(U Me Aur Hum Fares Badly at U.S. Box Office)
When the definitive history of Bollywood is written, Ajay Devgan will easily be counted among the biggest thieves and liars the Mumbai film industry has produced.
Why do we say this?
Because we almost fell off our seats when we saw Ajay Devgan claiming credit for a story that is not clearly his as the credits flashed on the screen before U Me Aur Hum started at Regal Cinemas in Burlington (New Jersey).
This fella, Ajay Devgan, sure has some cojones - first he brazenly steals, then he shamelessly claims what he stole is his!
Say what you will but we don’t have a shred of doubt that U Me Aur Hum is a crude lift of that fine Hollywood romance The Notebook based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks. We recently borrowed The Notebook (2004) from Netflix, watched it and loved it.
Set in the American south, The Notebook is a gorgeous romantic tale featuring Canadian actors Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, and two veterans James Garner and Gena Rowlands. All of them are strong performers, particularly Ryan Gosling, James Garner and Gena Rowlands.
Notebook director Nick Cassavetes (Gena Rowlands’ son in real life) does a fine job in building the relationship between Noah (Ryan Gosling) and Allie (Rachel McAdams) layer upon layer - Allie’s visit with her parents to the small town of Seabrook where Noah works in the lumbermill earning 40 cents an hour, their first meeting at the local carnival, Noah’s foolhardy antics on the ferris wheel, their passionate love affair, their parting, Allie’s subsequent engagement to the wealthy Lon Hammond and Allie’s ultimate reunion with Noah are all handled with great panache and elan.
A pale imitation of the fine Hollywood romantic tale, U Me Aur Hum never once scales the entertaining heights of The Notebook.
Like The Notebook, U Me Aur Hum is the tale of a young man Ajay Mehra (Ajay Devgan) whose beloved wife slips into Alzheimers (or senile dementia as it’s referred to in the Hollywood version). While it happens after long years of happy married life in The Notebook, the wife Piya (Kajol) gets Alzheimers at just 28 in U Me Aur Hum.
Besides taking up the director’s baton (his first) in U Me Aur Hum, Ajay Devgan is also the producer of this eminently forgettable movie.
There are way too many discordant notes in U Me Aur Hum - irrelevant side stories of Ajay’s friends Vicky and Natasha, the constant bickering of Nikhil and Reena, sub-mediocre acting by Kajol, so-so acting by her real-life husband Ajay Devgan, lack of chemistry between Kajol-Ajay Devgan (a big zero compared to the on-screen chemistry of Ryan Gosling-Rachel McAdams in Notebook), irrelevant song intrusions and overall poor execution.
U Me Aur Hum should have also been edited better, lopping off at least 30 minutes of the movie. That would have spared us some of the agony.
DDLJ girl Kajol is considered one of the finest actresses in Bollywood. Alas, you rarely see shades of her much ballyhooed acting prowess in U Me Aur Hum.
Kajol cannot hold a candle to Rachel McAdam or to the extraordinary Gena Rowlands and lacks the depth of their acting talent.
While Kajol is tolerable as the younger waitress on the cruise liner where she first meets Ajay Devgan in the movie, she is pathetically unequal to the task of playing an Alzheimers patient. Gena Rowlands did it with great verve in The Notebook. Kajol exemplifies - and repeatedly shows - inexperience in handling that onerous responsibility.
Do you think it’s too late to send Kajol to acting school?
While U Me Aur Hum is overall a sub-mediocre movie, several parts of the second half are plain boring. Like for instance, Ajay Devgan rambling on and on about an individual’s self-defense mechanism.
While the music is not hopeless in U Me Aur Hum, it’s nothing remarkable either. Mostly the garden variety stuff that doesn’t leave much of an impression.
You’ll know what a mediocre movie U Me Aur Hum is only after you watch The Notebook.
There are so many memorable moments in The Notebook - like when Allie and Noah go to the abandoned home that Noah wants to buy and restore some day, their first parting, when they go in the boat in the rain during her return to Seabrook and so on.
There are just no great, memorable moments in U Me Aur Hum.
The Notebook is a cause for celebration while U Me Aur Hum is a cause for lamentation at the long miles that Bollywood - and Ajay Devgan in particular - still has to cover.
blah! blah! blah! blah!You just cant stop praising the hollywood movies,they were like this.O my good so beautifull.
i mean everyone not only in india but also in usa and uk are not saying the movie is bad at all if some are not prasing it.Atleast they are liking Ajay’s acting and direction and kajol’s acting.But you just don’t like anything.
