After hit Dil To Pagal Hai in 90s, Yash Raj Flims yet betting upon another musical with Madhuri Dixit in her comeback movie - Aaja Nachle, but after Jhoom Barabar Jhoom & Laaga Chunari Mein Daag this one doesn’t strike the chord. Apart from Madhuri (and her dances) and the climax musical drama, the movie had nothing interesting to hold the audience for two and half hours.

I agree, it was very enthralling to see the original Indian cinema diva back on screen after five years but how could a single actress hold complete two and half hours movie upon her shoulder. With wafer thin predictable storyline, even top actors like Konkona Sen, Akshaye Khanna, Kunal Kapoor, Ranvir Shorey, Divya Dutta, Irfan Khan and Vinay Pathak seemed wasted. The movie would have fared much better as theater musical instead of serving as movie, specially the climax Laila-Majnu musical drama.

Rating:

The storyline is pretty simple. Dia (Madhuri) lives in New York as dance trainer along with her daughter. One day she gets call from India about her musical Guru who is dying soon. On her way back to India, flashback is shown about her past life. How her Guru had taught her dances and how she had flown away in love along a national geographic photographer to USA leaving her small town and Ajanta (dance academy). Upon reaching her hometown, she gets message from her dieing Guru informing that Ajanta was soon to be demolished by the MP of the town to build shopping mall. The ailing guru pleads Dia to save Ajanta before he dies.

Now Dia journey starts to save Ajanta. She has to teach the town people how to dance and present one musical within next two months. The whole movie then concentrates on how she teaches those people dance and finally makes them perform musical drama - Laila Majnu.

The movie consist too many subplots and supporting characters but none of them are powerful and significant enough to smoothly precede the movie. The movie could have easily turned into musical theater drama instead of commercial cinema. The movie seriously lacked the entertainment quotient, apart from the title song and climax musical drama hardly there is any scene which you remember after the movie.

The screenplay was complete led down with petty dialogues and usual plots. Despite being musical, only song hum able song was the title song - aaja nachle. Choreography of the songs were better though, specially climax Laila Majnu one. Performance wise Madhuri steals the show, the whole movie belongs to her. Even after such a long hiatus, her dance still mesmerizes audience. Konkona did justice to the role, but she had nothing special to prove her skills. Same goes to almost all other supporting actors. Specially, Akshay Khanna was completely wasted.

Despite Dhak Dhak girl’s presence, the movie lacks life…