Raja Hindustani

Directed by: Dharmesh Darshan

Starring: Aamir Khan, Karishma Kapoor, Suresh Oberoi

Released: 1996

Verdict: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - good – great – amazing

When I think about it, it was not really Devdas, that was my first brush with Bollywood, but Raja Hindustani. A friend of mineshowed me a youtube video – for laughs, commenting on it as the song progressed. A seriously depressed guy singing his heart out while object of his desire sits all quiet with eyes bulging wide to the point of scary, a weird man dressed as a woman, a woman with so much paint on her face and drinking from the bottle being disturbing, and finally big finale with the girl falling into the boy´s arms and her father being apparently displeased. My friend thought the song was the movie´s finale. How wrong was she, unfamiliar with Bollywood ways back then. The song was Pardesi Pardesi and it signified only the beggining of the all the troubles for the on-screen couple.

Rich and beautiful Aarti (Karishma Kapoor who got rid of her mad curls and shaped her wild eyebrows which she sported in the early 90s) makes a sentimental trip to a small city of Palanketh, a place where her parents first met, before leading a loving marriage and having Aarti. Sadly Aarti´s mother died and her father married for a second time – a much westernized (read BAD) and greedy woman, who´s fake affection for her step-daughter is so obvious it hurts. In Palanketh Aarti, accompanied by a sibling duo of brother and sister who, for the sake of laughs, switched personalities and visage, meets a poor taxi driver Raja (Aamir Khan). Raja is not only poor though. He is honest, hard-working and obviously the director´s vision of a true Hindustani, unpolished and uneducated but with high principles of morality at heart. Principles so high I actually took offense because it bordered on completely sexist.

Mr. Morality has problems with guys liking her in dresses but standing under the same tree in a rain is obviously a completely moral opportunity to get seriously cozy.

A woman he has no relation to apparently cannot wear a western (read BAD) dress of her liking, because some other uneducated men make remarks about her then. She naturally gets angry, but apparently doesn´t learn her lesson, and instead of dismissing the taxi driver, she not only falls in love with him, but actually leaves her loving father for this man, whom she only knows for a few days, and who is an utter mismatch to who she is. I could never understand why would Aarti sacrifice everything she had – not only status and riches, but her own family and even education and ambitions – for a man who refuses to change in the slightest because of her. I foud Raja extremely selfish and Aarti lost her appeal once she actually took his side, leaving heartbroken father behind.

Although at this moment she apparently realized she really screwed her life up.

Once Aarti and Raja get married, their love story actually becomes hardly bearable. Raja turns out to be proud, uncompromising, even to the point of abusive (and later in the film he goes totally bonkers), while Aarti considers an occasional dance to a catchy song a solution for all marital problems. However evil plotting westernized step-mother initiates the „happy“ couple´s split up (by pointing out the obvious – Aarti is a sophisticated and naive girl and her husband a jerk who clings to his pride more than to his love) and while Raja returns to Palanketh to grow a beard Aarti gives birth to his child. By this point the film went pretty much insane with Raja stealing the baby (because obviously he on his own in his chhota hut can give his son a better upbringing than his mother in a bungalow) and fighting a bunch of goons while still holding the baby, throwing it into the air and stuff while beating everybody up. And finale? The insane dude forgives his weeping wife because everybody gathers around and sings.

"Kaun kambakht bardasht karnay ko peeta hai?"

"Sorry. Wrong film, wrong year. Wrong Khan."

Raja Hindustani is just horrible. Aamir Khan actually gives a good performance, but Raja is just too awful as a character, Karishma Kapoor, who created sensation with this movie, is objectively speaking very weak in this movie. I like Karishma, but a great part of her films never did her justice, and she has very few performances that could be really praised. I believe that it was really her looks and style, so different from any other heroine till then, what caused the rapture and gave her a real standing among the A-listers.

The plus point would be some of the songs, and in a strange, twisted way, the movie is actually enjoyable – if you deliberately decide to turn off your brain. At the same time it is one of those movies that can only do Bollywood more harm than good when shown to a person unfamiliar with Indian cinema.

Marital advice for women: "Hubby snooty? Shake yout booty! In Ooty."

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Chalte Chalte

Directed by: Aziz Mirza

Starring: Shahrukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee

Released: 2003

Verdict: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - good – great – amazing

Sometimes I am simply in need to see something with Shahrukh Khan, no matter what it is, no matter what bad things I´ve heard about it. There was nothing particularly bad (or good for the matter) that I´ve heard about Chalte Chalte, and people hardly ever mention it, if they are not talking about the infamous Aishwarya bussiness. After seeing the film I know why. Because there is really not anything that would 1. stay in mind 2. make one go gaga (except for several shirtless SRK scenes) 3. irritate you.