But can you please TRYTHFULLY tell me,how WAS PEOPLE’S REACTION AND WAS THE HALL FULL.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. Hall #13 at Regal Cinemas in Burlington (New Jersey) for the 9:55PM Friday show of U Me Aur Hum was not full but had many, many more people than the 6:20PM show of Krazzy 4 at the same theater on the same day. People did not seem to be too enthused about U Me Aur Hum. There was a fair bit of chitchat in the hall, one sign that the audience was not completely engaged with the movie.
2. Why do you ignore the fact that U Me Aur Hum is a crude lift of The Notebook
Ignore this tripe and go to [different site] for a real review. The buffoons here are the biggest idiots on the planet.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Go away, you ignorant mongrel.
I do think it is too late to send you to any school, preiod. You seem to be suffering from a bad case of mad cows disease.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
And you sir are suffering from a bad case of hemorrhoids of the mouth!
look,it might be lifted but u also can’t ignore the fact that it has been directed by debutdent director ajay and how beautifully he has acted and directed it siumultaneously.every movie has flaws but u just painted a bad image of the movie.just forget the notebook and see u me aur hum as an independent movie than tell how was it
Can you please tell me the boxoffice report of u me aur hum in usa
SearchIndia.com Responds:
The full U.S. boxoffice report for the weekend usually comes out on Monday evening. We’ll do a post on the boxoffice report Monday.
P.S: Please click here for U.S. Box Office Report of U Me Aur Hum.
Another shameful and impudent robbery by Bollywood. The humongous plagiarism taking place in Bollywood at present assumed a very severely contagious form of the most unscrupulous and unchecked art piracy and I feel it is high time the French/Korean/Chinese/Hollywood writer/director/producer victims are notified of the millions that are being milked out of the ‘free remakes’ of their originals at a ‘certain part of the world’ behind their backs. A special international court at UN to prosecute these thankless art burglars wouldn’t be out of place. I fail to understand for the life of me, whether this type of rampant forgery is just a preliminary part of a bigger artistic evolution taking place in Indian movie industry or a hideous mutant natural sequence of movie-making that has stubbornly entrenched itself in odious cultural hypocrisy, unrepentant indulgence in repulsive lyricism and blatant intellectual inertia for time immemorial. If we ever can see the light at the end of this long dark rancid tunnel called ‘Indian Cinema’, I certainly consider it a miracle.
The worst review, rather the most dishonest review….Dude u shd go n see da movie urself n then comment on Kajol’s performance n ajay’s direction…..My advyc 2 all da readers wud b 2 ignore dis piece of shit n go watch da movie urself…..
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Hanuman, did someone set fire to your tail? Why are you frothing at the mouth?
You blithering idiot, can’t you read. We clearly mentioned where we watched the movie and the show too (in a response to ajayrocks above). Read the review and other comments+our responses again. And again. And again. After 100 times, maybe - a big maybe in your case - you’ll understand where and when we watched U Me Aur Hum.
You call us dishonest, scumbag! You want to see dishonest, take a look in the mirror.
Stick to Hindi, Bengali or Bhojpuri blogs in future, you dolt, because even basic English is beyond your ken.
The person who has written the above review either is not intellectually fit enough to understand movies or suffers from ‘attention seeking disorder’…Whosoever reads the review should take into note the above facts..dude go and watch Notebook again..try to understand it and then compare the two movies..saying U Me aur Hum is a copy of Hollywood flick Notebook is like comparing apples to pears and saying that the both are fruits and hence are same…[Abuse and trash talk]
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Are you sure there’s something above your neck?
U Me Aur Hum Fares Badly at U.S. Box Office
Blah Blah Blah..ya sure!!
SearchIndia.com Responds:
What?
What a worst review given by you.
First tell me if instead of Ajay Devgan what will you say if there is ” Shahrukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Saif Ali Khan, or any other you like ” ?
This movie is great enough as a directional debue and regarding the question about the acting Ajay is the legend of Acting & Kajol is the Queen of Acting.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above - Ajay is the legend of Acting & Kajol is the Queen of Acting
And You are King of Idiots because you are suggesting that if the actors were Shahrukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan, Aamir Khan, Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Saif Ali Khan, our review would have been different.
