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When Apne go to make a movie with a backdrop of world boxing title at stake–first for redemption and then for revenge,you know you have exposed yourself to blows and bhaashanbaazi by not some ETs but your own Apne.

When Apne start talking nonsense in English and then switchover to Hindi to make some sense and Sunny Deol says Aa saale tujhe yahin gaarh doonga, you wonder whether its an arena or an akhaara.

When Apne in the boxing ring mouth more gaalis than land ghusaas at each other and a reigning world champion some Luca Garcia mouths I F*** you, and Sunny Deol echoes it to the tee and when the champion raises the bar a notch and shouts you motherf***** and Sunny gives him back a mouthful of motherf***** you dont wonder anymore –you simply feel f*****.

When Apne Dharam Paaji with his flaring nostrils mouth ‘You can ban me but cannot ban my spirit’,you wonder whether he is talking of matters metaphysical or matters of country or foreign liquour.

When Apne Dharam Paaji is made to say ‘Boxing needs stamina’, you want to thank the writer for enlightening us about such an unusual piece of information.

When Dharam Paaji is again made to comment ‘You think boxing is a worthless game’, you want to tell the director that this whole project is an exercise in worthlessness!

When Apne Sunny Deol in the climax fight takes more punches than a burst of machine gun fire and still can challenge the same Luca Garcia by saying ‘That’s it? That’s it?’, you feel like throwing in the towel and say that’s enough.

When Apne Bobby Deol and then Sunny Deol reenact all Rocky series training regime and background track howls ‘you have to survive, you have to hit the bulls eye’, even though you want to go along with some well-shot vignettes and earnestness of Deol brothers, your mind still has a constant hum how to survive this bull.

When Apne Sunny Deol’s screen son (his Lux cozy-andar ki baat hai buddy, i suppose)pats him in the ring saying’ Papa,Are you ok?’ you want to answer for all the sons in the multiplexes and shout nothing is okay.

But our Puttars from Punjab are made of stuff that even Laxmi Mittal can’t produce in his steel factories. They can take anything and everything for the sake of their Apne. To what weird lengths these people populating the Apne clan can go to save ghar ki izzat, desh ki izzat and above all apni izzat is not to be seen but to be heard to be believed.

Apne is talking heads –yes talking about their hearts most of the time, for something which is an utopia in real world for Hamara Hindustan for still quite sometime in future- and that is to win a World Heavyweight boxing championship. But no, our Dharmendra Paaji aka Baldev Singh Chaudhry has a dream. Not only a dream but a challenge that he threw at the Boxing mandarins thirty years ago when he was thrown out of US Of A (shot in Canada) for alleged doping and charges of cheating and thereafter banned for fifteen years from professional boxing. That time he had told prophetically his persecutors that he will come and redeem himself through his son Sunny Deol aka Angad Singh Chaudhry. But he is let down by his Apne Angad who is otherwise a national champion in boxing but has given it up for more rougher pastures in agriculture.For what? For raising enough money to marry off his sister to greener pastures. Dharam Paaji feels betrayed. He has been recently betrayed by his protege Gaurav(Aryan Vaid) who opts for an australian coach Whitmore who is supposed to have given three world champions. Whitmore or Whatmore?Ki farak painda yaaro. What more can you ask when you feel betrayed yourself. Dharam Paaji wants to redeem himself. And you also feel like having,if not redemption -at least a refund on your ticket. Dharam Paaji eventually gets his come-uppance. You regret spending on even a cup of cappuchino in Mumbai’s rainy day. Dharam Paaji keeps saying ‘Sab theek ho jayega, main sab theek kar doonga.’ You have this uneasy feeling that nothing is going to be right, because nothing is right.

There is Shilpa Shetty and there is Katrina Kaif. One A hip-hop loving housewife and another a hip looking doctor–both are there to enhance the look of the movie that does not feel- good.Other technical aspects are not the main issue here because they are above-board anyway. Main thing is the content and the way it has been crafted. It throws your sensibilities into a whirlpool and twists your imagination in the dirt tracks through lush green fields of Punjab.

There is a twist and a whole track till pre-climax where rock-star turned boxer Karan Singh aka Bobby Deol tries to redeem his dear Papa’s dream of bringing the world heavyweight title. for the first time to our dear dear Hindustan. How he goes about doing it, how he even manages to change his career from music to mukkas-don’t ask me. Ask the writer and the director. Or just go and watch the movie to figure it out yourself, if you have liver(jigar?) enough to sit till the end and digest the whole dishum-dishummm..Because let me tell you Bobby did not have the liver, literally! His rib cage collapses after he loses to the same Luca Garcia, and then his liver collapses while watching his big brother bashing up Luca from his hospital bed..Things go so murky and murderous that Bobby’s liver gives in ! And from world heavyweight trophy now there is hunt for a liver..Now how he was allowed from his hospital bed to watch that plasma tv is for medical association to decide. And how an amateur who had hung his gloves ten years ago was allowed straight to fight for World Heavyweight championship is for the boxing association to decide. And how the director went on inflicting such psychological blows on the vulnerable audience is for the director or its association to decide.

But you have to make a decision whether you will allow your Apne to take you for a ride either by toy train,planes, bicycles, cars, hummers or even bullock carts.Because all these vehicles are there but they seem to take you nowhere. And then there is so much hugging amongst the Apne clan that you wonder whether the movie is about hugging or boxing.

At the end of the movie you know that Sunny’s dhai kilo ka haath is eventually going to clinch the title, you know the entire Apne Deols have put in their heart for this marsh-mellow of a drama, still your heart is not willing to believe it all. What you really want to believe is the warning frame …’This is a work of fiction and any resemblace whatsoever to any person, circumstance or situation is purely accidental, oops !incidental, no no no, intentional.’ You feel betrayed anyway. Et tu Apne!