Yeh Hai Jalwa

Cast: Rishi Kapoor, Salman Khan, Amisha Patel Direction: David Dhawan Showing at: New Empire First the good news: no toilet humour. The bad news: the film. A gross travesty of Yash Chopra''s Trishul (1978) and Michael Schultz''s lightweight comedy Carbon Copy (1981), director David Dhawan misses the point. Industrialist Raj (Salman Khan) goes in search of his real father, tycoon Rajesh Mittal (Rishi Kapoor).The snafu is that daddy cool is happily married with kids. He''s forgotten his night of passion with Raj''s mother. And so in the tradition of Darr and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Raj has lengthy monologues with his dear departed mom. How to get dad''s attention? No problem, Raj a.k.a Raju decides to jog papa''s memory cells. Raj snags a sweetheart, Sonia (Amisha Patel), and decides to torment his biological dad, until he accepts him as his real son. But the mortified Mittal constantly rebuffs his son and devises umpteen ways to fob off the new entrant into his life. Until sixteen reels later, Raj saves his dads company from a total collapse. He nixes the plans of the baddies to usurp the Mittal''s millions man. And saves the day in a climax influenced by Anil Ganguli''s Saaheb (1985). There''s also a sub-plot about an unscrupulous son-in-law to be (Sharad Kapoor flaring his nostrils at an alarming rate). And some amusing references to the slugfest between Kaun Banega Crorepati and Sawaal Dus Crore Ka. Technically shoddy, R. Verman''s sets are unfortunately art-less. Rumi Jaffrey''s dialogue elicits priceless nuggets like, "I''m an Indian from India.'''' Himesh Reshammiya''s music is nothing to sing home or anywhere else about. And the jejune lyrics go: Nahi fax, nahi xerox, nahi computer ki copy. The cinematography by KS Prakash Rao , despite the exotic Scotland and Australia locales, is harum-scarum. The blame prize must be awarded to writers Yunus Sejawal and Imtiaz Patel whose script veers from screwball comedy to pathos as it hurtles towards a harum-scarum resolution.
The essence of all drama is conflict. In its absence, the writers have nothing else to offer. And you see the gags coming a mile away. Of the performances, Amisha Patel has precious little to do. And the director DD forgot that Sanjay Dutt and Rinke Khanna too were in his film, reducing them to inconsequential sidekicks. About the only scenes that stay with you are the hilarious and heartwarming bickering and bonding between Rishi Kapoor and Salman Khan. Kapoor lends his irrepressible charm to the ludicrous proceedings.No Jalwa here, DD goes off air completely.