The problem with Taal isn't the dull, dead, flat-pancake looking Aishwarya Rai, whose star wattage after the super hit 'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam' has rarely burned so brightly. The problem isn't Akshay Khanna, who is balding, shaking and dull. It's the director Subhash Ghai. The audience didn't flock to see the movie either for Aishwarya or Akshay. They pinned their hopes on Ghai and respected his experience and past record. And Ghai failed them miserably.

This is the sort of Bollywood tale in which everything seems to have been decided by fate.Akshay Khanna is Manav (what a name!) who comes to visit India for the first time. For a person coming to India for the first time he seems to know everything about India. He's the only son of a rich man Amrish Puri. Manav meets Manasi (Aishwarya) at Chambal where his father goes to woo Manasi's father Tara Babu (Alok Nath) who is a folk singer, for his own selfish purposes. Manasi and Manav fall in love with each other and later get separated on a mis-understanding. Manasi and Alok Nath accidentally meet Anil Kapoor who is a composer and who is also pliagiarising Tara Babu's songs. He offers Manasi a great singing job and Manasi accepts on a three year contract. Anil Kapoor falls in love with her and proposes to her. Meanwhile Manav realizing his mistake goes back to Manasi and tells her he'll wait for her forever. Now the climax is anybody's guess.

Overall the movie is very poorly scripted and composed. It's not just that movie formulaic, it's disingenuous. Akshay Khanna is completely useless to say the least. He's hopelessly trying to ape Manoj Kumar (the head shaker) and Rishi Kapoor (the face shaker) and when he's not trying to ape, he's trying to cover his bald head with a hat (He even wears a cap on the hospital bed!) His performance is very poor. And what's worse, his role lacks emotional backup. He seems to be ever smiling with I-know-it-all look. His standard dialogue is, "You have to come back to me Manasi, because I'm truthful," or "You have to let us get married daddy, because I'm truthful." After that heavy revelation he sits back and relaxes. His attitude is simply disgusting. It's impossible to bear a person who has that all-knowing look!

And for Aishwarya , she's so robot-like. It's impossible to see any feelings on her face. Her stony looks and dull wardrobe complement each other. Aishwarya can't act for nuts. In 'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam' she had an exuberant Salman Khan and self-effacing Ajay Devgan as supporting cast which did wonders to her role. But a poor actor like Akshay Khanna could do nothing to hide her weak acting.

The only soothing factors in the movie are Anil Kapoor's cool performance (he brought some life into the movie) and Anand Bhakshi/A.R. Rehman's song scores.Like I mentioned before, the movie is too formulaic. While it serves up platitudes about self knowledge, it doesn't really delve into it's main characters Manav and Manasi. Their personalities are not strong and empathetic. Audience fail to understand them, as they are both damaging and damaged. The movie relies strongly on Subhash Ghai's expertise, Anil Kapoor's exuberance, Aishwarya's Miss World crown and Akshay Khanna's head shaking antics to erase all misgivings. But all the stardust in the world can't disguise the fact that this is a more package than picture.

RAJA HAMSA(Telugu)