Family-Ties Of Blood

Despite its rather off-putting title, Family—Ties of Blood, is quite ok till about the interval. After that, it degenerates into unredeemable tripe. To begin with, it's interesting to see the parallels drawn between two diametrically opposite families—that of a chef Shekhar (Akshay) and the other of the mafia don Viren Sahai (Amitabh) who operates from Bangkok. While one is all about cosy togetherness and sweet harmony, the other is about relationships gone awry. The contrasts are reflected not just in the values and morals the families stand for, but also in the moodiness and atmospherics. And Santoshi accentuates the disparity by jerkily cutting from one family situation to the other and also makes the audience swing on the emotional pendulum—all smiles one moment and eerie doom the next.

Then there's an immensely likeable and charming Akshay displaying a nice sense of comic timing as he keeps trying rather goofily to pop the question to his doctor friend Bhumika Chawla. He acts engagingly and effortlessly. And then the all-important moment arrives when the two families collide. Viren accidentally kills Shekhar in one of his shootouts. And that moment kills the film as well. It's not just unpardonable to knock off the most popular character but the sudden manner of killing seems more imposed than a logical step in the evolution of the plot. The second half is nothing more than a violent tale of mindless revenge with the climax stretching on endlessly. Shekhar's younger brother Aryan (Aryeman, with hooded eyes, a prominent lisp and zero magic) kidnaps the entire family of the don to get even with him. His transformation from an uncaring, carefree loser to a man with a mission is drawn out sketchily. The character of Viren too is badly written with hardly any grounding or growth. What spoils the show further are the terrible songs, both in terms of the lack of melody and in being totally extraneous to the narrative. Most irritating, however, is the use of the word family or parivar. It figures is just about every single sentence. After a while I got too bored to count any more.

INDIAN Top 5
1. Zinda
2. Families: Ties of Blood
3. Bluffmaster
4. Jawani Diwani
5. Kalyug

US Top 5
1. Glory Road
2. Hoodwinked
3. Last Holiday
4. The Chronicles of Narnia
5. Hostel

Courtesy: Film Information