Always Kabhi Kabhi (2011)

A story centered on four students coming of age during a year at their school, St. Marks.

Director:

Roshan Abbas

Writers:

Roshan Abbas (story), Kanika Dhillon (additional screenplay),

Stars:

Lillete Dubey, Satyajeet Dubey, Ali Fazal

Cast

Credited cast:
Lillete Dubey	...	Ms. Das
Satyajeet Dubey	...	Tariq Naqvi
Ali Fazal	...	Sameer A. Khanna / Sammy
Manoj Joshi	...	Police Inspector
Shah Rukh Khan	...	Dancer / Singer
Akash Khurana	...	Principal Elton Phillips
Giselli Monteiro	...	Aishwarya Dhawan
Zoa Morani	...	Nandini Oberoi
Ashwin Mushran	...	Rahul Ghosh
Navneet Nishan	...	Mrs. Dhawan
Vijay Raaz	...	Professor Agarwal urf Agro
Satish Shah	...	Agent
Mukesh Tiwari	...	Police Inspector

Storyline

Sameer Khanna lives a wealthy lifestyle along with his dad, Adesh, and mom, Suman, and studies in St. Marks High School. He is attracted to statuesque London-returned student, Aishwarya Dhawan, while his close friend, Tariq Naqvi, likes Nandini Oberoi. The four hang out together, though Nandini is resentful of Aishwarya and her parents, and even play characters in Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet. The four, while attending a wild party, have to flee when the police raid the premise. Three are able to get away, but Sameer is apprehended, held in a cell, and beaten by two police inspectors - who claim they have evidence that he is a drug peddler. They agree to let him go provided he bribes them with Rs.50,000/-. The question remains what will Sameer do under these circumstances?

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Taglines:

Kabhi Kabhi Jo Dil Kahe, Always Wohi Karein

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Genres:

Comedy | Crime | Drama | Romance

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Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

India

Language:

Hindi English

Release Date:

17 June 2011 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Eros Entertainment, Red Chillies Entertainment

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

A rare example of a Bollywood movie aimed specifically at a teenage audience.

User Reviews

A complete mess of some good intentions.

A project coming from the production house of Shahrukh Khan himself with an all young starcast, revolving around four school friends and their problems. This one line description of the film sounds pretty interesting following the current trend of teen movies. And then Shahrukh coming forward to promote the film in full spirits featuring in a peppy music video further raises the expectation level of the viewers to greater heights, especially of Shahrukh's own fans residing all over the world. In fact that was the reason why I eagerly opted for this movie before the other major releases this Friday, to actually see the contribution made by The KING himself in the movie as per the reports.

But sadly what was served to the viewers in the theater in those two tiring hours was completely out of sync, directionless and a complete mess made out of some good intentions. Directed by Roshan Abbas as his first attempt, it is said to be based on his more than a decade old play called "Graffiti". The play might have been good but the film is not even close to be called a worth watching venture. Written around the problems and love life of four school friends, it seems that the director basically wants to talk about the generation gap between the kids and the parents. But very strangely this basic idea gets a clear projection, only after almost one third of the movie is over. Before that the sequences keep coming in from different directions without having any kind of relation with each other.

Actually the various sections of the film try to cover so many diverse aspects of the younger generation that in the end it all becomes an un- explainable chaos. For instance, suddenly from no-where a pregnancy test sequence is thrown into the movie which at once makes you think that "What is this all happening?" The writers try to put in whatever they can think of ranging from classroom scenes, Shakespeare, drug peddling, wanna be heroines, corrupt policemen, students suicide, a deadly accident and much more. The film goes on and on without any direction or aim and you just cannot get it.

In clear words, I seriously suspect that the project must have been started with some clear vision and a to-the-point story-plot. But with the passing time there were so many changes forcibly made into its script that it all got entangled and the result was a complete NO SHOW. Particularly the repetitive "Romeo-Juliet" play, the uninspiring school premises scenes and its noisy out of the place background score, really put you off and one even starts regretting his decision of watching the film. On top of it, after almost two hours of all useless drama, the director even gets confused that how should he essentially finish the film now. And then it all ends with again a supposed to be inspirational song-dance number which could have made an impact in a different film.

Moreover the title of the movie also remains as confusing as its unimpressive content and I really wonder that being the producers, didn't Gauri Khan or Shahrukh see the movie while it was still in the making?

Truly speaking, the only thing I enjoyed in AKK was watching Giselle Monteiro on the screen who interestingly gets a meatier role and looks more beautiful than her first film LOVE AAJ KAL. Though she still struggles in her emotional scenes and dialogue delivery but even then remains a treat to be watched on the celluloid. Zoa Morani, as the rebellion girl looks the most confident of them all and impresses. Both the boys are fine with Ali Fazal scoring above than Satyajeet Dubey, but all the seniors in the cast including Lillette Dubey, Navneet Nishaan, Satish Shah, Manoj Joshi, Mukesh Tiwari and Vijay Raaz simply do not rise above the routine.

In short, the intentions may have been right and the subject might be socially important, but it's the end result which really counts in front of the audience. And in this particular case the film is nothing more than a directionless clutter.