Review of Armaan

Armaan (2003)
7/10
So that's what happens in hospitals!
28 April 2007
Warning: Spoilers
The funding of hospitals is never easy. There is always a constant demand for new equipment, medical researchers and other staff have to be paid and debts have to be met.. If you can find a rich donor who would like to see his name emblazoned on the hospital walls, lucky you….providing of course the conditions laid down by the donor are not too demanding.

In this film a top neurosurgeon Akash Sinha (Anil Kapoor) is compelled to make an unusual decision. In order to save his hospital from closure, he must marry the rich donor's spoilt and somewhat hysterical daughter Soniya Kapoor (Preity Zinta). Akash must sacrifice his love for Neha Mathure (Grace Singh) his charming anesthetist and constant support in all medical matters.

If you haven't guessed it by now, the dialogue of this film is in Hindi and it is given the whole Bollywood treatment. It is adequately sub-titled, but you'll need a comfortable chair because the running time is a little less than three hours. It's a strange mixture of a film. Apart from the hospital's basic problems, there is the eternal triangle of one man and two women. The romantic drama is well played out, the gentle Neha swept off her feet by Akash and selfish Soniya doing her best to destroy their love for each other. Soniya is forever having tantrums which keeps the action alive. Some of her wild scenes are reminiscent of the Bette Davis technique.

If at any time you are becoming a little weary of the dialogue, rest assured the principal actors will burst into song and you will begin to wonder if this is a musical after all. But no! This is the Bollywood style, and the overpowering music takes up every change of mood and comes crashing down all around you. The Indian population must like this style of entertainment. It's almost as if the film makers are determined to give their patrons three hours of intense pleasure.

The characters in the film are well defined and the scenario easy to follow. The photography is brilliant and the music, as I said, encroaches a little too forcefully over the action. As for the dance and song routines which interrupt the dramatic sequences, I guess they are a matter of choice. They give you a "breather" , I suppose, in the very long film and add to the whole night's entertainment.
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