By: Somesh Vasishth

A question first, why a 45 plus actor is prancing around the trees, sporting leather pants to woo his ladylove? Your guess is as good as mine. Waiting for action? You'll have to wait! Our muscle flexing messiah is busy courting a widow teacher (Tabu) in the hillies instead of beating the baddies.

Cut to the story. Kashmiri militants are at it once again. No need to worry beacuse Ajay's (Sunny Deol) father Major Kaul (Amrish Puri) has taken up the mantle to protect the Minister's daughter Anita (Reema Sen) from being kidnapped in New Zealand. In the meanwhile, his son is torn between pursuing his dreams and fulfilling his father's wishes.

But nothing goes easy for our hero. The moment Tabu's father-in-law (Anupam Kher) agrees to their relationship, the poor lass is kidnapped by our Kashmiri bretheren. Their leader (Mukesh Rishi) demands the minister's daughter in return. Love struck Ajay promptly gives in and leaves for New Zealand.

Major Kaul is thrilled to see his son joining his league. Predictably, Anita also falls for the Indian hunk. Her father comes to New Zealand with a young man and wants her to marry him. But Anita refuses and asks Sunny to take her to India. Ajay grabs the opportunity and hands over Anita to the militants. Now he is feverishly awaiting the return of his beloved. Here comes the twist in the tale...

Apart from a few well orchestrated action sequences, Jaal falls flat on it's originality. Performance wise, Sunny is as good as it gets. What's Tabu doing in films like Jaal and Hawa is completely incomprehensible. Reema Sen goes over the top in few sequences. Amrish Puri is like an old wine, the 'lesser' the better. Mukesh Rishi is as fake as his beard.

Adesh Srivastava's background score is much better than Anand Raaj Anand's music. Shripad Natu's manages to shoot some pictureseque sequences with his camera. All in all, Jaal fails to net the audiences for too long.