Manisha the saving grace of boring Mehbooba

Tag : classic yarn
 Manisha Koirala is the one reason why one would want to brave thisprolonged homage to the cinema of Sanjay Leela Bhansali. "Mehbooba"is a three-hour-long tribute to Bhansali's "Hum Dil De ChukeSanam". The plot, ambience, characters, music and even theinteractive interludes between the main protagonists are allderived with lip-smacking relish from Bhansali's film.

"Mehbooba" (no relation to Shakti Samanta's 1977 "Mehbooba") evengoes to Budapest, where Bhansali shot the second-half of "Hum DilDe Chuke Sanam". The only difference is that "Mehbooba" goes toBudapest in the first-half and to the bustling, noisy, food-ladenhaveli in the second-half.

The melodies, if one may call them that, flit in and out likeunwanted guests after every 10 minutes of dialogue. If the songswere sacrificed on the editing table, maybe Mehbooba would be morebearable in its old-world love triangle of two brothers (oneidealistic and lovelorn, the other unscrupulous andever-libidinous) who fall for the same girl.