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By Joginder Tuteja **
'Zor Lagaa Ke... Haiya' tries to deliver a serious message around environment preservation. However, the film appeals in only bits and parts and that too only in the first half. Even at the face value, the idea around an entire film centered on saving a tree doesn't sound exciting. Where exactly is the audience for such a subject? And how could even that select bunch of audience be enticed enough to walk into a theatre for a movie that doesn't really boast of any star value whatsoever?
Of course, director Girish Girija Joshi may have believed that roping in Amitabh Bachchan for a voiceover and Mithun Chakravorty as a spearhead for the film could be a lucrative enough. However, first and foremost that is not really good enough and secondly even Mithun's role hardly adds on to the relevance of the film's plot which deals with saving a tree house made by a bunch of five kids.
In fact Mithun's character doesn't add anything at all to the film's narrative and his only contribution is towards the last five minutes of the film. However, even that bit of value addition could have been extracted out of the one of the kids in the story.
The film is not a kid film and neither has it been publicised as one. In fact if one talks about the publicity and promotion, there hasn't been any at all. 'Zor Lagaa Ke... Haiya' has been released all of a sudden and the song promos featuring Riya Sen are misleading, to say the least. She appears in just 2-3 scenes and they too are short lived.
So what really works for the film? Well, a few scenes in the first half of the movie where the kids get together to encounter Mithun Chakravorty, only to become his friends as the reels progress. The sequence of events leading to the son of a construction worker (Seema Biswas in a forgettable role and performance) joining hands with the four kids and building a dream tree house are nicely done.
However, after the interval point, when the battle lines are drawn between the kids and Gulshan Grover, the drama doesn't quite pick up. Frankly, one expected a little more meat in the story around it's culmination but that doesn't really happen. While Mithun is just passable in the film, the only actor who does try to bring in some relief to the proceedings is Mahesh Manjrekar.
Overall, 'Zor Lagaa Ke... Haiya' is a barely passable affair that doesn't really warrant a big screen watch. Even on TV, there will certainly be many more exciting alternatives to explore before one ultimately settles down to watch 'Zor Lagaa Ke... Haiya'.