Raj and Priya are both extremely attractive people from two completely different social classes, with different views of the world, life and just about everything, so they naturally fall in love. They get married after just several days. And then they realize it may not have been the best idea, as they keep fighting each other everyday over most trivial matters. They go from heartbreak to heartbreak only to realize love conquers all in the end. That´s it.

SRK hota hai.... to pyaar hota hai.

If it aims to be a love story, then the plot fails, even though the first twenty minutes are pure romance with all the naivity and fluff of Bollywood films, including infatuation at first sight, singing  instead of talking and also washing cows in the country. But as the film progresses one can see that the romancing at the beginning was just an excuse for showing us the story of man´s ego and pride. And the portrayal of it, with all the sudden ups and downs of Raj´s mood and nearly violent outbursts of anger is very real (I know some people who are exactly like that). Unfortunately the role and the film had nothing to really offer to SHAHRUKH KHAN, and Rani is even more wasted. They are both absolutely terrific actors, but here the script lets them both down - and most of the time Rani was on screen I kept imagining Aishwarya in her place, because ironically her more OTT acting and more OTT crying just might have, in the result, have greater impact. Serious lack of chemistry between the two characters doesn´t really help to save the day. And when the end comes, you cannot detect any change at all - neither in Priya nor in Raj, and one has to ask why did you have to endure this whole teary/screamy journey if it is, most likely, going to repeat again.... and again..... and again......

Welcome my bride! I have just killed the last bug in out new appartment.

There is another irony as both Shahrukh and Rani had previously done films dealing with basically the same issue – marital problems. Rani did Saathiya and Shahrukh Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam, which both had their share of success. Chalte Chalte is more polished (and technically more relevant) HTHS and slightly more mature version of Saathiya. Which leaves you with another problem. You have seen this before. And with the same actors. And as it happens just one year before.

There were little thing I loved though. First is the memorable scene of Priya coming for the first time into Raj´s appartment as a bride. The way how he quickly improvizes to finish all the rituals was absolutely sweet and well done - and Priya´s expression as she looks around and sees all the guy´s mess make you honestly laugh. This is also probably the first film where I did not see Johnny Lever being the fun part of the movie. On the contrary - it was almost painful to watch him, and I must say he was incredibly convincing and I wanted to know more about him and his character then about the whole main plot!

Johnny Lever steals the show?

But I tried so hard.

When it comes to music, again - nothing makes you excited and nothing makes you roll eyes. It is "normal", if you get the meaning. And "normal" is the whole film. I wouldn´t recommend it to a person who is not in love with either Rani or Shahrukh, and even though I love them both, it is not a film I would need to see twice.

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Players

Directed by: Abbas-Mustan

Starring: Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Bipasha Basu, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Omi Vaidya, Bobby Deol, Sikander Kher, Vinod Khanna

Released: 2012

Verdict: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - good – great – amazing

How can you take seriously somebody named Charlie Mascarenhas as a mastermind high-class, next-to-supernatural-hero thief? Even more so when he is played by Abhishek Bachchan (who just never learns)? Players (or by a more precise title „Thiefs“) was supposed to be a rocking action packed multi-starrer, but maybe it would have been better if the film was called off once people like Priyanka Chopra and Kareena Kapoor decided to say no to it, because frankly, though the cast is full of known names, none of them really sells on their own.

The „player“ Charlie with his awesome and genius mind, finds his way to super secret information about a transport of a huge amount of gold from Russia to Romania, which immediately becomes his next goal. However he´s not naive enough to think he can pull such a robbery off by himself, and so after a consultation with the best of the best players (read „thieves“), the aging and jailed Victor Dada (Vinod Khanna) he puts together a team of the best thieves with different abilities. His romantic interest Rhea (sexy but somehow boring and unpleasant Bipasha Basu) is to be useful in getting information out of certain men, then there are a master-disguiser Sunny (Omi Vaidya), explosives expert Bilal (Sikander Kher), a magician (Bobby Deol) and a hacker Spider (Neil Nitin Mukesh). And of course the super cool Charlie. However soon after actually pulling off the robbery Charlie finds out someone may have outsmarted him.... and there will be a hell to pay.

"Wait. Somebody stole my wallet. Call the police!"

What kills Players are weak and unimpressive performances, artificial dialogues and in spite of some good twist and turns a considerable level of predictability (though the last may be just my problem, I always happen to know the bad guys from the start, don´t ask me how). I actually really liked the first half, as most of the bad acting and questionable script was compensated by a well made action sequence and nice speed that did not give one too much time to analyze. However after the interval it all slowed down and somehow lost purpose and whatever thrill there was left.

We are sitting in the middle of Siberia and whole Russia is looking for us...

...so let´s drink champagne from fancy glasses we did not forget to pack.

