Producer & Director: Suneel Darshan
*ing: Akshay Kumar, Karisma Kapoor, Shilpa Shetty, Mohnish Behl, Shakti Kapoor, Ashutosh Rana, Aditya Kapadia, Johny Lever, and Ashish Vidhyarthi
Music: Anand Milind

Released on : December 24, 1999

Reviewed by: Aniket Joshi
aniket@indolink.com

out of 
Jaanwar is a story about a child changing a criminal into a good human being. This film is also supposed to revive Akshay Kumar’s slagging career. But I really don’t see how. Akshay proved he had talent and was capable of carrying off challenging role in Sangharsh, but here he doesn’t do full justice. Jaanwar may become a hit or flop, but it certainly doesn’t give us any new insight on Akshay Kumar’s acting.

Baadshah (Akshay Kumar) is picked up when he’s a young child by Sultaan (Shakti Kapoor). Sultaan turns Baadshah into a hardcore criminal who robs and kills. Baadshah comes across Sapna (Karisma Kapoor), a dancer, and both fall in love and decide to get married. On the day of the wedding, Baadshah gets into a fight with one of his rivals and can’t make it to the temple where he’s supposed to get married. He finds a baby boy, lonely without any caretakers and decides to change his way of life (and name) and be the guardian to the boy. Later, when the boy (Aditya Kapadia) is 8 years old, his biological parents (Mohinsh Behl and Shilpa Shetty) come back to take him. Sultaan also comes back to haunt Baadshah, now known as Babu Lohar, because he wants his money back that Babu lost in a deal.

The screenplay is very poor. Hardly any of the scenes seem like anything new that I’ve seen. There is also a lot of crying, which I think the director put in, so the audience would cry. But low and behold his efforts misfire, completely. All I was thinking of while watching the movie is when it would end, since there is hardly anything new in the film. The story idea itself is good, but the director and writer fail to take any advantage of it. The only plus points of the film are a few catchy songs (“Mera yaar dildaar bada sona,” “Kasam se,” and “Mausam ki tarha”) courtesy of Anand-Milind and a couple of performances.

Akshay Kumar isn’t excellent, but he’s not that bad either. He doesn’t seem to have the same confident he had in Sangharsh, but he does look fresh in some scenes. Karisma doesn’t have any scope at all, except in the songs. Ashish Vidhyarthi gives a commendable performance, but with a film that’s mediocre such as this one, his work will be easily forgotten. The worst part of the film, at least for me, is to see a talented actor such as Ashutosh Rana being wasted in such a small role. Shilpa Shetty has something different here than what she normally gets, but in every scene all she has to do is cry.

All in all, Jaanwar is certainly not worth anyone’s time. Only watch it if you’re a big Akshay Kumar fan. If you watch Jaanwar just for him, you might not get as bored as I did.