The After Hrs Review: 'Jo Hum Chahein'

Film: Jo Hum Chahein
Director: Pawan Gill
Cast: Sunny Gill, Simran Kaur Mundi, Achint Kaur, Alyy Khan
Rating: *

Jo Hum Chahein is a fairly simple love story and will waltz with you on the been-there, seen-it-all familiar territory of the genre. Rohan (Sunny) is a fresh MBA graduate, ambitious to the core and hungry to get to the top. The only things that match up to his good looks are his cockiness and overconfidence. Neha (Simran), on the other hand, is a simple girl who wants to make it big in the modelling world. A spiritual date later (yes, he takes her from a temple to a church to a Gurudwara on their first date), Neha falls for exactly the same cockiness that she found irksome on meeting him for the first time.

The hero’s cockiness is irritating, and what’s even more irritating is seeing a supposedly level-headed heroine fall for it. All is still well. But wait, it’s not even interval yet. So, there’s Rohan’s boss (Alyy Khan), who in the guise of helping Rohan realise his dreams, is actually using him to further his own prospects. Soon Rohan finds himself becoming a toyboy to a rich client (Achint), who is in cahoots with Alyy. All hell breaks loose when Neha finds out about the ‘aunty’ in Rohan’s life and what follows right till the end is as anyone’s guess.

Debutant director Pawan Gill comes from the school of Yash Chopra’s style of filmmaking, having assisted Aditya on his films. Typically, there’s a party song, a warring song between the hero and the heroine, a love song, and a heartbreak song, all shot beautifully, but once again it’s nothing that you haven’t seen before. All the songs have an aesthetic flair, but wish the director had gotten his team to work on everything that came in between too. The storyline is the same old stuff. The scenes predictable. Sunny and Simran are strictly okay in their debuts, though both need to work on their dialogue-delivery. The juvenile dialogues that they are given to mouth make it worse for them.

The supporting actors do impressive jobs though. The only saving grace is the fresh appeal that the film has. But overall, the film just fails to lift and you can’t wait for the film to get over after a certain point.