Main Aisa Hi Hoon

Director: Harry Baweja
Producer: Sanjay Gupta, Etc
Cast: Ajay Devgan, Sushmita Sen, Esha Deol, Rucha Vaidya

After having made half a dozen mediocre films with indistinguishable titles (Dilwale, Diljale, Diwane), storylines and songs, Harry Baweja graduated to making an action thriller Qayamat (2003) a copy of Michael Bay’s ‘The Rock’ with Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage in lead roles. Now comes Main Aisa Hi Hoon. What made Harry Baweja choose ‘I am Sam’ from all the other potential-for-copying films doing the rounds in Bombay. A closer look tells you why? The film is about an autistic man and his seven year old daughter. The mental age of the father is seven years, and as his daughter crosses that age an important question is raised. Can he raise her beyond this age? While ‘I am Sam’ was widely criticized for emotional manipulation (was called a cross between ‘Rain Man’ and ‘Krammer versus Krammer’), Sam’s acting performance was seen as its only redeeming feature.

Now over the top stories are not a bad sign in Bollywood. Harry’s main task was to find somebody to play Sean Penn’s character, which well, was hardly a task. His muse, actor Ajay Devgan who too has made a climb from being a B-action flick star to doing well-reviewed roles, must have seemed just suited for playing Sam. Sorry, doesn’t work. Ajay Devgan is no Sean Penn. He cannot support a weak film on his shoulders alone (Kaal is another example). Sushmita Sen plays Michelle Pfieffer in a flavour that reminded me of a cross between Shah Rukh Khan and Anoop Jalota’s raaga at the end of which you feel forced to clap. In a recent interview headline, Sen even claims to have beaten Michelle Pfieffer (Pfieffer was asking for it, wasn’t she?). Child actor Rucha Vaidya is fresh and sincere and it would be unfair to compare her to Dakota Fanning.

However, Main Aisa hi Hoon has succeeded in carrying all the drawbacks of the original. The storyline was weak to begin with, but the adapted screenplay and Hindi dialogues don’t help it either. The heavily criticized product placement of Starbucks in the original is replaced with Café Coffee Day (though there isn’t one in Simla). Hand held cameras are used here too; only that the cameraman of Main Aisa… gets so involved with Devgan that the camera pans violently and shakes rhythmically every time he enters the frame. But wait, everything in the film is not a copy. Harry Baweja is too conscientious to give himself credit for the film and not lend some originality to it. So, there are again half a dozen forgettable songs. There are nauseating hugs and tears. There is a humanitarian confusion of how stupid an autistic should be. There are those great Indian crowd scenes. And yes, the hero and heroine get married.

written on 23 May 2005