Mela

By Kavita Awasthi

Ratings: * (Sad)
Special Comment: Dharmesh Darshan tried to make a Sholay II, and he fails.
The film offers anything moreYeah, songs pop out just before the climax.


A film gone awry is what Mela is all about. Dharmesh Darshan has tried to put in all the 'necessary' ingredients of a typical Hindi masala film. What he got is a 'meal' turned sour. We have a village called Chandanpur. A minister is killed there by daku Gujjar Singh (Tinu Verma). Then, we have the good samaritan Ayub Khan, who is the brother of the most beautiful woman on earth, Twinkle Khanna. He shouts stupidly, Main tera khoon pee jaunga while trying to save the mantri. But Gujjar kills him. Then the scene cuts to an angry Twinkle mouthing, Main tera sarvanash karoongi.

Promptly after that, she takes a leap into the river when Gujjar wants her as his mistress. After the dip, the babe is alive and kicking and develops a strange ailment of talking to herself. She then meets the dreamer Aamir Khan and truck driver Faisal and the trio dance to 'Kamariya lachke re', which has no lachak at all! She gives them a sob story and they fall for it. Eventually, they both learn her 'reason-to-be' and want to help her take this revenge saga to a drawn-out climax.

Also starring in this caper are irritating villagers like Asrani who keeps shouting all the time, and yes, Navneet Nishan who says Hum auraton ke seeno main aag hai and thrusts her bust into the audiences' face. Dharmesh tried to make a 'complete motion picture with a carnival of emotions' but ended up with the most incongruous movie of the millennium. All the actors in the movie ham! Aamir hams, Twinkle hams and Faisal hams. This film could well be called 'Ham'joli!

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