Movie: "Hume Tumse Pyaar Kitna"
Cast: Karanvir Bohra, Priya Banerjee, Sameer Kochhar
Director: Lalit Mohan
Rating: *** (3 stars)

In a world desperately seeking salvation, stalking is a scourge that needs to be addressed with care and sensitivity. "Hume Tumse Pyaar Kitna" is commendable for bringing up the theme of unwanted attention.

Television star Karanvir Bohra bravely gives the role of Dhruv the stalker his best shot. Lean, mean and disoriented, he is reasonably frightening in his persistence. His object of adoration is a celebrity-writer Ananya (Priya Banerjee), and their game of cat-and-mouse has a certain momentum that is sustained till the end.

However, the narrative fails to bring up the reason for Dhruv's obsessive behaviour. Is he in love or does he suffer from delusions of love?

The film will immediately remind audiences of Yash Chopra's "Darr" where Shah Rukh Khan gave a star-making turn as Juhi Chawla's obsessive lover. And to remind us of "Darr" Ms Chawla herself shows up at one point in the story.

As homage to Shah Rukh's iconic career-defining role, "Hume Tumse..." is a reasonably engaging re-mix. The title song originally from the classic 1980s film "Kudrat" is used in the way the number "Jadu teri nazar" was used in "Darr". The song is used effectively to show how love can transform into a toxic destructive force in the wrong mind.

However, it must be mentioned that the stalked girl's boyfriend (Sameer's role) is even sketchier than Sunny Deol's role in "Darr". Secondary characters swish in and out of the plot like confetti blowing out of a New Year's Eve party.

The movie could have done with more fleshed-out characters and a psychological density that is sorely absent in the haphazard handling of the plot's crisis line.

Introducing a cynical cop (played by Mahesh Balraj) with a thick accent and thicker volume of Hollywood references on his sharp tongue's tip, is hardly a help. It serves merely to digress from the main plot and thereby dilute the subject even further.

This one is for fans of Karanvir Bohra who have waited to see him make a smooth transition from television to cinema. His transition is smooth in spite of the choppy waters that the plot negotiates.

(Source: IANS)