Jab Tak hai Jaan - A Review

SRK broke his promise of no-kissing, no-making out on the big screen, and I broke my promise of not watching SRK on the big screen. While the former enjoyed to the fullest the latter had to suffer for 3 painstaking hours. Well...cannot blame SRK for it who wouldn't enjoy making out with Katrina Kaif ;P Breaking promises and its consequences that is what Jab tak Hai Jahaan is all about. Flagged as the film that marks the Late Yash Chopra's return to the director's chair and sadly his last film, the film remains true to his character till the end, and well  thats about it. The larger than life world created by him,in the beautiful locales of London and Kashmir, where rich , beautiful heiress Meera (Katrina Kaif) falls for a waiter Samar.  Where else would you find such an idealised love story. Katrina Kaif looks stunning as always, easily fits into the garb of Meera , but when it comes to doing the intense scenes, she is nothing more than a plastic doll. Shah Rukh Khan again stamps his authority on the genre of romance and makes the film bearable in the first half as the happy-go-lucky Samar Anand singing Chhalla on the streets of London though very unconvincingly strumming the guitar. (Hadn't expected that from a supposedly top notch actor like him). The second half which shows the only physically alive SRK defusing bombs (in a manner akin to a child going to play on the field.) completing almost a century without wearing a safety jacket. To hell with army protocol!!! He is very good in just parts of the film. And he carries the burden well. But he could have had a little help from Katrina, who does nothing to bridge the gap between the awkward and the sublime. Sadly this time around I cannot put the blame completely on him for doing not a great job with the character.
Anushka is quite a revelation. I feel Anushka is going to be the biggest gainer from the film, apart from the producers offcourse! From her first scene itself she sets a different tone for the film. Though her constant 'on a high from marijuana, booze, LSD, charas, ganjaa.....' expressions do become a irritating  as the film progresses. She should have got a more meaningful role. The music by A.R. Rahman is impeccable , the back ground score is too good and the songs carry the movie forward very well. So is the cinematography. Age does tell on Shahrukh who nevertheless does a good job at dancing. The biggest downfall for the film is the over-written story line, which is first very long (I mean when was the last time did you see a 180 minute looonnng film) and includes relentless twists and turns which go from being unreasonable to out-right ridiculous. Only because it is a Yash Chopra film doesn't mean it has been created in a fantasy world, where rules and regulations stand for nothing. For eg. the London station scene where SRK is allowed to defuse a bomb only because he knows a few jargon related to the bomb industry. His unexplained journey from the heart-broken Samar Anand to the bomb expert Major Samar Anand in just around 10 years is hard to digest. And Hurt Locker...really !!! Agreed Yash Chopra is the big daddy of bollywood romances, but he did leave a gaping hole when it came to realistic in the film. His lack of being with the times was very clearly evident.esp the first kissing sequence at the tube station. He did manage to put up a pretty good love story in terms of the purest essence of love, but in terms of film-making, the execution he has left a lot to be desired.Surprisingly I could easily draw parallels to his earlier work Veer Zaara. My suggestion , if you plan on watching the film, you will need a lot of patience to sit through the entire 3 hours, and you can only bear it if you are head-over-heels in love with LOVE itself ;P