Filmi Geek

Caravan (1971)

कारवाँ

Fully five years ago now, when the door into the bright world of Hindi films had just begun to crack open for me, I picked up a couple of movies that had songs I had heard and liked.  Caravan was one such - on the strength of the famous "Piya tu ab to aaja" - but I somehow got the idea that the movie was bad, and never got around to watching it.  As has happened so often before, once I finally saw it, I kicked myself for waiting so long. 

When Rajan (Ravindra Kapoor) is caught with his hand in the company till, he murders the company's owner, Mohandas, and convinces Mohandas's daughter Sunita (Asha Parekh) to marry him.  The marriage is a ruse that Rajan planned with his girlfriend Monica (Helen) to get at Sunita's fortune, and Rajan intends to do away with his new bride just as he did her father.  But Sunita escapes and, posing as a simple village girl named Soni, falls in with a gypsy caravan heading to Bangalore.  Sunita's presence among the gypsies causes some strife, though; their top performer, Nisha (Aruna Irani) is jealous of the attention paid to Sunita by the gypsies' hired truck driver Mohan (Jeetendra).  And Rajan's men are still after Sunita as well, endangering them all.

The plot is light on substance, but no matter - the movie is utterly engaging and delightful all the same.  Jeetendra is charming and funny as Mohan - earnest, goofy, and somewhat deluded about his own intelligence, he emits a continuous stream of daft English malapropisms.  He is a skilled dancer and provides some decent physical comedy as well.  (Caravan was my first Jeetendra film but I'm certain it won't be my last.)  He's supported by two entertaining sidekicks, his little brother Montu (Mehmood Jr.) and the perpetually drunk but wonderfully soft-hearted Johnny (Kishen Mehta).  The chief of the gypsy tribe, Mithalal Tota (Madan Puri) is fatherly and fun, and the inimitable Manorama plays his wife, adding moments of her uniquely physical comedy to the mix.

And then there is Nisha, the delicious Aruna Irani, whose bare midsection is practically another character in the movie - it features prominently in several of Caravan's many wonderful R.D. Burman songs.  "Dilbar dil se pyari" is the most memorable of these.  Asha Parekh turns in a satisfyingly physical performance as well; her highlight also comes in a song, the comically absurd "Daiya yeh main kahan".  And of course there is the famous item number of Helen that brought me to this film in the first place those five years ago.

The story of Caravan pokes playfully at issues of class and culture, but is not heavy-handed about them.   Mohan insists that because of his "untocation" (his version of "edumacation") he deserves a classy, cultured girl, better than the ragged gypsy Nisha and even better than Sunita, who he thinks is a simple village girl.  The rich and educated Sunita doesn't share his snobbery, and the resolution of their romance feels to me a bit like a light-hearted twist on the end of Jab jab phool khile - Sunita throws off her high-class advantages and joins Mohan's dusty vagabond life, but not because of any haughty notions of traditionalism and Indianness.  Rather, she does it mostly out of love for him, and because the prospect of living as a widow in her dead father's house just can't be all that appealing. 

There are a few elements that rub the wrong way; I can't shake a feeling that I should not have enjoyed the film as much as I did.  Nisha is not merely spunky and spirited; her manic energy crosses the line into violently insane. And in rejecting her advances, Mohan tries to convince her to marry a member of the tribe so stupid that he can barely string a sentence together without drooling - clearly an awful match for the willful Nisha.  The film finds disturbing humor in violence against women, too, as when Mithalal Tota beats his wife because he thinks she has burned his lunch. 

Yet, I have forgiven more egregious anti-feminist sins in less entertaining movies.  Caravan's more cringe-worthy moments are amply redeemed by the sweet moments, and indeed by everything it delivers.  From Jeetendra's doofusy earnestness, to Asha Parekh's impressive talent for physical comedy, to the wonderful, colorfully-picturized songs that come fast and thick - not to mention the delectable midsection of Aruna Irani - Caravan is pretty much a big silly grin from beginning to end - an instant favorite. 

Shaan (1980)

शान

When you watch enough masala movies, they start to blend together in a sort of meta-masala of fun pranks, wacky costumes, and sociopathic villains.  Only a few standout films rise above this masala miasma, distinguished as truly great movies and not just paisa vasool masala.  Shaan ("grandeur") is not one of them.  But even if it's not the richest masala dish ever offered, Shaan serves up a tasty enough meal for a rainy afternoon.  

Shiv Kumar (Sunil Dutt) is a fine, principled police officer.  He risks his life to chase bad guys, and puts law and order first in his life, as he repeatedly explains to his wife Sheetal (Rakhee).  To his chagrin, though, Shiv's younger brothers Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) and Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) are little more than layabouts and con artists. When Shiv Kumar runs afoul of a smuggling gang headed by the megalomaniacal sadist Shakal (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), the villain forces sharpshooter Rakesh (Shatrugan Sinha) to attempt to assassinate the officer.  Rakesh betrays Shakal, who completes the job himself and offs Rakesh's wife for good measure.  Devastated, Rakesh joins forces with Ravi and Vijay to extract their revenge from Shakal.

