{"id":723,"date":"2007-08-08T13:40:00","date_gmt":"2007-08-08T13:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2007\/08\/review-apne-2.html"},"modified":"2013-09-10T16:52:59","modified_gmt":"2013-09-10T20:52:59","slug":"review-apne-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2007\/08\/review-apne-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Review : Apne"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"apne\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Note : The edited version of this review appears at Planet Bollywood, <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rating : Average (3\/5)
\nGenre : Drama
\nYear : 2007
\nRunning time : about 3 hours
\nDirector : Anil sharma
\nCast : Dharmendra, Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Kirron Kher, Shilpa Shetty, Katrina Kaif, Victor Banerjee, Divya Dutta<\/strong><\/p>\n

APNE : THE TALE OF PAPA, PUTTAR & THE CHIP<\/p>\n

Yup, that about sums it up. There\u2019s Papa Deol as Baldev, ex-boxing champ and there\u2019s puttarji, actually 2 of them – Sunny paaji as devoted son Angad, and rocker-musician son Karan (Bobby). And then there\u2019s the chip (it\u2019s not the eating kinds), and it\u2019s the size of Mount Govardhan (don\u2019t know about Mount Govardhan, and attempting to see a film as nauseatingly pious as this ? Tsk, tsk !), and perched neatly on Papa\u2019s shoulder. Papa has the chip because, once when he was a boxer and wrongly accused of doping charges, he swore to avenge his honor by making his son the champ. Angad, the son in question, however in the interests of family and common-sense, chose to quit boxing beyond a point and take up business, thus saving his family from penury. So, Papaji got angry and hasn\u2019t been on good terms with Angad ever since.<\/p>\n

OK, so now Angad poor kid, affection starved and all, is doing well, loves his family but longs for his father\u2019s approval. Now, when an opportunity to restore some boxing prestige arises, Baldev chooses Karan to turn boxer (musician to boxer – easy-peasy, right ?). When Karan suffers a setback, its up to Angad again to step-up, and win this thing.<\/p>\n

This film is from the director of Gadar, and I actually thought Gadar a decent film. This one, I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s too sanctimonious for it\u2019s own good. Plus I have massive problems with the concept – that of children living out parent-ordained lives (what about the poor kid ?). This movie is still better than Baghbaan, as in I could actually watch the full film without going nuts (I nodded off for a little while, but does that count ?).<\/p>\n

Hark ! Did I hear you asking about a family film which has the 3 Deol men crying as one ? If that\u2019s what you want then this is it. Lots of emotional drama, lot\u2019s of tears, and with all characters in the film soooooo pious and soooo good (except Papaji of course) , and (you want more ?) lot\u2019s of brawn. Do note that in films starring Sunny Deol, you have either brain or brawn. One or the other, see ? And mostly, it\u2019s brawn.<\/p>\n

There are also the women dotting the screen here – the most prominent being the mother figure – Raavi (Kher) who plays her character to the hilt with the usual aplomb. Then, in keeping with the tenets of the Punjabi patriarchy and Bollywoodian principles, there are the other 2 women, Angad\u2019s wife (Shipa) who has nothing much to do except say \u201cHaanji\u201d, nod her head and offer her supporting (and very shapely) shoulders to be cried upon, and Karan\u2019s US returned doctor girlfriend (Katrina) who very conveniently turns into his personal doctor-cum-therapist when Karan\u2019s paralyzed hand miraculously starts working again. And you though God\u2019s miracles didn\u2019t exist !<\/p>\n

OK, so the good : the direction is decent, the acting is OK and Dharmendra still has the old-world charm. The bad – the sea of emotion, the music, and Sunny Deol\u2019s wig. During the boxing scenes, with every jab, I was just waiting to see the wig go flying off . I\u2019ll be fair and say that my parents actually liked the film; my Mom\u2019s the weepy sorts – she would shed tears at the Ramayana television series, as I laughed out loud at the silly arrows going whish-whish across the screen.<\/p>\n

This film is lush and glossy – it\u2019s like they wiped down the screen with desi ghee. Verdant green dominates as do the fields of Punjab. There\u2019s the Papaji and the Maa and their dutiful betas, and obedient bahus, and grand-kids, so yeah, as per my Mom, the whole family-bonding thing going on here. The first half was bearable, in the second the film descended down the path to the Land-of-Overwrought-Emotions. And you know, no-one actually comes back from there. Neither did the film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note : The edited version of this review appears at Planet Bollywood, here. Rating : Average (3\/5) Genre : Drama Year : 2007 Running time : about 3 hours Director : Anil sharma Cast : Dharmendra, Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":"","facebook_10233691416821117_190635594420624":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[51,76,14,46,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-51","category-bollywood","category-drama","category-ecstatically-stupid","category-rating-pg"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":4,"uagb_excerpt":"Note : The edited version of this review appears at Planet Bollywood, here. Rating : Average (3\/5) Genre : Drama Year : 2007 Running time : about 3 hours Director : Anil sharma Cast : Dharmendra, Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, … Continue reading →","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45CAb-bF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4702,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions\/4702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}