Salakhain NOT as good as some claim??

i HATE instep magazine. they know nothing better than 2 criticize. nonetheless...here are bits of their review for salakhien:

Hope behind bars

Here's another Lollywood extravaganza that is supposed to turn the fast failing fortunes of Lollywood around, but despite all the hype that surrounded its release, Salakhain is eye candy that fails to stimulate otherwise.

By Muhammad Badar Alam

-Unlike the run of the mill loud stuff the Pakistani film industry has been churning out quite frequently, albeit with little effect, Salakhain talks rather than shouts.

-In fact it is far from it. Salakhain could have done quite well without the kind of placid and hackneyed dialogues it has. The music is quite forgettable, nay, rather jarring and loud. The lyrics are equally ordinary and ineffective. And, most importantly, not all actors have done justice to their characters. Both Ahmed Butt and Zara Sheikh seem misfits in their roles as playful but well-meaning youngsters. Zara is good at dancing and singing while Ahmed appears to be at ease during action episodes. In the rest of the movie their acting skills display a singular lack of diversity and inability to vary moods and emotions according to the turn of the events.

-Meera's acting is as unreal as her role. Though the character she plays in Salakhain has been done by all the main Bollywood actresses and is found in almost every other movie made in our part of the world, it somehow lacks reality. In real life we hardly come across a woman who is equally good at being a singer and a criminal while at the same time being able to look pretty and rather seductive.

-But the most important omission is the storyline, which goes a long way in substantiating the point that no amount of effort put in execution can make a thin plot work. A movie that starts with a jail fight and ends with quite a lot of bloodshed - with all the stock scenes and situations that have been used a trillion times in Pakistani movies in between - cannot take credit for being different. Even the subject that it takes up has been done to death by Lollywood filmmakers, starting with Hawaain and used afterwards in a series of films named after powerful student leaders of 1980s and 1990s.

-The fact that the 'angry young man' of Salakhain loses everything - his love, his career, his family, his girlfriend and finally his life - does not provoke. Rather it confirms the prevailing feelings of pessimism, failure, helplessness and dejection. Unless a film about someone fighting against socio-political injustice ends up conveying a glitter of hope through the murky scenario it creates, its success will remain doubtful. If only if the movers and shakers in Lollywood knew this.

-Shehzad Rafiq has been into moviemaking for quite a while. He is mostly known as the producer of the mega hit Ghoongat - written and directed by Syed Noor. Salakhain, his first venture, is being touted by many as being the harbinger of much needed revival of film industry in Pakistan. It is equally being propagated as the entry point for a future film star - Ahmad Butt, someone who has over the years become the most recognisable male face on the catwalk.

-Whether the movie makes good on its claims is a question that still begs the viewers' verdict. But going by what happened to the movies which emphasised on one ingredient at the cost of the other - either form or substance - the future seems easy to predict. In opposition to the opinion of directors and filmmakers who have been insisting on having a strong storyline and taking little pains to improve on the form, there has emerged - or has always existed - another school which prefers presentation over content. Both camps have succeeded only in exceptional cases. The mantra lies in combining both the form and the substance - and it is here that Salakhain disappoints the most.

-What goes to the credit of makers of Salakhain is that they seem to know their limits. But this ability to remain within a given framework also turns out to be the film's most significant flaw. The director and the writer are unable to put the possibilities to test. They have succeeded in as much as that they have produced something that scores seven out of ten on technical grounds. But they have failed as much as that they have come up with a film that scores dismally as far as the storyline is concerned.