Rok Sako To Rok Lo

Rok Sako To Rok Lo (transl. Stop Me if You Can) is a 2004 Indian Hindi-language sports comedy film produced and directed by Arindam Chaudhuri, in his debut. The film stars Sunny Deol, Yash Pandit and Manjari. The music was scored by Jatin–Lalit.

Rok Sako To Rok Lo
Film poster
Directed by	Arindam Chaudhuri
Written by	Arindam Chaudhuri
Produced by	Arindam Chaudhuri
Starring	Sunny Deol Yash Pandit Manjari
Cinematography	Santosh Thundiyil
Edited by	Raviranjan Maitra
Music by	Jatin–Lalit
Release date	10 December 2004 (2004-12-10)
Country	India
Language	Hindi

Plot

There are two neighbouring high schools – Bharti School, for the middle class, and Valley High School, for the affluent. Dev, Suhana, and their friends come from Bharti and are often tormented by their enemies who come from Valley High. The Valley High students also defeat the Bharti students in every single annual inter-school event, which is the main reason why they torment the Bharti students. One day, however, the Bharti students are saved from the Valley High students by a mysterious man, Kabir Mukherjee "Phantom," whom they initially feared because of his rough looks, thereby the reason they always called him "Phantom." The Bharti students get close to Kabir and befriend him, and with time he also becomes more gentle and normal, thereby getting rid of his "Phantom" look.

Dev, however, gets attached to Sanjana, a girl from Valley High, which results in him dropping Suhana. But Sanjana eventually drops him because he once insulted her at a café and because he belongs to the rival school. One day while driving on an open road, Dev and his friends are again insulted and considered slow by the Valley High students who are driving on the same road. Dev drives faster and overtakes them, but the car meets with an accident and crashes, killing Kabir. This leaves the Bharti students depressed and defenceless against the Valley High students, with whom they have an upcoming 100 metres race competition. Dev, however, is still determined, so he trains up and attends the race with full confidence. During the race, he gets injured by one of the runners but does not lose hope, and through last-minute strength, he wins the race, thereby finally letting Bharti get their revenge on Valley High. Incidentally, the prize for the winner is a bike similar to Kabir's, so Dev becomes the new "Phantom."

Cast

• Sunny Deol as Kabir "Phantom" Mukherjee
• Yash Pandit as Dev Verma
• Manjari as Suhana Sharma
• Shreya Das as Suhana's Friend
• Namrata Shirodkar as Sandra / Narrator
• Carran Kapur as Ranveer Pratap Singh
• Aparna Kumar as Sanjana Badola
• Deepti Bhatnagar as Dev's Bhabhi
• Archana Puran Singh as Sweety
• Tinnu Anand as S.V.P.S, Balasubramaniam Iyer
• Rakesh Bedi as Ghodbole
• Rajit Kapoor as Sweety's husband
• Tiku Talsania as Sweety's husband
• Aanjjan Srivastav as Ganguly

Production

Rok Sako To Rok Lo was the directorial debut for Arindam Chaudhuri. According to him, "The central theme is friendship". He also mentioned that it would show how "the principal of management can help reduce wastage of money in the film industry." The film was one out of 50 different stories which he worked on. The cast had mostly teenage debutants, while established actors like Tikku Talsania, Archana Puransingh, Anjan Srivastva, Rakesh Bedi, Tinu Anand and Rajit Kapoor played supporting roles. To choose a title for the film, Chaudhuri conducted "market research".^[1] The film's production budget was ₹6.5 crore (equivalent to ₹23 crore or US$2.7 million in 2023), and marketing costs were ₹5.5 crore (equivalent to ₹19 crore or US$2.3 million in 2023).^[2]

Soundtrack

The film's musical score was composed by Jatin–Lalit, while the lyrics were written by Prasoon Joshi.

Track listing

No.	Title	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"Haan Mujhe Thaam Le"	Babul Supriyo, Alka Yagnik	04:25
2.	"Jaane Kise"	Shaan, Alka Yagnik	04:26
3.	"Nazron Ka Yaarana"	Shaan, Sunidhi Chauhan	05:10
4.	"Rok Sako To Rok Lo"	Shaan, Babul Supriyo, Shreya Ghoshal, Lalit Pandit, Ishaan	04:31
5.	"Tera Gham"	Sonu Nigam, Alka Yagnik	04:03
6.	"Yaaron Sun Lo"	Abhijeet Bhattacharya	05:08
7.	"Yaaron Sun Lo" (Sad)	Abhijeet Bhattacharya	01:55

Critical reception

Patcy N of Rediff.com said, "Manjari has performed well, but Yash looks nervous in some scenes", and further wrote, "I would recommend renting a Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander DVD instead of spending money to watch this film."^[3] Subhash K. Jha rated the film 2/5 and said, "Sadly, the film's basic tenor is too flighty to hold up such lofty ideas. Thoughts that go beyond eye candy entertainment float in and out of the narrative without getting a chance to lodge themselves in the plot."^[4] Taran Adarsh wrote that the film "has tremendous youth appeal and with slight trimming, it can carve a niche for itself".^[5]