family.
The movie rides high on performances, especially from Anil Kapoor and Salman
Khan. The duo is in great form and share some excellent moments of brotherly
bonding on screen. Katrina Kaif surprisingly, is required to act…and more
surprisingly, delivers! Besides looking gorgeous, she makes a convincing cello
player, while her sizzling on-screen pairing with Salman is one of the high
points of the film.
Boman Irani, as usual, is effortless in his brilliance, while Zayed Khan is
passable. The supporting cast does well without being spectacular.
But, however good the performances be, a musical extravaganza like ‘Yuvvraaj’
depends heavily on its musical score and that’s where the AR Rehman-Gulzar team
falters by a few notches. The music, which happens to be the soul of the movie,
often fails to captivate and nor does it always integrate with the plot. Other
than the ‘dost’ track, none of the numbers linger, which is surprising coming
from AR Rehman.
Another drawback of this magnum opus is it’s outdated narrative. The movie
slackens now and then, while the script, too, has a few loose ends.
However, the cinematic beauty of the movie does cover-up inherent deficiencies
in the movie to an extent. The exotic locales of Prague and Austria are
captured in splendid hues, which bring freshness to the movie.
All in all, while Yuvvraaj may not be Subhash Ghai’s best work yet, it is
certainly one of the better melodramas that bollywood has churned out in recent
times.
Two cheers for this one!