Were you born stupid? You schmuck, read our reviews of Jodhaa Akbar (Hrithik Roshan), Om Shanti Om (Shahrukh Khan), Ram Gopal Varma Kii Aag (Amitabh Bachchan), Race (Saif Ali Khan) etc.
Read the above reviews & then tell us if you still think we’re biased.
SearchIndia.com is the most objective source of Bollywood, Kollywood & Hollywood movie reviews.
“SearchIndia.com is the most objective source of Bollywood, Kollywood & Hollywood movie reviews.”
Hilarious! I haven’t laughed this hard in eons.
Surely you realize that April 1st has long since passed.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
When did they let you out of the looney bin?
Oh look! searchindia.com’s vaunted Hollywood is releasing utter trash like 88 minutes starring Al Pacino (Searchindia.com’s put-on-a-pedestal A grade hollywood star). I haven’t seen a movie get so utterly unilaterally trashed by reviewers. Another dud, though not as bad, is Academy Award winning actor Forest Whitaker’s Street Kings which is also getting panned left, right and center.
Looks those Hollywood bozos can’t make good movies with the top A Grade actors. Actually, the ignorant buffoons that run this site just have blind idiotic reverence for all things US and Hollywood.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Since we were out watching Smart People (a lovely movie), we have yet to catch 88 Minutes. Since you have not said whether you’ve watched either of the two movies you referred to above, we have to assume that you have not seen them and are just exgurgitating whatever you quickly scavenged on Rotten Tomatoes or other such sites.
Notwithstanding your “screen scraper” blather about 88 Minutes, Al Pacino is an actor par excellence with movies like Godfather, Scarface and Serpico under his belt. Tis true that some critics like the New York Times’ Manohla Dargis have been harsh on 88 Minutes.
We know it’s hard for a dolt like you but it’d be nice if you made the effort to make some original contribution here instead of just bloviating nonsense or hastily stringing together a bunch of words that you’ve scavenged from other web sites.
Although I do not always agree with SearchIndia’s reviews i have to agree with them on this. Sadly U Me, Aur Hum is a sad and pitiful ‘remake’ of a beautiful classic. the entire movie completely lacks in substance, form and content. the attention paid to the disease iteself and how it affects the lives of its sufferes and their loved ones clearly leaves one with the impression that the movie was not well researched and scripted. the dialog does not lend itself to portraying the suffering, anguish, etc felt by the characters. as with all bollywood movies of late more attention is paid to the song and dance routines rather than the actual story itself..and this is where bollywood clearly fails each time. i am an avid indian movie fan but lately no bollywood movie has grasped my attention by doing justice to any movie…the acting is atrocious and the movie itself is completely devoid of that x factor which makes a movie great. the box office may be cashing in on some of the ’so called blockbusters’ but it in no way reflects the acting talent of the actors and the ability of bollywood to produce great movies. i am sure there are those who share my sentiments and long for the great bollywood movies of yesteryear such as mughal-e-azaaam, dosti, boot polish, sangam, noorie - these were and still is great movies by any industry standards simply because they focused on quality and not quantity.
I watch last night this bollywood movie. And I realy love the story,performances by couple. I agree with SearchIndia.com reviews as they are indicating about boxoffice report or business of the film. By business reports it does not mean that film is not good. Film is superb and I notice some movies in the past also run like that. I can give two names of the movies those badly flop on the boxoffice in early weeks but now these movies are alltime blockbusters. MOTHER INDIA and MERA NAAM JOKER. These two movies were totaly flop at early release but laterly superb hits.
We cant ignore the fact. Anyhow, I notice from above comments that some guys dislike your views because they like the actor of the film. Yea he is black and not as smart as some others but it’s also reality that he prove himself in the industry since 20 years. As I last time watch his movie with Aishwarya Rai in which he plays the role of her husband with Salman Khan. And he give 100% Performance. He is very talented actor.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
We were always under the impression that Raj Kapoor lost his shirt with Mera Naam Joker (lovely songs). And you say the opposite. Interesting.
You write above in your comment about Ajay Devgan Yea he is black and not as smart as some others.
Do you think if Ajay Devgan starts applying Fair & Lovely Cream on his skin, he’ll become fair and lovely.
