July 8, 2010 (Sampurn Wire): Today, if a new film starring Shahid Kapoor and Kareena Kapoor would have been announced, it would have made a huge noise for sure. However, that is missing in case of ‘Milenge Milenge’ because the stars themselves are not quite leading from the front for the film’s promotion. Shahid Kapoor is in UK shooting for ‘Mausam’ while Kareena Kapoor is off to Morocco to complete a quick schedule for ‘Agent Vinod’. Incidentally, both these films are their home productions.

With no stars available for the film’s promotion, it has indeed been quite some effort for producers Boney Kapoor and director Satish Kaushik to ready the film for release, six years after it was launched. No wonder, the trade can’t be expected to be abuzz with much excitement and the film is only being looked at as a gamble. Around half a decade back, when ‘Hum Tumhaare Hai Sanam’ (Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Madhuri Dixit) was released after a similar delay, it had still managed to do good business at the box office. It was surprising for sure and all one can hope this week is good for the surprise factor to help ‘Milenge Milenge’ as well.

The fact remains though that the film can’t really be expected to take the kind of opening that would make it safe on the first day itself. Anything more than 50% would be a happy situation for the makers here though the question is whether such occupancy is possible, especially because ‘I Hate Luv Storys’ is doing well. Still, star value coupled with some good music could result in ‘Milenge Milenge’ turning out to be a face saver at the least.

The other release of the week, ‘Red Alert - The War Within’, hasn’t been promoted adequately despite its topic theme (Naxal issue in the country) and the critical acclaim it has received internationally. Ready for quite some time now, the film had all the time in the world to have made use of some good marketing strategy being put to effective use and a good promotional drive taking it through. However, the makers surprisingly chose to stay low which means it would be a miracle if the film holds on. Don’t quite expect an opening of sorts here though critical acclaim could well come in for this Ananth Mahadevan directed film.

–Joginder Tuteja/ Sampurn Wire