LOVE ACROSS THE BORDER

Cast Abhishek Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Sunil Shetty, Reena Roy, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Ashish Vidyarthi, Sudesh Berry Director J P Dutta Producer J P Dutta Music Anu Malik

The young Abhishek Bachchan has got the 6 feet height of his father, walks like him and what's more in some of the scenes when he runs he resembles exactly like the way Amitabh ran in "Deewar". Though imitating Amitabh has been quite low yet one cannot help seeing him as our original angry Amitabh of yesteryears in the form of Abhishek Bachchan who has indeed given a commendable performance as a refugee. Though the legacy of Amitabh has been behind him yet this young man has carved out a fine piece of acting .For those of you longing for Amitabh , keep your whistles ready for the young Bachchan is soon going to invade you like the way Amitabh had mesmerized generations after generations since he made his epoch "sholay".

Even Amjad Khan's son,Shadaab Khan has made his debut in this movie as Abhishek's ambitious brother.The film opens at the border  where Anupam Kher is the village Mukhia whose son Abhishek helps people across the border to cross over .In one such mission while helping the family of Kulbhushan Kharbanda, he meets his daughter Kareena kapoor and its love at first sight.

After they cross over they are then questioned by Pakistani border ranger officer Ashraf (Sunil Shetty) and even for him its love at first sight on seeing Kareena  He lives on her dream while the love between Abhishek Bachchan and kareena blossoms beyond separation irrespective of the border between them. Meanwhile the plot intensifies with the intrusion of some terrorists to India in the disguise of refugees.

Jackie Shoroff as Raghuveer is the commandant of the BSF and from this end he tightens up the operations to combat the illegal refugees and between Jackie Shoroff and Sunil Shetty quite a lot of patriotic words are exchanged obviously to rouse the nationalism. Then onwards it is India Pakistan Laila & majnu story. Ultimately what prevails is anybody's guess.

Nevertheless Refugee draws our attention to the human side of Partition which between India, Pak and Bangladesh has displaced millions of people all over. This movie has put across the human side of the affected refugees.

The highlight of the film minus the dragging story is Abhishek Bachchan and Kareena kapoor. Kareena as Nazneen excels and she is absolutely Mani Ratnam stuff. Mani are you listening? As far as Abhishek Bachchan goes he is all out to conquer Amitabh's stake in the industry and watch out for him in 'Tera Jadu Chad Gaya' which is a remake of the Telugu Super hit 'Toli Prema'.

Refugee falls short of J P Dutta's better films such as Ghulami, Yateem and Border And without a very riveting tale to tell, that's definitely a drawback. This film does miss out on the Power packed story of Border.

The songs and the debutant stars are the only saving grace.

-Maju

Reachout's rating ***