Three actors, each a heartthrob in his/her own right. A love triangle. Treading the grounds of terrorism. Giving out a social message. No extraneous song-and-dance routines. Yash Raj Banner. No big ticket cricket season to distract the moviegoers…

By the looks of it, director Kabir Khan’s New York was the kind of blockbuster Bollywood needed to relinquish itself from the economic recession and the two month long standoff between the producers and the multiplex owners. Except that it has failed to bust any blocks, yet.

Samir Sheikh a.k.a Sam (John Abraham), Maya (Katrina Kaif) and Omar Aijaz (Neil Nitin Mukesh) are the three, seemingly protagonists of the movie. They are the undergraduates studying at the New York State University, and classmates of each other. Sam is the sporty, attention seeking and intelligent guy who believes in enjoying life to the fullest. Maya is equally vivacious, and proudly proclaims that her mother will readily elope with Shahrukh Khan given the slightest chance. Omar, on the other hand, is a shy, “good boy” kind of a person who is new to the American brand of life, having moved in recently – all thanks to a scholarship. Both Sam and Omar secretly like Maya. And Maya secretly likes Sam. The two meet, get married, have a son, and they are off. Omar, on the other hand, is reduced to the sidelines – never to return in the lives of two of his best friends. Or is it?

Years afterwards, Omar – who still lives in the city, gets some unexpected visitors. The FBI, out there to arrest him. Agent Roshan, played by now stereotyped Irrfan Khan, wants him to act as an undercover agent for them, because they suspect that Sam is running a terror camp in New York.

Omar, having reluctantly agreed, enters into the lives of Sam, Maya and Daaniyal (their son) yet again. And a curious turn of events follow up.

The story, written by Aditya Chopra, is intriguing – but the buck stops there. The first half of the movie, dealing with college, love, friendship et al, is almost weird to watch. There are too many awkward moments and the screenplay falters frequently, as if being paid to do that. You get sick of Hai Junoon, for it plays continuously for the first half an hour! John Kat and Neil are just too old to play collegiates. Further, the story keeps jumping up and down nine years apart, and this hasn’t been done tastefully, to the likes of, say Rang De Basanti.

The music is as good as Pritam can give you. As I’ve said, there are no song-and-dance routines in the film. The track tune jo na kaha is good, but I think that its a matter of time before someone unearths its original – if you know what I mean There are no tracks worth remembering, and certainly no tracks which strike a chord.

As far as the performance goes, John and Kat have done their usual, mediocre stuff, but Neil has done loads better. He brings out the inner conflict raging inside him superbly. However, he looks very childish in his avtar as a college student. Irrfan Khan has portrayed his role as an FBI officer well, owing to the fact that he has played a lot of similar roles (Slumdog Millionaire, A Mighty Heart to speak of a few). Like the music, there are no performances worth remembering, and certainly no performances which strike a chord.

On the whole, the movie has its strong points, but the weak and the mediocre ones clearly outstrip them. Watch it only if you are sick of waiting for movies to release, or if you are a really big fan of Irrfan Khan