Main Aisa Hi Hoon

Director: Harry Baweja Cast: Ajay Devgan, Sushmita Sen, Esha Deol, Anupam Kher, Lillette Dubey, Anjan Shrivastava, Dinesh Lamba, Naresh Suri, Sanjay Sood, Kaveri Ghosh, Rita Puri, Master Raj Gokani, Baby Rucha Vaidya

4.5/10

Isolate performance and you are left with moving pictures that barely touch your soul. Harry Baweja’s Main Aisa Hi Hoon is a case in point. Speak performance, Ajay Devgan sheds his mannerisms and tries to adapt to the psyche of a seven-year-old child. After playing a scary killer ghost just a week back (Kaal), this time as a child-man with his innocent ways he wins the tug-of-love.

Child artiste Rucha Vaidya, who forms the focus of the storm that ensues between the challenged father and her rich NRI grandfather Anupam Kher, is not only cute but handles her role like a pro.

But the one who makes you sit up (for, by the time she appears one is sure to have slouched) is definitely Sushmita Sen. She comes off perfectly as the unrelenting lawyer, but is humane enough to learn her lesson from this child-man about loving her son whom she has been neglecting for her career.

Esha, too, carries off the character of a drug addict with a complicated psyche before vanishing suddenly. For support Lillette, Anjan, Vikram and Anupam are well cast.

But it’s primarily the screenplay (Bhawani Iyer) that does little to grip your attention and the film drags. The pace is further slackened by the songs that recur at regular intervals, making one fidget in the seat while the seriousness of the story is lost on the audience. The second half is saved by the mere presence of Sushmita, but the courtroom drama could have been smarter in terms of dialogue (by Anurag Kashyap). The basic storyline, admittedly, has been taken from Jessie Nelson’s I am Sam, but does not translate into a realistic, heart-rending story.

Madhuparna Das