Aishwarya Rai's home production per se (written by her mother, co-produced by her brother), the film was meant to showcase Ash's range as an actor but mostly displayed her epic beauty in dreamy locales. A rather shrill soundtrack (have to turn the volume down as Alka Yagnik screams her way through Daiya daiya re and the intro of Saajan saajan), the song and dance routines had their moment as Rai looked so devastatingly beautiful. As per usual. The softer songs, Haye Dil and the lullaby, work wonders. The aesthetics in the film are high... but its glow over show, all superficial style, no substance.
Arjun Rampal's one note performance is a complete embarrassment. When the Mumbai media was carping on about how models can't act, they always plaster the feature with female models when its guys like Rampal who have the range of A to... B. His National Award was a fluke (and... mostly undeserved) and other than flexing at the gym, the arrogant model-turned-non-actor has been a struggling actor for nearly two decades now. Apart from nepo babies, he gets more chances than others to... fail epically on the big-screen. He bankrupted Rajiv Rai, hasn't given a solo hit... ever... and yet there are those willing to give him another chance. When they should have given more chances to Chatterjee.
The best performance in the entire film is Priyanshu Chatterjee. His natural charm, guy next door looks, ease with the dialogue and fluency with language showed as he was the biggest surprise of the film -- completely out of the blue, he came to endear himself to the audience when there were other, bigger stars in the film shining. Sadly, he didn't get opportunities to further showcase his natural skills as a fine actor who balanced comedy and drama with ease. Its been more than 20 years so no spoiler here but his short but impactful role endures in memory.
