Three is a crowd!

Review

Apne
Direction: Anil Sharma
Cast: Dharmendra, Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Shilpa Shetty, Katrina Kaif
Rating: *1/2

Don’t be taken in by all the publicity of ‘Apne’, which would have you think that it is the emotional story of a man and his two sons. It is to some extent, but it is much more the story of a failed boxing champ and his attempt to get back his lost respect by training the first Indian world heavyweight champion, in this case—first one son and then the other.

Dharmendra is Baldev Singh Chowdhary, the only Indian to win a silver medal for boxing at the Olympics but who failed the dope test at the subsequent world heavyweight boxing championship. His revenge for the false charge is to coach a winner from India. The current champion Luca Garcia has to be defeated.

When the film opens he is rather old and bitter because his eldest son Angad (Sunny Deol) left training half way to join his friend’s business to provide for his family. He is doing well but his father holds his betrayal against him all the while. Mother (Kirron Kher) and wife Simran (Shilpa Shetty) are caught in the crossfire, while younger brother Karan (Bobby Deol) is on his way to becoming a Rockstar, girlfriend (Katrina Kaif) in tow.

The film is relentlessly about boxing whether in flashbacks of Baldev Singh or his training another boxer Gaurav (Aryan Vaid in an abbreviated role) or Karan. When the matches happen they go the full 12 rounds with much blood flowing, bones breaking and a liver damaged too. Eventually, you just hope that if you close your eyes the gory scenes will disappear. They don’t. The sound track is so loud, you can’t escape the action.

The emotional parts are all about the estrangement of Baldev and Angad and how each one’s heart pines for the other despite their having not spoken for 10 years. There are no real father-son scenes to warm your heart; it’s all about the lack of it. Director Anil Sharma is in sore need of a refresher course in the art of filmmaking.

A good portion of ‘Apne’ is in Punjabi, while there is plenty of English too (foreigners in America, for example). What is strange then is that though there are subtitles for the English dialogue there aren’t any for the ones in Punjabi. Punjabi arrogance? Himesh Reshammiya obviously kept his better music for his own film also released yesterday.

While it is indeed heartening that a film in today’s times should revolve around a man (Dharmendra) clearly past his prime, it is also somewhat distressing to see the macho man so slow and obviously showing his age. Sunny is remarkably good and Bobby, though mature in his acting, needed to lose some weight before he donned his boxing shorts.

This is not a film that allows much for the women to do except the mother who must shed tears whenever the EQ soars. Kirron Kher is competent while the girls, Shilpa and Katrina provide eye candy glamour.

‘Apne’ never really does touch your heart and as for the boxing scenes, you wish several times during them that you could call for time out.

indumirani@gmail.com