I just watched this film and I have to say I was completely bored by the first half of it. I can’t make comparisons with ‘The Notebook’ as I haven’t had the time to see it yet. I wouldn’t be surprised however, if U Me Aur Hum was a blatant copy of it. The first half of the film was so clichéd and uninteresting for me. There were very few scenes in the second half of the film of which I found mildly appealing. But the whole film just dragged! I found myself daydreaming throughout a lot of it. I guess it’s just harder for Hindi films to capture my attention. I don’t even want to talk about Tamil films… (they’re a whole different story)…
I read the review and there are parts I agree with and parts that I dont quite agree with. I find it tad childish on part of the person who wrote the review to directly compare the 2 movies across 2 different filmmaking styles however(holly/bolly). All the kajol bashing is also a little lame given that she has performed better in the past. Actually, I find all the being in awe of hollywood actors or actors in general quite silly. Halle Berry did get an oscar and she did act in Catwoman. Doesnt prove squat. I think its more to do with the director than anything else. There are exceptions as Meryl Streep, Smita Patil, Shabana Aazmi, Laura Linney and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Dont love Kajol, especially not in all the U Me garbage but she has done 100 times better in the past. Anyway I think I am digressing
Personally, I found U me.. to be much more similar to “Away from her” than the notebook, especially all the part about being sent to a care facility. And also, The notebook was much more poorly recieved than away from her. The notebook was a somewhat good attempt at commercializing Alzheimer’s. Much better movies on the same topic are “Iris” and “Away from her”. Perhaps I am biased towards away from her because I am here in Canada.
Anyhow, I dont think its a big deal that the movie was “adapted” from whatever dementia related movie one can think of. After all, thats a concept and perhaps the Indian audience in India does deserve to see a movie on this topic (oh yes there ARE people who dont know english - good god!!!). It doesnt still excuse devgan from making the peice of crap that U me aur hum is at the end of the day. Everything from makeup (could you make her look any more ugly?) to the dialogues to camera work etc was third rate. I was just expecting a technically well made and well acted movie. Basically the exact same movie as U me hum is at the moment, but different actors (maybe Shiny and Chitrangdha), no annoying sidekicks, 30 mins less(completely agree with that), only mild songs such as the title song (which does have very good gulzar-esque lyrics if one gets to paying attention to them) and maybe even more gloss (and i mean gloss as in a good sharmishtha roy kind of art direction and not over the top farah khan way). Maybe get Gulzar or Shekhar Kapur to direct it? Maybe even extract Mahesh Bhatt’s soul from the days of Arth? The results would have been quite different.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
We see nothing wrong with comparison across genres or across geographically different film models (Bollywood & Hollywood), Given the rampant plagiarism in Bollywood from Hollywood movies, comparisons are actually a must.
You write: I think its more to do with the director than anything else.
We think it has to do with a good director AND a good story. One without the other serves no purpose. Most of our Bollywood movies lack both.
We see nothing wrong with comparison across genres or across geographically different film models (Bollywood & Hollywood), Given the rampant plagiarism in Bollywood from Hollywood movies, comparisons are actually a must.
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I didn’t quite imply that there shouldnt be any comparison, but more so along the lines of compare when the comparison serves a purpose. We all know that it is an adaptation/plagiarism etc So a frame by frame comparison doesnt serve much purpose.
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You write: I think its more to do with the director than anything else.
We think it has to do with a good director AND a good story. One without the other serves no purpose. Most of our Bollywood movies lack both.
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Well yes of course, good director, good story, good actors, good editing .. the whole 9 yards. By emphasizing the director i was just trying to point out what I thought was relatively more important. Its a subjective discussion though.
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On another note, I think its a given that you will have the last the word, given that you control this web board. That is fine. In a way you are entitled to because you are making the effort of maintaining it.
But perhaps you are somewhat missing the point of having a healthy discussion. You make some excellent points and I have been through many other posts to see many instances of well thought out logical arguments. But quite sadly, very often they are wrapped in an unhealthy layer of vitriol and negativism. Do you really have to respond to each and every even minute criticism of your statements? Where does this belief of infallibility coming from?
On the same note, this is more of a communication between me and you (I really do think there is only one person editing this - I could be wrong). So it might be best to not publish this entire comment at all. No attempts at trying to have the last word here. Just a healthy positive discussion, if one can be had.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write above: Where does this belief of infallibility coming (sic) from?
From the certainty that we are the incarnation of Vishnu