Movie Review: Hum Tum Shabana

Movie Name:	Hum Tum Shabana
Critic Rating:
Viewer Rating:	2 1
Star Cast:	Tusshar Kapoor, Shreyas Talpade, Minissha Lamba, Pia Trivedi, Satish Kaushik and Sanjay Mishra.
Director:	Sagar Ballary.
Producer:	Sunil Chainani, Sameer Srivastava and Subhash Dawar
Music Directer:	Sachin and Jigar
Genre:	Comedy / Romance

Story

Story: The film begins with a cut-throat competition between two extremely ambitious boys- Rishi (Tusshar Kapoor) and Kartik (Shreyas Talpade). This rivalry, soon affects their personal life too, as they happen to fall in love with the same girl, Shabana (Minissha Lamba). However, this chase for the girl, soon turns into a fight to lose her, as soon as the boys discover what they are losing in the bargain. Shabana is a niece of underworld don Chacha (Satish Kaushik) and only a boy, who takes up the profession of a don, can marry her.

Story Treatment: Hum Tum Shabana breaks the rules of a regular love triangle with a twist, but falls flat in its execution. The messy screenplay takes the toll, especially post the interval. The flick gets its first blow when Minissha Lamba, who's barely 5 feet 2 inches tall, participates in a beauty pageant which is completely indigestible. To top it all, Tusshar and Shreyas turn out to be very non-impressive in the terms comic-timing. Things seem to fall in place in first half, until everything gets messed up after the entry of Satish Kaushik’s character. Sanjay Mishra comes as a breather with few of his funny acts.   

Star Cast: Tusshar-Shreyas chemistry as rivals, doesn’t impress much, although Shreyas plays his part well and Tusshar is good at some parts. Minissha Lamba doesn’t get much scope post interval and is strictly okay. Satish Kaushik, slapping himself and others at regular intervals, gets on to the nerves after a point. Sanjay Mishra is the saving grace, as he pulls off few moments of fun quite nicely. Pia Trivedi is perfect as a model.

Direction: After making a smashing debut with Bheja Fry, Sagar Ballary has been disappointing with every movie he has attempted recently, be it Kachcha Limbo or Bheja Fry 2. Hum Tum Shabana proves to be yet another disastrous effort by this director. As mentioned earlier, the clumsy unfolding of sequences, leave one gasping for breath in the middle of the movie. The training sequences with ultra-boring background music, add to the misery. Tusshar in Johnny Depp attire, matching the signature step of his dad Jitendra, is the only thing which one can take with oneself, after the movie.

Music/ Cinematography/ Dialogues/ Editing: Music doesn’t register at all. Cinematography supports to make the film slightly tolerable. Dialogues lack class and are extremely boring. Editing doesn’t help either.

3 Ups and 3 Downs: The concept, moderate performances by actors and cinematography are the strengths of the film. A clumsy screenplay, lacklustre music and dialogues leave one numb.
On the whole, Hum Tum Shabana can be easily given a miss.