Film: Khanna & Iyer

Director: Hemant Hegde

Cast: Sarwar Ahuja, Aditi Sharma, Mushtaq Khan, Prateeksha Lonkar, Asha Sharma, Arunav Chatterji, Manoj Pohwa, Neelu Kohli, Sanjeev Mehra, Yashpal Sharma, Ashraf Haque, Ashish Roy, Arun Bakshi

Rating: 0.5/5

I would like to believe that our film industry has matured enough to be able to churn out good films. Khanna & Iyer shreds the belief apart. It is nothing more than a mediocre film with a stale script.

The film gyrates around the oh-so-troubled lives of a couple that elopes just so that it may culminate the relationship into holy matrimony. This moribund topic is by far the worst treated amongst the entire lot of hackneyed themes in the industry.

Aryan Khanna (Sarwar Ahuja) elopes with Nandini Iyer (Aditi Sharma) due to the reluctance of their respective families to acknowledge their relationship. The ethnocentric families lodge an FIR at the local police station and the hunt begins. Somewhere down the line, the film includes the track of a political biggie who is being blackmailed by a local goon, both of whom are out to get a CD containing revealing footage of the politician’s acts.

Troubled, distressed and lost in a huge jungle, with the police and their parents on their track, the two lovers stumble upon the goon cum dacoit (honestly, can’t figure out what he was meant to be), and what follows is unworthy of commenting on or writing about.

The major flaw with this film is that there is too much happening with the story and so, it becomes hard to concentrate. That’s primarily due to the lack of a single, strong plot. The filmmaker has earnestly tried to make it different but sadly, it hasn’t turned out that way. Walking out of the theatre (Where I could count the number of people on my fingertips), you are left wondering what the crux of the story was.

The characters are so annoyingly stereotypical, it is not funny. This is worse than stating the obvious. Someone please explain the need for a Punjabi’s sentence to have the “aho’s” and a “bain de take”? or a Tamilian to stress on the “m” and the “n” every time. Gone are the times when one would find it cute or funny. At this point, I must point out that the Tamil used in the film is nowhere near what the language actually sounds like. Mr Director, the least you could have done is make sure that your characters’ dialogues make sense).

The editing is what saves this film (it isn’t crisp, but it certainly is ok). The brightness seems missing and the colours seem flat. The shot where the couple is seen on the bike and the background is blurred out is not only unnecessary, but actually makes you rub your eyes to check if your vision is fine. The music is nice, but adds nothing to the film. The dialogues are overdone and heightened, ending up sounding hilarious and dim-witted.

Both the actors mark their debut with this film. Aditi Sharma is certainly worth a mention as she brings to the screen a level of freshness and innocence, seen rarely nowadays. Sarwar is strictly ok; his performance at times seems strained and forced. Overall, both manage to put up a good performance. Manoj Pahwa and Mushtaq Khan are wasted; they certainly deserved far better roles than just stereotypical ones.

This film is going to be a dud at the box office, purely due to the lack of a good plot. The lack of a strong marketing push will also affect the way it will do at the box office. The sale from VCDs and DVDs and telecast rights is what the major chunk of revenue will consist of. It is evident that everyone will have recovered their money as the film has no great budget and the revenue will surpass the cost anyway.

Khanna and Iyer leaves you with a throbbing headache. You are better off not watching a film this week, save that cash.