Come another Friday and stars come sizzling down on silver screen once more. But, this Friday is very crucial for many in Bollywood. For director Mahesh Manjrekar it is a litmus test as his 'Vaah! Life Ho Toh Aisi' is going to decide if he is capable of handling a comedy (his last take on comedy 'Padmashri Lalu Prasad Yadav' sank with out a whiff at box office). On the other hand, the producer-director is adamant to prove that he hasn't lost the Midas touch that he got with his hit debut film 'Ajay' way back in 1996. When 'Ajay' was released Sunil Darshan was working with his brother Dharmesh Darshan. Later, they fell apart and followed different paths.
Since then Sunil Darshan has made six more films as a director -- all of them with Akshay Kumar except 'Barsaat' that he made with Bobby Deol. Sunil teams up this time with his favorite actor Akshay Kumar once again and with Bobby Deol, hero of his last film. Though 'Dosti' was supposed to release after Akshay Kumar, Karisma Kapoor and Amisha Patel starrer 'Mere Jeevan Saathi', but the latter got struck because of financial problems and Sunil decided to release 'Dosti' first. 'Dosti' is also a comeback for a friendship formula for Bollywood; not many films are being made on the friendship theme these days. Sunil has also managed to rope in Kareena Kapoor and Lara Dutta in his this new venture.
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'Dosti-Friends Forever' is the story of two friends from different walks of the life. Bobby Deol portrays the rich friend of the pair (Karan) whereas Akshay Kumar plays Raj, a man who has nothing to lose as he has nothing in his wallet. Wealth is not the only criterion that makes them different. Karan has got immense wealth from his family. He has everything and enjoys the company of all the beauty in this world. On the other hand, Raj is dedicated to his love for life. He loves to live the life as it comes to him. Circumstances bring them together and soon they start sharing good rapport between them.
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The friendship grows; a relation where they can share each and every thing between the two -- their emotions, their pains and their joys. The material people do not like it; they want to draw a line between them. They make it clear that the poor cannot be the friends of the rich. Enter the beautiful girls on the block; Kareena Kapoor as Anjali and Lara Dutta as Kajal. And the emotional drama takes some new turn. The relatives tread in; and it is the friendship between Raj and Karan that has to take the love and trust between them to a new path. That is 'Dosti, Forever'.
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'Dosti' is producer-director Sunil Darshan's fifth film. One out of these 'Mere Jeevan Saathi' is stuck as told earlier and the other three did fair to just average business at box office. Sunil also scripts his films so if there is any flaw in the story narration; he has no one else to blame. And, 'Dosti' if falters anywhere in its making, it is its story progression. The film takes too much of time to settle in and Akshay Kumar having played so many Casanova type of characters doesn't fit in the simpleton's role. Robin Bhatt and Shyam Goel try a lot to fill the loopholes of the story with some excellent scene creations and so do Rumi Jaffery and K. K. Singh with their emotional and at times charged up dialogues.
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Sunil also gets immense help from his cinematographer W. B. Rao, but his choreographers -- Ganesh Acharya and Raju Khan -- fail to come up with newer steps. Sunil Darshan has tried the friendship formula for the first time. He has also for the first time tried his hands on two-hero project and to make a film with two actors of the same status is never an easy task. Sunil takes off the narration with much gusto but the graph of the tension fizzles out once he enters the romantic track. He does try to take a U-turn and go back to conflicts, conspiracy and cohesion drama, but it is too late by then.
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'Dosti-Friends Forever' is Akshay Kumar's seventh release this year. And he deserves all the praise because despite most of the films these days failing one after the other, the producers and the directors still have faith in him. As Raj, Akshay Kumar tries to fit in a role that is not very familiar with Akshay Kumar. His last film 'Deewane Hue Paagal' failed because the viewers thought they had watched too much of this Khiladi actor's gimmicks on screen. Akshay got praise only in two films this year, namely, 'Waqt-Race against Time' and 'Garam Masala'.
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However, these films were praised for their smoothness. That way, he is no more a sure draw among audiences. Bobby Deol, on the other hand, tries to match the requirements of his role like T. His emotional outburst is well applauded in the film and he also looks comfortable in romantic scenes. Mona Chopra is a revelation whereas Juhi Chawla is slowly trying to fit in character roles in Hindi cinema.
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Kiran Kumar, Karihma Tanna and Lillette Dubey do their roles well. On the whole, 'Dosti-Friends Forever' is just about an average film that will find it tough to meet competition from 'Vaah! Life Ho Toh Aisi' and 'Chicken Little' in the holiday season where kids want to watch an entertainer and their parents try to take them to films of their choice.
