By Taran Adarsh, December 15, 2000 - 17:03 IST

Inderjeet Films Combine's DHAAI AKSHAR PREM KE, directed by Raj Kanwar, is inspired by the Keanu Reeves flick A WALK IN THE CLOUDS. Karan (Abhishek Bachchan) is an army officer who is in love with Nisha (Sonali Bendre).

While returning from his vacation, Karan meets Sahibaan (Aishwarya Rai), who is in trouble. Karan promises to help her and accompanies Sahibaan to her house. There he meets Sahibaan's family, which is the epitome of an ideal, happy family that knows and speaks only one language – the language of love.

There is Biji (Sushma Seth), the ever-smiling grandma; Yagvendra Grewal (Amrish Puri), Sahibaan's dad – a hard man with a soft heart; Simran (Tanvi Azmi), Sahibaan's chachi who is also her best friend; Raunak (Anupam Kher), the young-at-heart chacha…

The family mistakes him to be her husband and the two get entangled in a web. In this game of deception, Karan and Sahibaan end up getting attracted to each other, an attraction which finally takes the shape of true love. But there are obstacles in the path of the lovers…

On face-value, DHAAI AKSHAR PREM KE has all it takes to appeal to the cinegoers – an attractive and talented star cast, accomplished director, proficient music composers and an expert technical team. Worthy names do contribute in making a worthy product, but in this case, they don't.

The basic fault lies with the script of the film that bears semblance to the recently released KUNWARA. However, a few sequences are also borrowed from several other films, like HUM AAPKE HAIN KOUN (family portions), DILWALE DULHANIYA LE JAYENGE, HUM DIL DE CHUKE SANAM and of course, TITANIC (Abhishek saving Ash from committing suicide has been lifted from here!). In a nutshell, the film lacks in originality, which is its biggest drawback.

The ever-dependable Raj Kanwar is not in form this time. As a director, he has handled a few individual sequences with aplomb, but as the writer of the film, he comes up with a mishmash product that is predictable, slow-paced and monotonous… and which gets tedious after a point of time.

The film moves at a snail's pace and the essence of the love story gets diluted in the bargain. Another factor that goes against the film is its music (Jatin-Lalit). The songs disappoint. Majorly. Jatin-Lalit seem to have run out of ideas and melodies, for the songs are anything but inspiring.

Although the film boasts of two decent numbers – 'Mera Mahi Bada Sona Hai' and 'O Mere Rabba Dil Kyoon Banaya' – the latter comes in the pre-climax when the audience has already got restless and wants an end to the love story. Though the song is visually appealing, it does the job of a speed breaker, dropping the pace further.