/> Starring Himesh Reshammiya, Hansika Motwani, Mallika Sherawat
Directed by Prashant Chadha
Rating: *

Can Himesh Resahmmiya act? What a silly question! As silly as asking, cam Himesh sing? Of course he can't!!! Who said he was an actor in the first place?

The role of HR has been written to accentuate Himesh's capped unsmiling visage. He gets on stage, bursts into many self-written songs where hordes of fans shriek clap cheer in orgasmic opulence. They take to Himesh like fish to water.

If you are HR (Himesh Resh) you win the race even before the gun goes off.

Guns do go off in this musical thriller where the music often provides the thrills while the suspense about a murdered girl's body in the rock star's purview leaves you as cold as the corpse that triggers off a chain of reactions ranging from weird to wired --depending on which side of the stage you're standing on and peering from.

To ensure a safe passage into celluloid stardom, Himesh has spared no pains. Aap Ka Surroor has everything from untried snowcapped location to spotlight the capped cheer-leaders auspicious journey into the sphere of stardom, to dozens of autorickshaws suddenly appearing to support Himesh's hefty hijinks.

To be fair the songs and the stage performances do make your pulse pound and your feet feverishly wild. The Mehbooba track put there mainly to make Mallika sizzle with our ever-grim hero, gets slightly off-colour. It tries too hard to win over the audience and influence their judgement.

But you really can't win- over the audience with songs and stage performaces. They see Himesh doing that anyway. What was required was a strong plot-line to carry his acting aspirations into the sphere of the bearable, if not the believable.

Vibha Singh's screenplay seems to have borrowed generously, if somewhat uneccesarily from Jon Avnet's thriller Red Corner where Richard Gere played a foreigner in China who has to clear himself of murder charges with the help of a sexy lawyer.

Sexy is as sexy 'dose'. Dose nahin koi tumsa, Mallika!

Mallika doubling up as a femme fatale and a lawyer provides all the unintentional laughter. She can't act to save Himesh's life. And she can't dance for nuts. So what can she do?

Hmmmm....good question. And as hard to answer as the original brain basher: why did Himesh decide to become an actor when he very obviously can't act?

His leading lady Hansika Motwani can act. She does so in every moment, countering Himesh's deadpan expressions with an overdose of facial gymnastics which qualify her as the new-age all-purpose Barbie doll.

Rock meets dead-wood in this mixture of staged splendour and doctored misadventure. The locations are well exploited by Manoj Soni's camera. The frames avoid garish overstatement.

But a quiet confidence is no substitute for genuine ability.

Both Himesh and his director fail to generate a high level of curiosity in the Screen Adventures Of The Nasal Drifter.

Himesh, cancel the sequel.