Coming to the point right away, LAHORIYE might not be a classic realistic film, but it’s indeed an emotionally entertaining and musically rich venture offering you a decent return of your time and money spent, along with transporting you into a positive fantasy world portraying a friendly political relationship between India and Pakistan.
However, you need to allow one major creative freedom taken by the writer-director Amberdeep in his debut directorial project, otherwise you will not be able to enjoy the film and would keep raising big doubts and questions on its various sequences dealing with border securities, visa restrictions, inter-caste marriages and the actual bitter relationship between the two neighboring countries throughout its 137 minutes.
Revealing the same, LAHORIYE basically talks about an unrealistic fantasy world wherein we don’t have any cross firing or war like situation at all in the border areas and a Punjabi (Sikh) boy can still think or afford to fall in love with a Pakistani girl and then visit the country too with a marriage proposal despite the regional, cultural and religious differences between the families.
A world I would personally love to be in ……. even if it’s for just 3 hours in a film forgetting all negativity around.
Key Positive Features
The film begins on a simple-sweet note and then keep progressing maintaining the same romantic feel till the intermission with a few melodious romantic songs and the boy meeting the girl, crossing the border on a legal ‘visiting’ visa posing as a family guest.
The twists and turns actually get revealed post the intermission, where some major characters get introduced and wedding celebrations are seen featuring some enjoyable songs and sequences leading to a highly emotional climax.
The well written finale forces you to think about the political hatred spread since the partition in 1947 and the situation worsening every passing year, despite the citizens feeling the same love and warmth for each other.
The major merit of the film remains its melodiously pleasing soundtrack based on traditional folk music and the tracks beautifully enhancing the proceedings on the screen (often used in the backdrop).
The chemistry between Amrinder Gill and Sargun Mehta thankfully works again, though it lacks the lovable intensity and the pull enjoyed in ANGREJ. Yuvraj Hans tries his level best in an appreciable role but the entire supporting cast remains just fine, because of a too fast second half running at a brisk pace, not letting any individual character to leave his or her mark on the viewers. Having said that, it’s because of the pace only that one doesn’t find any dragging or boring moments in the much better second half giving you a good time.
The avoidable downers
The first half of LAHORIYE doesn’t have much to convey, moving on a simple, sweet, musical but monotonous tone with nothing exciting happening apart from the couple meeting each other in Pakistan. In the second half, the director straight away takes the film into the fourth gear with everything happening too quick without leaving any major impact on the viewer (once again reminding you of DDLJ), till we have the emotional finale sequence of the grandfather once again visiting his ancestral home. As a result, the film remains unevenly distributed or forcibly stretched in its two contrastingly different halves.
As the lead hero, Amrinder once again enacts in his typical routine mode as repeatedly seen in his previous films. But I would not like to blame him for the same as here the (insecured) actors tend to keep doing all similar kind of roles unless they face rejection from the public itself (and we rarely get to see a performer too keen to experiment with himself taking the big risks). Besides it was really strange to see Amrinder wearing a Pagdi in one scene and then taking it off in the next, painting an utterly confusing picture of his (Sikh/Punjabi) character, strangely not noticed or taken care of by the director too. On the other hand Sargun gets something fresh to do playing a Muslim character on screen, different from her earlier Punjabi films.
A much hurried second half of LAHORIYE almost wastes veteran actors such as Nirmal Rishi, Gugu Gill, Hobby Dhaliwal and even Rajiv Dhingra (seen in only few initial scenes). Wedding celebrations yet again become a major part of the film following the present (repetitive) trend of Punjabi cinema and then the writer-director simply skips the actual wedding rituals adapted in an inter-religious marriage between a Punjabi (Sikh) boy and a Muslim Girl, cleverly avoiding all the controversies or objectionable visuals through a quick and smart edit (a safe and intelligent move, I liked a lot).
Finally, though the climax ‘blindfold’ sequence successfully brings tears in your eyes, it still needed to be more expressive and detailed focusing on the unexpected meeting of the two old friendly souls post many decades. The sequence ends quite abruptly returning back to the comic feel and therefore you leave the theater with a smile instead of thinking about the much needed peace and harmony between the two brotherly countries.
Summing up, as a sweet, positive romantic film talking about a peaceful fantasy world existing between India and Pakistan, LAHORIYE certainly works as a decent one time watch family entertainer. But I was personally expecting much more deep and well-written project from the experienced writer and the debutant director Amberdeep. So would certainly be looking forward to what he will be coming up as his next, which ought to be much more superior and impressive than the present.
Ratings : 3 / 5
