Banner: Percept Picture Company Director: Nagesh Kukunoor Cast: John Abraham, Sonal Sehgal, Anaitha Nair, Girish Karnad, Farida Jalal, Master Ashwin Chitale

MUMBAI: Aashayein is a poor example of filmmaking from start to end. There is a huge set right out of a C grade film where people bet on cricket in lakhs and crores. Most extras don‘t look like they can afford a cup of tea, let alone bet in lakhs. Is this how betting on cricket is conducted? Quite a revelation!

John Abraham bets his girlfriend Sonal Sehgal‘s savings to come back with a win of millions to discover that he has lung cancer and about three months to live. Like all film heroes he is brave about his cancer, even laughs at it!

And, while sprinting on a street in the dead of the night, in true filmy style, an old newspaper comes and hits him in the face. This leads him to Xanadu a hospice where terminal patients spend their last days. John Abraham buys his way in to the hospice which claims funds to be scarce but has five star amenities like two cooks serving delicacies from six nations!! After this, the film tries to be many films, Hrishikesh Mukherjee‘s Anand included, but ends up being a fantasy with poor imagination. To put it mildly, viewing it becomes intolerable!

With a poor script and poorer direction, the few good moments in the film are provided by Anaitha Nair, a 17-year inmate at the hospice whose dialogue is pungently witty and her last wish is to bed John Abraham who complements her well. Rest of the performances are good, too. Rest of the aspects are mediocre.

As mentioned on the onset, a poor specimen of film making.