Yaadein 2001

Producer: Subhash Ghai Director: Subhash Ghai Starring: Jackie Shroff, Rati Agnihotri, Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor, Amrish Puri, Avni Vasa, Himani Rawat & Kiran Rathod Music: Anu Malik Lyrics: Anand Bakshi Released on: July 27, 2001 Approximate Running Time: 3 hours, 20 minutes
Review:
One would sure wonder if Subhash Ghai really directed the film. This is coz’, from a master narrator like Ghai, one would never expect a film like this! With the theme and actors Ghai has got for Yaadein, he could probably have dished out a good emotional drama that would have been a sweet 'memory to cherish'. But a very bad script and insipid direction made the film fall flat, disappointing the audience. It appears as though Ghai is interested more in promoting brand names like Coke, Pass Pass and Hero cycles than in the story.

The story line revolves around Raj (Jackie Shroff) and his 3 motherless daughters. A few minutes before her death, Raj's wife recites a Sanskrit poem from a greeting card that reads, “treat your children as friends”. And this is what “Yaadein” is all about!

Raj, carrying his wife's last wish, brings up his 3 daughters, treating them as friends. Ronit (Hrithik) is a good friend of Raj and runs some dot com companies. He helps Raj find a groom for his elder daughter through one of his websites. The second daughter also gets married, after a heated argument with her reluctant father and an attempt to commit suicide! That leaves with Isha (Kareena) the youngest one. She goes to Malaysia for a cycling race and suddenly discovers that she is in love with Ronit, but only after he rescues her from the crocodiles in a deserted island. Just as the happy two start singing 'dil mile dil mile', Ronit's uncle has different plans for Ronit. He wants to get Ronit married to a rich NRI girl, for which he seeks the help of Raj to convince the NRI family. Raj succeeds in the task and returns home only to find that his younger daughter to be in love with Ronit. From here, the story runs on expected twists and turns, and finally ends with Ronit marrying Isha.

In all, the film seems to have had more negative than positive aspects. Not a single character in the film seems to be etched well in spite of Jackie, Hrithik and Kareena having performed well. Some scenes that ought to be so emotional seemed so hollow, that they lack life! And that is the biggest drawback of the film. The music scored by Anu Malik, much hyped to be made highly techno-savvy also was not all that impressive except for the title song, which is wrapped into every other song in the film. The UK locales however are exotic.

All said and done, Yaadein seems the best example of how a good theme can be spoiled by a bad script. But, you still can watch Yaadein for Jackie, Hrithik and Kareena.