Abhishek is someone I never minded, but I still maintain what I´ve been saying for the past year - he needs to STOP acting cool guys with brilliant minds, because he just doesn´t deliver. Perhaps now after Player, Game and Dum Maro Dum flopped he will get the message? Unfortunatelly for him I think it is too late for him to reinvent himself (hoping to be proved wrong). Sonam has definitely improved, she does not make me cringe everytime she opens her mouth anymore, however she disappoints when it comes to anything emotional. There was NO difference in her expression whether she was flirting with Abhishek, casually serving food or wathching her father being shot. Bipasha is someone whom I fail to like, she just doesn´t pick good roles and just like with Abhishek it seems she is only good for one type of roles AKA we´ve seen it all before. Neil is by far the best, however still far from being impressive. All the actors (ironically with the exception of Johny Lever) give you the impression they totally do not care about anything, least of all about acting. 

Let´s lay down the wreaths and bury this film in some dark corner of our minds.

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Sirf Tum

Directed by: Agathiyan

Starring: Sanjay Kapoor, Priya Gill, Mohnish Bell, Salman Khan, Jackie Shroff, Sushmita Sen

Released: 1999

Verdict: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - good – great – amazing

There is a guy called Deepak. He is nice, well-mannered, well-dressed, honest, pleasant, honourable, in other words he has not one single flaw. From time to time he meets a new person – for example on a train – and he notes down the person´s name and date of birth. Why? Because he is so, so good and nice that he likes to post birthday cards to these people he´ll probably never meet again. Once he finds a lady´s purse and as a true gentleman sends it by the post to the owner, who obviously had been robbed. Apart from her address he also gets to know her birth date. Which means one more card to be send every year. He doesn´t mind though. The young woman, or rather girl, Aarti who was overjoyed to see her lost purse once again, starts regularly corresponding with him and both fall in love with each other through letters. However they decide (for whatever reason I don´t get) that they will not exchange pictures, because „our love will reach from the heart to eyes“ or some nonsense like that. I would like to note that I am a great romantic and don´t believe that appearance is the most important thing in a relationship, but some beliefs are.... way too naive.

To make sure she recognizes him, when they would finally agree to meet, she makes him a rather ugly sweater (I suspect she is a Rishi Kapoor fan). He is supposed to wear it when the big day comes.

Must say that I for one would not give my address to this guy.

But then Deepak decides to leave his job in... where ever he was... because some workers refused to work and thought they´d beat him instead, and move to Delhi. Here he meets new friends (aka Jackie Shroff being wasted and Mohnish Bell being sleazy) and his beautiful employee (aka Sushmita Sen being annoyingly childish). But when she reveals she has feeling for him some time later he decides to leave his profitable job, because his heart belongs to Aarti. Meanwhile she refuses to marry a handsome, good and rich boy (aka Salman Khan being Prem – literally) and to escape from future suggestions she finds this the best time to meet Deepak. BUT here comes the catch – he didn´t send her his new address (WTF) and neither of them has ever seen each other (I knew this was going to cause some minor problems). So even while she is sobbing at the backseat of a rickshaw, she wouldn´t recognize him even if he was driving it (hint, hint)....

Salman Khan being wasted.

Jackie Shroff being wasted.

Sushmita Sen being pretty much wasted too.

Sirf Tum is a feel good film. If you do not demand a visually pleasing hero, that is. If you do, don´t even try to watch this one. Sanjay Kapoor was not blessed with either looks or charisma. His acting skills too leave much to be desired. However he is one of those actors, that are actually so non-interesting you cannot hate them. The non-existent screen presence gives you a chance to imagine whomever you want to in Sanjay´s place, which at times is almost necessary. The film, however, is taking place in some weird alternative reality, where Sanjay Kapoor is the handsomest and most desirable man alive and women cannot stop themselves from throwing themselves at him at any occassion. From horny co-workers to illiterate Malayam girls and of course beautiful employees. The only one who doesn´t give a damn about him when meeting him is ironically Aarti.

Sorry Sanjay. Only Rishi can pull off a sweater like this.

I´ve never seen Priya Gill before and she was good here, though it is not the same level of „good“ you associate with actresses like Juhi Chawla or Kareena Kapoor. Her character annoyed the heck out of me though. There was nothing likeable about her, no warmth and her tears did not move me. In fact the way she scolded the very much helpful Deepak (of course not knowing who he was till he revealed that hideous sweater) was nothing else but bitchy. On the other hand, much more famous Sushmita Sen did not really take an opportunity to shine either, and ended up looking immature and pathetic.

Best performances are actually given by two cameo artists! Jackie Shroff, having about 5 minutes of screen time, completely overpowered Sanjay. Salman Khan appearing in his favourite avatar of „Prem“ is very good and one wished to see more.

The film moves slowly, has hummable but forgettable songs and gets way too boring at times. A decent watch for the undemanding. In fact, I even wonder how I managed to write a review this long. Most interesting thing about it is that after I have written it I noticed my program automatically changed the title to Sirf Rum.

Why? Why couldn´t he look like Salman?

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