Apne [2007]

Apne
Reviewed: 01 July 2007

After eagerly awaiting for years to see the Deol’s come together for a movie the wait finally come to an end, but the question is whether Apne met the expectations and whether it was the perfect film for the Deol trio to come together?

The Story was brilliant. I loved the concept of having boxing and match-fixing at the heart of the film and wrapping it up with the emotions and struggles of family life. The Deol’s being known as such emotional human beings and so family oriented, and yet having each maintained this strong and heroic action-hero image at the same time – there could not have been a better story come their way. It was definitely the perfect story for the trio to appear in

The Music was perhaps the weakest part of the film. The only tracks that stand out are the title song and ‘Dekhoon Tujhe To’ – I love both those songs a lot, but the rest of the soundtrack is just average.

The Performances

Dharmendra The King is back! And how! He carries the film on his shoulders from the first frame to the last, and proves that he is one of the most brilliant and natural actors our cinema will ever see. Hopefully his comeback in Apne will remind everyone just what an amazing actor he is and hopefully more offers will come pouring their way to him because it would be an honour for the industry and a reward for the audience to continue watching this amazingly natural actor on the screen time and time again. This was the first time I saw Dharmendra on the cinema-screen and he stole my heart all over! He’s not lost his charm at all! He looked dashing and adorable, and performed his heart and soul out. A flawless performance – what a natural performer he is! One thing that was really wonderful was that we get to see both the ‘garam’ and ‘naram’ side of him haha… Oh and it was great to see him with his sons. Seeing Dharmendra-Sunny-Bobby onscreen together truly was an amazing experience and formed a moment that will forever be remembered in the history of our cinema!

Sunny Deol Fantastic! He was simply awesome – so natural as always. He fit the role exceedingly well and performed only as he could. He actually made me cry with the way he expressed his feelings through his eyes in the initial portions of the film especially [when he is so eager to seek his dad’s love/approval], but the Sunny-moment of the film was definitely his fight in the boxing ring… Haha I was like ‘Luca dude! u going down, Sunny just doesn’t know how to lose, u don’t know what u’re taking on!!’ LOL… I loved Sunny’s punches…he was just brilliant!!

Bobby Deol After Dharmendra it was Bobs who had the second most screen-time in the film and his role was quite a challenging one. Of course he handled it with utmost perfection! He looked adorable and performed brilliant. His strongest portions in the film were the emotional scenes where he excelled beyond words! He exuded a warm childlike innocence that he earlier had in [Anil Sharma’s] ATHWS – he was just so adorable and performed his character so well that you felt like reaching out to him and hugging him! His chemistry with Katrina was awesome and I wish we soon get to see them in a film where they have scope as a couple too.

Victor Bannerjee Another fantastic actor who as expected churned out a brilliant performance. He had a really good role and did complete justice to it. I loved him!

Kirron Kher I love Kirron in these Punjabi-mum roles! She was excellent and no other mother-figure-actress could’ve suited the role as well as here.

Shilpa Shetty She looked beautiful and performed extremely well in whatever she had. The role wasn’t long but still important and whenever she appeared onscreen she was really good – she fitted the character really well, even though it was drastically different to the usual ‘jatak matak’ kind of roles she does.

Katrina Kaif Her role wasn’t too lengthy and not developed as much as I hope it had been [because it had potential to be a really good character], but nonetheless Katrina looked stunningly gorgeous and sophisticated [I just adore the way this girl dresses, I want her wardrobe from each and every one of her films LOL] and performed brilliant…she’s reached my fave actresses list last year with HDKG and she continues to impress me. Oh but I was really disappointed that her voice was not used [why didn’t they let her use it?? I’m sure this was NOT her voice!!]

Aryan Vaid I became a huge fan of this dude because of Bigg Boss haha and I remember being hyped that he was in the movie LOL… He did a good job with the role though much was not required of him and I wasn’t fond of the charcter at all [understandably!]… he was good.

Anil Sharma [The Director] The only films of Anil’s that I recall are those that I’ve seen recently [Gadar, The Hero & ATHWS] – of which, I found Gadar good, The Hero very good and ATHWS awesome! Anil’s impressed me with his work in each of those three films and he continues to do so with Apne. Though at times Apne does appear slightly shoddy in its treatment [just as Gadar and to some extent The Hero did], and it could have been better IMO, it’s still a good attempt from the filmmaker and he’s done a good job with the direction.

Overall I’d recommend Apne to everyone who [1] loves the Deol’s, [2] appreciates good entertainment, [3] loves family, emotions and the meaning of family values. Apne makes you cry, Apne makes you laugh and Apne makes you really feel for your own Apne. A well made film all the way, it’s my third favourite of this year [following only Namastey London and Ta Ra Rum Pum, both of which are tied at the top spot of favourite movies this year so far]. For me what really worked was having Dharmendra-Sunny-Bobby there… the chemistry they shared was just amazing and Anil Sharma really took advantage of how people like me feel towards the Deol family [considering them like my own family even though I’ve never met them LOL] and whenever there were emotional scenes or boxing scenes I felt as though it was happening in my own family and got so tensed/upset. Apne strikes the perfect chords in the audiences heart – it’s really a very good movie. Not the best, not perfect…but from what has come this year it is definitely up there as one of the better films of 2007, EASILY!