Abbas Tyrewala gave a movie that had everything in it to fall in love last time i.e Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na. So, expectations are high, not just for me but for every person who went on that tag to see the film. And surely, most of them would had been dissappointed. For me, yea he didnt live upto the mark set, but still the film has some very good moments despite of the fact that its a very weakly handled film.

The story is of Sid(John Abraham) who lives with his friends and runs a book store. One random day, his number gets mixed with a suicide helpline resulting in no. of calls at night. And he happens to talk with Mishka(Pakhi Tyrewala), turning to save her life. How he starts getting attached to her, coincidently meeting her with some other name and then how he handles his lies to manipulate her, and fall in love. But what will happen when she will come to know that the person she meets and the person she talks on phone are same.

The concept of the film is really good, that always had me wanting to see the film. But the treatment is very poor. You would like a screenplay that holds you for 2 hrs 30 mins, but here thats not the case, and add to it Abbas tries so hard to bring humour at places that appears forced. Jaane Tu worked because it was natural, it had humour where humour could be placed and then there were serious scenes with no jokes around. Here, its hard to find any serious scenes, and if you do find them you dont connect to them easily.

Also, what works against the film is the fact that the story is kept real, whatever happens in the film does happen in real i.e girl loves her bf, parts away as he ditched, then falls in love with new guy, old bf comes back, she goes back forgetting new love and then again back to new love. All this does happen in real but no one will like to see this on screen, a better screenplay may have helped but more than that writing could had been changed removing the angle of Madhavan from the story.

And the faults dont end there, character sketch of Mishka and Aliya(plays sister of Raghu) are extremely poor. You tend to laugh at the reason Aliya gives for her non-marriage, though I feel her reason would have looked pretty fine if she wasnt shown pregnant. While Mishka as I said, her character is hard to show sympathy with due to the fact its way too real. Even the Climax is much overdone, one can say Jaane Tu was filmy too but still you could accept it the way it was filmed, here it went a touch above it with that stupid thing.

The feel of the film and dialogues is very youth eccentric. Editing could had been better to avoid some dull moments that comes in the screenplay.

Still, among all this, there are lots of things that are worth to be liked, Sid's reply to 3rd caller(the writing again was terrible here, why were the callers especially 1st two made to sound like idiots), Sid's meeting with Mishka at book store, constant use of  'Ajeebs' and 'Tauba' by Aliya, 3 rules of dosti, Ankur-Sid scene, and specially the conversation between Sid-Mishka in restaurant.

Songs are pretty well used, I am waiting sounds so pleasant and lovely with such good background kept, very well thought of. Hello Hello is used more in the narration of story, one of my favs. Cry Cry, the conversation song between both is superb. Pam pa ra looks better with film then as audio. Do Nishaaniyaan again narrates a part of story, romantic and little funny too. Call me dil could had been used, but then its already a long film. Maiyya Yashoda was fine, nothing impressive.

Performances wise,

John Abrahim was superb, I would rate this among his top5 performances, pity that despite such good performance the film ended on wrong note. He looked awesome, acted awesome, there were few places where he did go wrong, but itna chalta hai. I specially love when he says "Thora" to Mishka outside dvd store or when he replies to Mishka about his stammer at restaurant.

Pakhi Tyrewala had a average debut. She was way too inconsistent, sometimes in looks she looked or appeared very old, whether its make up person fault or thats how it is. Even in acting, she was overdoing some expressions. Also, there was a lack of chemistry between her and John. She needs to work a lot on herself as a whole for future. She was one of the main weak link of the film.

Raghu Ram was pretty good, except for his Musharraf scene that was overdone, his character was very well written and enacted.

Manasi Scott was nice, Anaitha Nair was wasted, hardly got 2 scenes. Alishka Varde despite poorly written role impresses with her acting and mannerisms.

Prashant Chawla, Omar Khan and Geroge Young were decent.

R.Madhavan was irritating mainly due to worst written character of the film. Except for just one tiny dialogue in climax, there is nothing to like in his role.


Its important that you tend to feel for a character when he/she isnt happy, is going through some rough phase etc but that happens very less in this film. Except for one scene i.e Sid-Ankur one, there is simply nothing, all thanks to the treatment of subject.

Overall, Jhootha hi Sahi fails due to poor writing and screenplay that makes things look silly then real. Abbas joins the list of directors who made a awesome debut film and a average 2nd film. Watch Jhootha hi Sahi only for John's performance and few good scenes here and there.


Rating : 2.55 Out of 5