Jaal - The Trap   Producer: Vinod and Harish Shah Director: Guddu Dhanoa Starring: Sunny Deol, Jackie Shroff, Tabu, Reema Sen, Farida Jalal, Amrish Puri, Anupam Kher, Virendra Saxena and Shahbaaz Khan Music: Anand Raj Anand Lyrics: Sameer Genre: Action Recommended Audience: Parental Guidance Film Released on: 18 July 2003 Reviewed by: Abid  - Rating: 7.0 / 10   Let us know what you think about this review Music Review

Jaal -The Trap, finally released this Friday after many postponments. Sunny Deol the leading man has been around for almost 22 years and is still acceptable to his fans across India as a hero.

The movie opens with a chase sequence across the 3500m, Rohtang Pass, shown as a part of New Zealand. Anita Chaudhry (Reema Sen) is saved in the nick of time by major Kaul (Amrish Puri).  Anita is the daughter of  home minister, Virendra Saxena and the terrorists want to kidnap her and thats why she is in New Zealand in Major´s custody

The movie then moves to Shimla and Sunny´s introduction scene is in the form of a song "Indian Sher Dil". The arrival of Sunny´s father, Amrish Puri in India and Neha´s (Tabu) introduction and her first interaction with Sunny are portions which have been well picturised. The subsequent verbal skirmishes between father and son have an undercurrent of humour. Sunny´s desperate attempts at trying to win over Tabu in his own ´macho´ way keeps the interest of the audience going. As expected both fall in love with each other.

However, when everything seems normal, Tabu is kidnapped by the terrorists and the movie is set up beautifully at the half way point. The villain Junaid Afgahni (Mukesh Rishi) sets a condition for the release of Tabu - Sunny has to kidnap and hand over Reema Sen.

Post interval the action shifts to New Zealand and the one-upmanship game between Sunny and Reema Sen are routine. Finally Reema is won over by Sunny and she falls in love with him and the two of them flee to India. 

Once there Sunny hands over Reema in return for his beloved Tabu, but here the movie takes an unexpected turn. The climax that follows has a thrill a minute and the final train sequence in Rajasthan is one of the best action sequence seen in recent times. The beauty of this sequence is that it has no computer generated special effects, and shows why Tinnu Verma is one of the best as far as these big action sequences are concerned. The final few reels are breath taking and Sunny excels in what is his forte.

The movie is in two distinct parts. Pre-interval is aimed at the family and the post-interval is for hard core Sunny fans.

As far as the performances are concerned Sunny shows his range as an actor. The emotional, romantic and comedy scenes have all been performed effortlessly by Sunny. The myth that Sunny can only bad mouth terrorists and shout has been broken once gain by him.

Tabu gives a stunning performance and shows why she is considered one of the best actresses. To say that Reema Sen is iritating during the post interval portions is an understatement. However during the later part of the movie she redeems herself to an extent. Amrish Puri who was injured near the Rohtang Pass at a place called Rani Nala during the shooting of Jaal gives a polished though predictable performance. Anupam Kher is excellent while Virendra Saxena, Shahbaaz Khan, Farida Jalal (as Sunny´s mother) are adequate. Amongst the songs "Sona Sona Soniye" and "Indian Indian Sherdil" are picturised well while the best song "Humsafar" has to be chopped as it hampers the speed of the climax. The beautiful locales of New Zealand, Shimla & Manali look good on screen thanks to the camerawork of Shripad Natu.

Jaal - The Trap, which is reasonably priced for a Sunny Movie, may get bad reviews from learned critics like all Sunny movies, but on the box office, will fare best in Delhi-UP, Central India, Punjab, Bihar and interiors of Mumbai territory, which should keep its distributors happy.