News Desk (By Priyesh Ranjan): Nagesh Kukunoor is known to make films which talk about the spirit of life. His films Iqbal and Dor had his exceptional touch and beautifully captured the various shades of life and its celebration. Aashayein is another attempt by the filmmaker on the same lines.

Aashayein starts with the outlook of a brilliant movie but fails largely due to its paper thin plot and unimaginative writing.

The story of a compulsive gambler, Aashayein is a confused hotchpotch of many messages, none hard enough to hit you. The film is a story of 35-year-old Rahul (John Abraham) who finds out that he has lung cancer, right after he proposes marriage to his girlfriend.

He is shattered and decides to leave her. He reaches a charity care home in Pondicherry (Puducherry) where many other terminally ill patients live. While he seeks to live his remaining life in peace, he sees gloom of death all around.

This movie is a journey about love, hate, hope and death. You can notice John giving it his all to portray his character. In fact in the last few reels you simply forget you are watching John Abraham the cool dude star.

It is definitely an award worthy act. Anitha Nair, best remembered for her 'Chak De India' role is terrific and deserves to get more such challenging roles. In a relatively smaller role, Sonal Sehgal, playing John’s girlfriend manages to impress. Farida Jalal is sweet as usual. Girish Karnad is good and so is Prateeksha Lonkar.

Aashayein generates quite a lot of interest and many of the songs are hummable. The film consists mostly of love songs. It switches genre to a fairytale fantasy in the second half with John Abraham’s whimsical pursuit to defeat death.

Cast: John Abraham, Sonal Sehgal

Director: Nagesh Kukunoor

Music: Salim-Sulaiman

Our Rating: **