A Pakistani girl Afreen (Neha Shetty) comes to Hyderabad on a student exchange program to study engineering. When some Romeos tease her on the road, Roshan (Akash Puri) saves her from them but neither of them see each others face. Yet, they feel a connection between them.
After a few months, Afreen is called to her home and she takes a train to Delhi to reach Lahore and Roshan boards the same train to Delhi to go to Himalayas for trekking.
In Delhi, she realizes that hes the boy who saved her and shes the girl who he wanted to see. While trekking in the Himalayas, he happens to find a frozen dead body with resemblance to Afreen and starts reading the dairy he finds near this body.
We move to the flashback 1971 Indo Pak War. Who is she, what is the connection he has with her is the rest of the movie.
Analysis:-
Puri Jagannadh who has delivered some of the biggest hits in Tollywood like Pokiri seems to have invested money and his creative energy in full force to launch his son as hero. However, he has picked up age-old reincarnation theme to introduce his son.
The story of a boy and girl getting a rebirth to unite as lovers is seen in many films from Mooga Manasulu to Magadheera.
The difference here is both boy and girl are born to different countries and religions from their previous births. The Indo Pak war is another new angle.
Like the cliched old story, Puri Jagannadhs narration too is formulaic and monotonous. From the first frame to the end, there is not a single scene that provides a laugh or two. In the so called love story, there is not a single worthy love scene.
The film begins like Ram Charan and Kajal trying to reunite in this birth and remembering the episodes in the previous birth. The first half entirely dwells on this. But unlike Magadheera, here both Akash and Neha Shetty dont sing songs or entertain us with their romantic sequences.
The entire Pakistan episode is outlandishly boring. The final sequence seems straight out of old Balakrishnas movies like Vijayendra Varma or Parama Veera Chakra.
Director Puri holds interest till the interval despite lack of good romantic part. But he resorts to jingoism and awkwardly cliched scenes in the later portions testing patience.
What the film achieves is that Akash Puri is star material, he has that quality to become good lead hero. He has intensity in his eyes and good screen presence too.
If Puris intention was to prove that his son can become good hero, then he has achieved it. But for audiences, the movie makes a tedious watch as neither the love episodes (twice in two births) nor the war sequences interest us. The patriotic dialogues sound fake. They dont rouse goosebumps.
In Magadheera, Rajamouli has used lavish graphics and visuals to tell an age old love story. The love story was very engaging; the music was catchy.
Except for the title song, all the songs are lousy here. Though Puri too has gone for lavish visuals and visual effects, it doesnt leave us with awe feeling.
Overall, Mehbooba doesnt interest at all, all the exercise seems futile in the end. Akash Puri is the only saving grace in the otherwise dull and bland movie.
Greatandhra