Aashayein

Many people had recommended this Naagesh Kukunoor movie on fb few weeks back and I managed to watch few days back.

The movie stars John Abraham, Sonal Sehgal, Farida Jalal, Girish Karnad and Anaitha Nair. 


It is about Rahul Sharma (John) who earns lots of money through betting and decides to retire. On the night of the party he collapses and discovers he has lung cancer and that death is inevitable. What would a normal person do? Go for treatment to elongate his life. What does Rahul do? Runs away from his girlfriend played by Sonal, leaves most of the money for her and enrols himself into a rehabilitation centre where people go to die. He meets Madhu (Farida Jalal) who was a high class hooker and has AIDS. Most of the residents refuse to interact with her due to this. He befriends Parthasarthi (Girish Karnad) and Padma (Anaitha). He also befriends a kid called Govinda who is supposed to have higher powers. Rahul continues to smoke and his condition deteriorates. 

One day Padma and Rahul decide to hold a concert for everyone and everyone is asked to drop their wishes in a box. Padma and Rahul exchange each other's wishes. They go about fulfilling everyone's wishes and he and Padma come close to getting intimate but Rahul resists since she is only 17 years old. She falls seriously ill and dies. That's when he realizes her last wish was to sleep with him. But before dying she had called Rahul's girlfriend who comes to take him back home. 

The intent behind the movie is good. The story is good. But the execution falls flat. The supporting characters are not well fleshed out, there are very few supporting characters and John does not look ill at any point of time. That's my grouse with Naagesh. He does not make good 'commercial' movies. Maybe it's the pressure to add masala or make Bollywoodish, I don't know. 
Most of the songs are boring and not required. 
Anaitha Nair is too good. I am surprised we haven't seen her in more movies. 

This one can be missed. It could have been so much better.