Cheeni Kum's biggest asset also turns out to be its biggest liability - Amitabh Bachchan. Make no mistake. The actor is in fine form and delivers yet again but writer-director Balki seems to have forgotten that Bachchan apart, there are other elements too that make up a film in totality - a coherent screenplay for one. A most interesting and intriguing concept of the romance of a 64 year old chef in London's premier Indian restaurant and a 34 year old software programmer from India visiting London ultimately fails when developed as a film failing to go beyond what is ultimately a great showcase of Bachchan's talent and not much more.

The film's script, as is always the case with our films, the film's big weakness. Once the romance is established, it is as if the filmmaker has suddenly realized he now needs a conflict and as Amitabh has to ask Paresh Rawal for Tabu's hand and he naturally opposes the match since his would-be son-in-law is 6 years older than him, the film seems unsure of where to go and begins to go rapidly downhill. As Rawal goes into a Satyagraha fast undo death, the film hits rockbottom as this sequence just comes of as plain idiotic rather than anything else especially Amitabh's monologue to him and by the time you reach the Qutub Minar, you are just plain gob smacked at the climax there as by now the film has gone totally haywire. Sequences like the one at the police station baffle you as to why are they there in the first place. Logic too goes tumbling out of the window. How is Zohra Sehgal seated in a parked car outside the gate of Paresh Rawal's house able to hear Amitabh so clearly as he admonishes Paresh Rrawal on the barsati of his house??? Utimately you cannot help but feel like most filmmakers who come to feature films from advertising, they bring style and a definite look (See the film's great promos or its posters) with them but they find it difficult to sustain cinematic control over a story and script longer than a minute or two at most.

What works and works extremely well in Cheeni Kum are the meetings of Amitabh and Tabu and their developing romance, which is handled with maturity and humour with some smart one liners and witty repartees thrown in. He is sharp tongued and sarcastic and she independent and strong minded not afraid to give it back making you smile all the time during their interaction with each other. Both actors create well fleshed out real people whom you care for and want to get together as you can see, age differences aside, they are perfectly matched. Balki creates some wonderful moments in the developing romance like how she accepts his offer of a first date or her making him run to a tree some distance away and back to test his 'stamina' or his birthday celebrations wherein he tries hiding his age or even the scene where he proposes to her in his acidic way and the way she reciprocates. Balki has treated the romance with subtlety and a minimum of fuss and avoided all the Bollywood cliches thus giving it a refreshing new take. This is what the focus of the film should have been throughout - Amitabh and Tabu but as mentioned the Paresh Rawal track just does the film in.

Another well handled relationship is the one between Amitabh and his cranky mother, played deliciously by Zohra Sehgal at her likeable madcap best. Their constant bickering with each other, her extolling him to the miracles his life would take if he went to the gym, his comments on her cooking work nicely. The relationship with Sexy however though endearing in places doesn't work as well especially as her cancer track is the worst old-school-of-filmmaking type of emotional manipulation and it is precisely to get the tear ducts going in the climax for this track that one is subjected to the absurd finale around the Ashoka pillar. Another problem here is that Sexy is made to mouth big, adult dialogues that seem precocious and irritating (although admittedly Khara carries them off extremely well in her deadpan manner) rather then something a child would naturally speak.

The performances of the lead pair is what makes the film watchable. Amitabh Bachchan is in top form, his sense of timing as razor sharp as ever. See his change from the acid-tongued stern chef whose food has to be just right and who just will not allow a mobile in the kitchen as he falls for Tabu and starts to 'impress' her and behave like a young man in love! Tabu is the perfect foil to Amitabh who is able to give it back to him and show she is very much an independent person in her own right. Tabu has been largely absent from the big screen but both The Namesake and now Cheeni Kum reiterate what a fine performer she is and one who needs to more visible on the screen. The supporting cast of the chefs at the restaurant are enthusiastic and seem to be enjoying themselves on screen though the teethy jokes are tiresome after a while. Zohra Sehgal and Swini Khara lend perfect support. However, the big disappointment here as mentioned is Paresh Rawal. The actor is totall, totally defeated by some terrible, inane writing and for once is unable to rise above the script as he always effortlessly seems to do unfailingly in film after film. Rawal's character comes off as a bad caricature in the worst sense and is in fact responsible for the film meeting its nadir.

Technically, the film is greatly aided by PC Sriram's evocative camerawork, barring a couple of clumsy day-for-night sequences in London and the sequence in the police station which looks like a bad old Tamil film of old. For once a film is shot according to the story's demands, doing away with unnecessary camera movements, another bane of our films. An additional asset is Ilayaraja's musical score as far as the songs are concerned with the title song being particularly well tuned. However the background score as again the case with a majority of our films is loud and obvious bringing attention to itself rather than moving smoothly with the flow of the film. The length of the film is another problem as it appears to be little more than an intriguing premise with some good moments thrown in and should ideally have been no more than 90-100 minutes but it seems never-ending particularly in the second half and could do with some trimming.

All in all, Cheeni Kum is a film of lost chances and a big, big disappointment.