'Aap...' - Reshammiya, cancel the sequel

Film: Aap Kaa Surroor; Cast: Himesh Reshammiya, Hansika Motwani, Mallika Sherawat; Director: Prashant Chadha; Ratings: * Can Himesh Reshammiya act? What a silly question! As silly as asking, can Reshammiya sing? Of course he can't! Who said he was an actor in the first place?

The role of Reshammiya has been written to accentuate his capped unsmiling visage. He gets on stage, bursts into many self-written songs where hordes of fans shriek, clap and cheer. They take to Reshammiya like fish to water.

If you are Reshammiya you win the race even before the gun goes off.

Guns do go off in this musical thriller where the music often provides the thrills while the suspense about a murdered girl's body in the rock star's purview leaves you as cold as the corpse that triggers off a chain of reactions ranging from weird to wired - depending on which side of the stage you're standing and peering from.

To ensure a safe passage into celluloid stardom, Reshammiya has spared no pains. "Aap Kaa Surroor" has everything - from untried snow-capped locations to spotlight the capped cheerleaders auspicious journey into the sphere of stardom, to dozens of auto-rickshaws suddenly appearing to support Reshammiya's hefty hi jinks.

To be fair, the songs and the stage performances do make your pulse pound and your feet feverishly wild. The "Mehbooba" track put there mainly to make Mallika Sherawat sizzle, gets slightly off-colour. It tries too hard to win over the audience and influence their judgement.

But you really can't win over the audience with songs and stage performances. They see Reshammiya doing that anyway. What was required was a strong plotline to carry his acting aspirations into the sphere of the bearable, if not the believable.

Vibha Singh's screenplay seems to have borrowed generously, if somewhat unnecessarily, from Jon Avnet's thriller "Red Corner" where Richard Gere played a foreigner in China who has to clear himself of murder charges with the help of a sexy lawyer.

Mallika doubling up as a femme fatale and a lawyer provides all the unintentional laughter.

It's hard to answer why Reshammiya decided to become an actor when he very obviously can't act?

His leading lady Hansika Motwani can act. She does so in every moment, countering Reshammiya's deadpan expressions with an overdose of facial gymnastics, which qualify her as the new age all-purpose Barbie doll.

Rock meets deadwood in this mixture of staged splendour and doctored misadventure. The locations are well exploited by Manoj Soni's camera. The frames avoid garish overstatement. But a quiet confidence is no substitute for genuine ability.

Both Reshammiya and his director fail to generate a high level of curiosity in the screen adventures of the nasal drifter.

Reshammiya, cancel the sequel.

By Subhash K. Jha