“Jannat will be Emraan’s Naam” - Mahesh Bhatt

May 16th, 2008Related|Filed Under

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“Jannat will be Emraan’s Naam” - Mahesh Bhatt

By Subhash K. Jha, May 16, 2008 - 11:53 IST

A strange thing is happening to Mahesh Bhatt. After spending years extracting creative juices from real- life all his life, now when the cricket fever has touched an all-time high, thanks to the IPL, producer Mahesh Bhatt plays down the cricketing karma of his new film Jannat.

“The cricketing world is only the wallpaper in Jannat. The cricketing field is the space in which the tale of this risk addict, played by Emraan Hashmi, unfolds. He is a typical product of the 21st century who goes into shopping malls to look for new things to buy everyday. Emraan plays the kind of person for whom the end is more important than the means. He then meets this girl who changes his life. When personal gratification becomes more important than the larger concern, then society is doomed. Emraan plays a character who needs to restrain himself from the acquisitive tendency,” opines the man whose cinema has constantly walked the tightrope depicting the worlds of idealism and corruption.

Mahesh admits Jannat goes into match-fixing. “But like I said, it’s reflective of the times we live in. It holds a mirror to the conscience of today’s youth who believe gratification is the bottomline of existence.”

He hesitates in connecting Jannat with present-day happenings in the cricketing world. “Incidents like Bob Woolmer’s suspicious death were at the back of my writers’ heads. But to say that Jannat replays incidents from the cricketing world like the Woolmer one would be absurd. It’s just a grotesque coincidence that the actor who plays Woolmer was a close buddy of the dead man.”

Mahesh would rather focus on the larger moral question that his cinema raises. “Cricketers are as human as anyone else liable to be seduced by the goodies of the world. The film points out that there’s huge money in cricket. It’s a money-making industry. Everybody exploits this deity called cricket. So does my hero Emraan.”

He saves a special word of praise for his leading man. “I think Jannat is Emraan’s coming-of-age movie. It’d do for Emraan what my Naam did for Sanjay Dutt. He is a vulnerable abominable risk-taker who falls in love with a woman who has a value-system totally contrary to his.”

There Are 9 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by Khalnayak on 16 May 2008:

    now this is a huge statement to make! Emran was good in Awarapaan which aslo kinda similar to Bhatt’s own Sadak.

  2. Comment by shaktikapoorfan on 16 May 2008:

    Sadak was trash comparing to Naam. Music and Sadashiv Amrapurkar’s Maharani played a huge part in its success.

  3. Comment by rockstar on 16 May 2008:

    NAAM is he serious , the vulnerability and fragileness which baba displayed in naam was awesome(may be some incidents in his real life helped him to ), emran may be good but straightaway comparsion with baba in NAAM this looks to be a ploy to promote the movie

  4. Comment by don123 on 16 May 2008:

    In my opinion Naam was Sanjay’s finest hour. He was never able to recapture the portrayal of a rebel at war with the world hurting deep inside.

    He was just superb.

  5. Comment by Khalnayak on 16 May 2008:

    I thought Sadak was very good though no way comparable to Naam or even Kabzaa.. Sadak would definitely come in my top favorite Dutt performances..the emotional and actions in the film awesome!! plus as you said music and Sadashiv Amrapurkar were equally (if not more)good!

  6. Comment by Qalandar on 16 May 2008:

    Agreed Khalnayak on Sanju’s performance in Sadak. I would also add that the first half of Sadak is one of the most gripping things Mahesh Bhatt has ever directed: it had great velocity, and was taut. The second half went a bit awry, but overall this is one of the best films Bhatt directed after 1990.

    On the music I would give it less credit: a number of the songs are ripped off from Pakistani film songs (including my favorite, “Tumhe Apna Banaane Ki Qasam Khaai Hai”, re-cycled from an old song by Musarrat Nazir “Chale to Yun Hi Kat Jaayega Ye Safar Humsafar”)…

  7. Comment by Qalandar on 16 May 2008:

    Everytime Mahesh Bhatt says something like “Jannat will be Emraan’s Naam” (he’s said stuff like this fairly often), he embarrasses himself. Whatever Dutt lacked in expressive range in the 1980s, he made up for it with raw angst and vulnerability-despite-machismo; Emraan Hashmi by contrast is the very essence of a superficial performer, more likely to “pose” than get “in the skin” of a role. No film can be a Naam for him.

  8. Comment by Aditya on 16 May 2008:

    emraan hashmi is as perfunctory as it gets, IMO. i never saw what was special about him other than being the “serial kisser”. he’s sort of like a second-rate sunil shetty 2 me. his films never excite my curiosity or interest, and this one is no different.

  9. Comment by jayshah on 16 May 2008:

    Emraan’s single biggest claim to fame is having so many knockout soundtracks wasted on a at best average actor - well after smooching so many actresses that is. I’m baffled by how much luck this guy gets with music. His soundtracks are better than most so called biggies IMO!

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