PremGranth

All three of Raj Kapoor's sons tried their hand at direction in order to keep their father's banner alive. All three delivered rather mediocre films and PremGranth is unfortunately a weak melodramatic fare which fails to recreate the magic of Raj Kapoor's movies. Rajiv Kapoor, the youngest of Kapoor's sons, is the one who directs this movie and though he tries hard to adopt his father's style of filmmaking, Prem Grant falls flat and is a most boring, overdone and outdated product. The story seems to be like set in the 1940s, when women had no chances to survive. The film tries to address the theme of rape but it hardly manages to convey its message given the poor script and dated execution. The casting wavers between okay and laughable. The fact that Anupam Kher plays the father of Rishi Kapoor, who in real-life is actually 3 years older than he is, really made me laugh and is an example of terribly tactless casting. The only factor that redeems this film from being a total disaster is undoubtedly Madhuri Dixit, who rises above the script with a heartfelt and convincing performance in the role of a rape victim who tries to move on in life. Some of her scenes after the birth of her child were truly good. But there it ends, and the presence of a ceaselessly beautiful Dixit is not enough to save a stale story of this sort.