14 November,2009 07:49 AM IST | | Tushar Joshi
Aao Wish Karein
U; Fantasy
Dir: Glen Barretto
Cast: Aftab Shivdasani, Aamna Sharif, Johnny Lever, Rati Agnihotriu00a0u00a0
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What's it about: Aftab Shivdasani is stuck in a time warp. He thinks he's still the teenager from Masti, but we disagree. It's over a decade since he played that role.
In Aao Wish Karein he goes further back in time and decides to play a 12-year-old Mikey who wants to grow up and romance Mithika (Aamna).
His friend Hitchcock (Lever) is a Jack Sparrow meets Javed Jaffrey kind of a genie makingu00a0 his wish come true.
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If you thought that this would be the end you are mistaken, fate plays a truant game on Mikey and he returns back to his normal age just when he thought everything was going well.
Does the genie in a bottle return to save him, or does Mithika turn into a cougar agreeing to date someone several years younger to her? If only the climax was that interesting!
What's hot: There are a couple of scenes between Aftab and his childhood friend Boni that work to some extent but these are far and few.
What's not: Predictability and clichu00e9s seep through the pores of this script. As if made to deliver every used and rehashed joke, situation and premise yet again using a juvenile backdrop, the film grates on your nerves. Every trick in the bag seems old and outdated.
Right from the first frame of a boy in his bed waking up to an alarm clock to the last scene, everything is stale. The premise of a 12-year-old falling in love with an elder woman is interesting for a story that's adult and dramatic, but treating it as a fairy tale spells disaster.
There's nothing remotely close to what the Grimm brothers would write if they had to handle this subject. Instead, we get a half slapstick-half silly story that tells us that you shall obrain everything if you believe in fairy tales (yawn!).
Aftab and Aamna may be off screen lovers, but on screen they have zero appeal. Both their characters (rather caricatures) have no pull or draw. Especially, Aamna who loves like a confectionary queen with her perfect blush and mascara-laced face and faux eyelashes.
Johnny Lever is wasted in one of the most ridiculous getups he's pulled on screen. Rati Agnihotri needs to go back to Jhalak... and perhaps dance her way to weight loss! She like several other character actors hams her way through whatever little she's asked to do.
The songs are jarring and pounce on you at all the wrong moments. The end is so contrived and inane that it seems like a 12-year-old must have thought of it. Aftab really needs to let of his yuppie cutesy dimpled grin act, he's been doing for over a decade.
What to do: You would ask for three wishes after watching this film u2014 one that it shouldn't have been made in the first place, second that Aftab would someday grow up! and third that only if the Genie would reimburse your movie tickets there would be justice in this world!
