Jab Tak Hai Jaan

If you are a lover of typical melodramatic Yash Chopra movies, Jab Tak Hai Jaan has more than enough to satisfy you. An elaborate script that goes through ups and downs in the creative side ends up in being a fair one. The last outing of the legendry director isn’t that bad when compared to the style of his previous movies and also how he has adjusted it to fit into the mindset of the new generation.

The story revolves around the past of a military officer Samar Anand. Samar is a stubborn officer and is an expert in bomb diffusing. Samar’s past is exposed when he accidently meets a girl Akeera who is on her journey to acquire a slot in Discovery channel to do documentaries. The past involves his London life and how he falls in love with a girl called Meera. The developments in that love story ends up in making him a man who literally hates God for taking his love away from him and he wants to prove to God and his lover that he can live long without any problem and also by living close to death (Bomb Diffusing). For the documentary purpose of Akeera, Samar agrees to come to London again. Certain unfortunate developments lead to mental trauma of Samar and the crucial part of the movie revolves around those portions.

The good thing about this Yash Chopra Product is that it’s never too over melodramatic. The one question that all had in mind for the direction style of Yash ji doesn’t stand a chance as he has made the movie in a quite enjoyable manner from the director’s perspective. It’s the elements used in the script to push the story forward that disturbs the rhythm. The promise to sir Jesus, The memory lose etc were chapters in the movie which was hard to sync as they were part of an outdated formula.

On screen, as usual SRK gave a good show with deadly looks as Major Samar and romantic dialog delivery as the past Samar was also pleasing. I have a request to SRK to stop smoking as it is seriously affecting his clean shaved looks. In my perspective Katrina failed to handle the emotional sequences. For me, the best performer of the movie was Anushka for her bubbly energetic role that had emotional shades also. Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Kapoor, Anupam Kher and many others did their small parts satisfyingly.

In the making, Yash Chopra surprised me by changing his over melodramatic style to a very decently packaged melodrama. Cinematography of Anil Mehtha was excellent.  His style of capturing urban life is simply beautiful and this time he surprised me with the Kashmir shots. Editing was fine. Vaibhavi’s choreography was also a good one. Compared to Rahman standard of Music and the level of Music in a YRF film, the department wasn’t that charming for me. But the BGM was really pleasing.

On the whole Jab Tak Hai Jaan has its flaws but still the movie carries some entertainment for the fans of both SRK and Yash Chopra. Don’t expect a Veer Zara when you go for this one. It is an intense, entertaining and a bit tiring bollywood number. I am giving 3/5 for this three hour long movie. Less amount of melodrama made me a bit happy.