Andhracafe.com- JANNAT: Starring : Emran Hashmi , Sonal Chauhan, Javed Sheikh, Vishal Malhotra. Direction :Kunal Deshmukh. Music :Pritam.

One expects better horses from the Bhatt stable. What disappoints is the naïve level of story telling.  Over simplistic to a fault the story line is so, so simple that it could be well out of a school exercise note book.  The film may boast of a sense of timing .  This too is in the limited context of the present ongoing cricket jamboree and nothing more.  The tale of match fixing is all too old. Well, we have even forgotten the Woolmer tragedy.  The story is thus stale and the treatment is even worse.

 Smooch specialist Emran Hashmi leaves behind his biggest asset and walks into a script which gives him enough opportunity to use his skill sets and use it as much as he can.  Yet he resists it and only once takes to the smooch.  This is the only surprise element in the entire film. In his new avatar he is Arjun Dixit who has a great sixth sense and can thus make accurate predictions of things to happen on a cricket field. In a look and fall in love scenario he falls head over heels for Zoya- a girl working in a call centre .His character is about how before and after we come to know him he is always willing to take the short cut for the big money. Dad (Vipin Sharma) has tried  and
failed before.

 Debutant Sonali Chauhan  plays Zoya a one dimensional bore.  The BPO employee is waiting to be wooed and makes not a moment of sense.  Forewarned,  she walks into a trap that has hoardings warning her.   Pushed to the wall instead of throwing some sense she joins her fiancé in bed only to become pregnant and add a fashion statement of being a unwed mother ( remember the Bhatt production) .How she fights the odds of life in a far away shoot set is what her role is about.

Javed Sheikh  plays a don who master minds big betting on the cricket field.  He is obviously waiting for the World cup and ensures Arjun is around helping him rake in the moolah from the cricket field.  He is part of the childish script where cricketers are shown the carrot for giving up matches and also making other “adjustments”. He is good in parts and does his bestto a listless role. What is the film about: a simplistic tale of how a guy with an unhealthy appetite for the good things in life is gifted with a great instinct.  From the evening when Saurav Ganguly took of his shirt at the Lords, he starts using this skill to an advantage.  Even as the cricket world wakes up to the scandal of betting and match fixing-, the Woolmer story included, the protagonist gets more and more drawn into the vortex. Finally like Hansie he meets with the final
appointment a trifle too early. In search of Heaven he always walks on the pavement to Hell.  Only he could not see the road. A moron would. One expected the Bhatt house to take a strong stance and speak more harshly then tell so mild a story, so late.

 The only interesting moment is the movie is when you see the last few minutes of the famous Nat west Finals at Lords. For that you can tune into one of the sports channels . The movie is a poor alternative. The one factor that is not disappointing is the music of Pritam. Buy a CD. In case you are an Emran Hashmi kind, then you  would appreciate the ease with which he gets to the skin of the role.  He lives in it.  However given the number of times he has portrayed such a role you wonder whether he enters the skin of a role or the role is molded within the precincts of his skin. Jannat is no big deal.  It has a look old and stale feel.  So is the content.

L.Ravichander