After a wait of almost five years, Tips Films and Deepak Sareen have finally come together to release their long in the making film Albela. The film looked like it had the right ingredients to become a hit. A fresh lead pair, backed up by a good cast, chart topping music, a director with an admirable track record and a great production company backing it up. Sadly the film leaves a lot to be desired and doesn´t even come across as entertaining as one would have thought it would be.

Tony (Govinda) is a happy go lucky (Albela) tour guide in the town of Malaga, Goa. One day Tony is told by an astrologer (or something to that effect) that a beautiful light eyed princess is about to come into his life from across the seven seas! Low and Behold, one day at the airport Tony runs into Sonia (Aishwariya Rai), who has come from Austria in search of her mother's grave. Tony instantly falls for Sonia, taking her as his light eyed princess, and personally guides her in her mission. His attraction to Sonia irks his childhood friend Nina (Namrata Shirodkar) who actually loves him but keeps it a secret. As a result she is left doing nothing but cooking and cleaning, and is basically reduced to a maid instead of a friend. Meanwhile Sonia and Tony don´t do much grave searching (sounds morbid), they don´t even do much sight seeing, they just sing and dance, cry and laugh, and waste the audiences time! Things get really boring until the interval where a little twist comes into play. Sonia spots her old flame Prem (Jackie Shroff), and things get interesting right? Not really, they still drag on until the film finally ends and you leave the theater in search of a pharmacy so that you can get a good remedy for the splitting headache the film has given you!

Performances in this film are pathetic, but that is mainly due to Honey Irani´s horrible script! Govinda looks horrible. His dress sense and his weight in the film are atrocious. That earring in his left ear has to go! But it makes sense to us, this film started back in the days when Govinda was just beginning to change his image, so in some portions we have the Govinda we see today,and in some portions we see the Govinda that we want to forget! His acting is equally bad. He is loud and obnoxious, always screaming unnecessarily. This film makes it apparent how much he has improved in terms of comic timing over the years. Aishwariya Rai doesn´t have much scope to act, although she does try, her efforts are futile! All she can do here is look beautiful, and she succeeds at that. Still she is raw in parts and that is due to the fact that this is one of her first films. In other places we see the improvements the actress has made in her emoting abilities. Jackie looks great, he looks smart and suave, but sadly he is reduced to a sidey character. It is sad to see someone who is so talented being wasted on screen constantly. Film after film he has been taking the most inane roles out there! He does have his victories here and there but Albela is surely not one of them! Namrata need to rethink her career strategy. We all know she is capable of doing a good job, but she always chooses the worst roles. Albela is no different. She is a glorified extra, and has no scope to even show a spark of talent, although she looks excellent in the Chunari number! She needs to get more lead actress roles in order to go somewhere! Saeed Jaffrey needs to tone down the hamming, he is at the peak of annoyance here!

Albela fails on so may accounts! Technically the films cinematography is the only saving grace! Manmohan Singh has captured some excellent locales to make the film visually appealing, but even the foreign locales don´t make sense. Aren´t we in Goa? Deepak Sareen has really let us down. This film started somewhere between his Aaina and Jab Pyaar Kissise Hota Hai but was released last. Unlike the last two, this one wasn´t even remotely endearing. Deepak must have really regretted starting this film, because the film looks like a rush job. It is very apparent that he was bored while making the film, it shows on screen. Keshav Naidu should have really taken his editing job seriously. There were so many scenes which didn´t make sense and could have been easily shaved off the final product! Sharmistha Roy´s art direction has been done to death. She needs to come up with unique sets, we have seen these sets everywhere! And the use of garish colours in some frames is a bad idea. Javed Siddiqui´s dialogues are average. Even the music is boring, and doesn´t excite the audience.

But the real culprit for our headaches is Honey Irani´s script! The whole script is filled with more holes than swiss cheese. For instance Sonia has come to Malaga to search for her mother´s grave. She conveniently seems to have forgotten about that and is taken sight seeing by Tony. However even their sight seeing is pretty boring. Sonia learns how to ride a motorcycle, sees a temple, and a beach all in between eating at some restaurants in her designer outfits. If this is the type of sight seeing that a tour guide is going to take you on, it better be free! Also Saeed Jaffrey´s reasons for hating Aishwariya´s mother aren´t really believable, but what is even more insane is how he does a complete volte face at the end of the film. The angle between Aishwariya and Jackie is not very convincing, and her reasons for leaving him are even more crazy than the love story itself! And the ending is the worst part, it´s very unconvincing, and contrived! All in all, the film is a very poorly put together product!

Albela is the perfect example of all style and no substance. Aishwariya looks good, wears great outfits, and Manmohan´s Singh´s cinematography add to the visual aspects of the film, but the disappointing performances, along with the horrible script and lackluster direction take away from the film. To top it off the fact that this film took a while to make makes it more unappealing. The actors look different in various portions of the film, and that irritated me! I mean at some points we have Aishwariya 2000, and at other points we had Aishwariya 1997, the former is much better looking than the latter! The age of the film also gives it a jaded look in portions. The songs are no big deal, and are shot typically, we have seen and heard it before. Overall you may want to wait for the DVD or VHS version, that way you can fast forward the boring portions and save yourself the trouble! Oh wait that would mean fast forwarding the whole film.............