FILM REVIEW: PYARE MOHAN (HINDI) ***

By M H AHSAN

Vivek Oberoi and Fardeen Khan starrer Pyare Mohan lacks the punch of a comedy film. Directed by Indra Kumar, the movie stars Fardeen Khan , Vivek Oberoi , Esha Deol , Amrita Rao and Boman Irani .

Given the movie’s basic story idea, ‘Pyare Mohan’ could have been an interesting flick. Two friends – one blind and the other deaf – go about their lives with fun and masti without letting their handicap become a weakness.

They also fall in love and later on fight the bad guys to save their sweethearts. Pyare (Fardeen Khan) is blind as a bat. Day or night, light or darkness makes no difference to him. He goes on morning walks, reads the newspaper upside down and can sense a man’s intention despite his inability to see.Mohan (Vivek Oberoi) needs just an excuse to break into dance at the slightest opportunity. He is deaf and can’t hear a damn thing, but he shakes his leg to the music, be it a marriage ceremony or (mistakenly) a funeral procession.

Together, Pyare and Mohan are inseparable friends running an Archies shop. But there is something lacking in their lives. It is love.Cupid strikes when the two meet Priya (Amrita Rao) and Preeti (Esha Deol) during a morning walk. While Pyare is smitten with Preeti, Mohan loses his heart to Priya.Preeti and Priya perform at musical shows. Their friendship with Pyare and Mohan cements after the two heroes help them during a concert.

But when Pyare and Mohan express their love to Preeti and Priya, their proposal is turned down. Preeti and Priya admit that they have always seen Pyare and Mohan as good friends but they don’t have any romantic feelings for them. Pyare and Mohan are shattered.Post interval, the two girls get into trouble in Bangkok where they are arrested for a murder. Not only this, an underworld don Tony (Boman Irani) wants to kill them.In this hour of need, Preeti and Priya’s dear ones turn their back to them. Only the blind Pyare and the deaf Mohan, whose love the two belles had rebuked earlier, come to their rescue. What follows is a cat-and-mouse game in which our blind and deaf heroes excel over the baddies.

Indra Kumar , the movie’s director, showed an incredible command over comedy in his movie Masti two years ago. But he disappoints in ‘Pyare Mohan’. Barring a few sequences, the humour in ‘Pyare Mohan’ is pretty mundane.

Vivek Oberoi does evoke a few chuckles in some scenes. His very opening scene, when he is dancing in a marriage and unknowingly starts dancing in front of a funeral along side, is funny. Also the look he wears throughout the movie, reading the lips of people speaking to him, gives his character a hilarious touch.Fardeen Khan looks handsome, but doesn’t impress in comedy.

There are certain scenes in which his expressions are plain wooden.Esha Deol and Amrita Rao react more than act in the movie. Boman Irani is just about ok, playing a stuttering don, who claims his victims with a baseball bat.To sum it up, ‘Pyare Mohan’ had the potential to be an entertaining comedy. But the writers have not been able to do justice to the script. The humour in the movie is obviously predictable and absurdly puerile.