Review: Jhootha Hi Sahi

Director: Abbas Tyrewala

Starring: John Abraham, Pakhi Tyrewala, Raghu Ram, Mansi Scott, Anaitha Nair, Nandana Sen and Alishka Vardhe

Rating: * *



In today’s technology-driven world, love blossoming on the net or the phone, without the two people actually meeting, is an extremely plausible scenario and throws up several possibilities. Jhootha Hi Sahi starts on such an interesting premise, but gets progressively banal and pointless, with one never really being able to make a connection with the lead pair. Just like Abbas Tyrewala’s debut hit, Jaane Tu...Ya Jaane Naa, there are plenty of cameos and some decent punchlines. The whole setting is like a American sit com, with a gang of friends, token gays and so on. There are sporadic moments of good fun, but quite often many of these scenes also come out looking awkward and stagy. For example, John lives with a Pakistani brother and sister duo (Raghu Ram and Alishka Vardhe) whose conscious use of ‘tauba’ and ‘hai allah’ seem so obvious and forced. To be fair, even Jaane Tu...suffered from some of these problems, and yet sustained because there was a semblance of charm and innocence to the relationship of the lead young couple. That is simply not the case here, which makes the story a bit of a lost cause very early on.

Sid (John Abraham) is a nerdy book-store owner, whose phone number gets accidentally mixed up with that of a suicide hotline. One of the callers is Mishka (Pakhi), who in a fragile state opens up to Sid, thinking of him as a counsellor. The script never explains why these two should like each other so much in such quick time, but what you see next is Mishka falling in love with her phone pal and Sid on his part realises that he is not happy with his current girlfriend (Mansi Scott). Sid recognises Mishka in his book store and falls head over heels in love, but feels reluctant to reveal his real self. So he meets her as Sid, and keeps talking to her as her phone pal also. There are some other sub plots, one including a pregnant Alishka, who for some reason refuses to marry her boyfriend, who is also the father of her child. He pursues her almost to nauseating levels, and as an audience one has no idea what is going on between these two. The other more funny plot involves Raghu Ram and Mansi Scott and their love-hate relationship.

Pakhi, as the lead actress and writer of Jhootha Hi Sahi, lets down the film on both counts. It’s not so much of a problem that she has three men in her life at one point (the two Johns and R Madhavan in a cameo), but Pakhi isn’t able to convey these emotions at all and not once do you get into the head of her character. The fact that her part is the pivot does not help at all. The role required someone younger, vulnerable and alluring. Pakhi is not any of that. Also, her being Abbas Tyrewala’s wife could have something to do with it, but the filmmaker shows almost every male in the film to be in love with her. And this comes across as grossly exaggerated, because there’s nothing to her character or the way she plays it that seems attractive. In fact, the other women (Mansi Scott and Alishka) play their parts with far more spirit and chutzpah.

The other big let down is A R Rahman’s music, that is as listless as it comes.

John Abraham is sincere, the other supporting cast is equally good. However, the film just doesn’t come together as a whole, and in the end, Jhootha Hi Sahi ends up being quite lame.