Movie Review of Yuvraaj (2008)

This was one of those movies that I started to watch with no idea of any background nor had I watched any promos or heard any songs,as a result this movie was something that I went in with no expectations either way.Yuvraaj comes from the Subhash Ghai stable of movies and has been produced, directed and written by Subhash Ghai. In the past he has made successful films like Karz, Hero, Karma and Taal to name a few.

Yuvraaj which means crown prince is the story of three brothers, Deven (Salman Khan), Gyaanesh ( Anil kapoor) and Danny (Zayed Khan). Deven is in love with Anoushka (Katrina Kaif) and wants to marry her. But her father Dr Banton (Boman Irani) does not want his daughter to marry Deven. Deven has severed all ties with his own father who is very rich and is trying to make a living for the past twelve years as a singer. Anoushka is the daughter of a very rich father and her father wants her to marry an equally well to do person of his selection. Deven tries unsuccessfully to win over Anoushka's father. When Deven learns that his father dies, he believes that he is going to recieve his share of the inheritance and therefore signs a document with Dr Banton that he will become a billionaire in 40 days otherwise Anoushka is free to marry anyone her father chooses.

He sets out to claim his inheritance only to find that his father has left all his wealth to Gyaanesh who is his first born with an additional clause that if anything were to happen to Gyaanesh all the wealth would be distributed amongst charities. Both Danny and Deven are very upset about this will and plot various schemes to take away the wealth from their elder brother. Gyaanesh is autistic and is a musical genius and wealth has no significance for him and he is not able to see through the schemes that both Deven and Danny are playing with him. In addition there are assorted uncles and cousins who too have expected vast sums of money, who try to further muddy the relationship waters between the three brothers.

The rest of the story is about Deven's and Danny's dawning realization about their elder brother and how they all three manage to find their way back to each other.

Here is one of the songs from the movie.....



The positives of this movie have to be performances by Anil Kapoor and Boman Irani who as always, do the job they were given well, and the music by AR Rehman who turns out a few interesting tunes.

The list of negatives is going to be substantially larger unfortunately. The story and screenplay of the movie is very weak and does not hold the attention of the viewer, it takes a great deal of effort to just sit through the movie. The director seems to have relied on large and grand feel to the movie as a substitute for a logical, coherent and an interesting story. Notice the scene with Mithun Chakraborty when he reads the will and you will see large mirrors lining one entire section of the wall and soaring ceilings. Yet the scene seems to be completely devoid of the emotion and drama it is supposed to evoke.

The departed father seems to be trying to inculcate great values of brotherliness and affection from the grave and through Mithun, but makes you wonder why this person would not have tried to do the same when he was around and raising his sons.

There does not seem to be a coherent reason as to why both the younger brother loathe their elder brother to this extent. There is some vague explanation about the father favoring Gyaanesh a great deal when they were younger but nothing that seems to cause the two younger siblings to behave as they do.

Katrina Kaif and Zayed Khan do the job of window dressing and have no substantial role especially Katrina who seemed to be attached to the cello for most part of the film.

Watching paint dry might actually be more interesting than watching Salman and Katrina together...

I was amazed that a movie that had such a lot of reputed names associated with it, starting with Subhash Ghai to Gulzar to AR Rehman and Anil Kapoor would be such a a waste of time and frankly seemed like a waste of effort on the part of the filmmaker to even attempt to make this movie. As I watched the climax of the movie, I kept wondering, what were they thinking....making a movie like this :-)

This one is definitely not worth the price of the ticket.

One word summation of this movie : Snoozefest

Rating
1.5/5