Shaan fully provides what Beth calls the "Recommended Masala Allowance" of comedy turns, caricatured villains in elaborately unlikely lairs, and cute stars pursuing cute romance.  It's asking a lot of a masala movie to deliver more than that.  And yet, director Sippy and writers Salim-Javed set such a high bar with so many superb masala films - dishing substance with the dishoom-dishoom - that Shaan can't help but come out unsatisfying in comparison.  In Shaan, there is little more than personal revenge at stake; unlike Salim-Javed's Mr. India - a later film with a similar ending - there's no greater message about the common man giving his life to protect the republic.  Indeed, there is little of anything in the way of grand theme; the value of law and order gets some lip service but the film doesn't seem to mean it.  There is no message of redemption or friendship or unity, or any of the principles that lend gravitas to the best masala movies. 

Still, when one doesn't hold it to the gold standard movies of its era, Shaan is a heck of a lot of fun.  Most of its best moments come in the first hour, in a brilliantly constructed series of escalating cons.  After duping a hotel operator out of 15,000 rupees, Ravi and Vijay find the tables turned as the uncle-niece team of Chacha (Johnny Walker) and Renu (Bindiya Goswami) con them out of twice the sum.  Then the four of them join forces, only to be one-upped again by the night-club singer Sunita (Parveen Babi).  These sequences are as good as any cleverly turned by Salim-Javed and are a joy to watch.  They reach their culmination as Sunita joins the gang for an elaborate religious and musical hoax, the hysterical song "Dariya mein jahaz". 

There are other surprising touches as well, including some remarkably good cinematography.  The film is full of interesting shots through doorways, from overhead angles, and other unusual vantage points.  A friend of Ravi and Vijay, the paraplegic Abdul (Mazhar Khan), propels himself through Bombay on a wheeled board, and his excellent song ("Aate jaate hue main") and chase scene are full of dizzying views of the whirling bustle of Bombay whizzing by at knee-level.  And of course, in addition to the photography, the "Shashitabh" combo always delivers some good old-fashioned musical double-romance ("Jaanu meri jaan").  And for the connoisseur of masala villains with elaborate underground lairs, the bald-pated Shakal's tribute to the classic Bond villain Blofeld (almost two decades before Mike Myers gave us Dr. Evil) is not to be missed - complete with remotely-operated exploding chairs, shark tanks, and an alligator moat. 

Dilli ka thug (1958)

दिल्ली का ठग

Returning to Hindi films after a bit of a hiatus, I've rewatched a couple of movies that I saw about a year ago but didn't get around to writing up, and it's been interesting to note that some of them I liked better the second time around.  Ashanti was one such. And another is Dilli ka thug ("Delhi rogue") - while not much more than a pleasant timepass, it is loaded with smiles, songs, and antics that just reminded me why I love Hindi movies. 

Kishore (Kishore Kumar) is an unemployed newspaper reporter who makes his living conning rich folks at the gambling table.  His mother scolds him, fearing that his roguish antics threaten his sister's engagement to a boy from a respectable family.  But Kishore has no respect for the rich, whose unscrupulous greed, he says, ruined his father's name and caused his death.  Meanwhile, Kishore's friend Suhanlal, who is mixed up with a counterfeit medicine racket, is murdered by the racket's mastermind Amarnath (Krishnakant).  Kishore learns from Police Inspector Dilip Singh (Ifthekar) that this murderer is likely the man responsible for Kishore's father's downfall and death.  Kishore vows to find him and bring him to justice - but he has no idea that the man is the uncle of the charming girl he's set his heart on, Asha (Nutan).

Dilli ka thug does not pack much in the way of substantial messages or delicate themes.  But it does have its surprises.  Asha is a champion swimmer, a doctor, and owner of a controlling interest in a pharmaceutical company  - her intellectual superiority to Kishore is made quite plain, both in the lead-up to the charming song "C-A-T Cat" and in several clever tricks she plays on him.  And she shows her guts in the film's climax (aboard a pilotless aircraft), where she steps up to take the film's decisive action. 

The real star of Dilli ka thug, though, is Kishore Kumar's relentless and adorable energy.  He dons costumes, leaps around the screen waving his rubbery limbs every which way, smiles and pouts with a charming childlike air.  Even the fight scenes are played for laughs, and his comic interactions with the owner of a drugstore where he works are hysterical.  In one delightfully manic scene, Kishore cons three investors (very broadly caricatured themselves - a rich nawab, a South Indian swami, and a Parsee businessman) by pretending to negotiate with a maharaja.  He jumps - literally - from one side of the conversation to the other, first playing his own role, then the role of the maharaja, then back again.  He even manages to squeeze in a few lines for the maharani.  

And in his courtship of Asha, Kishore's manic energy takes a very sweet tone.  I grinned like a dope all the way through "Hum to mohabbat karega," both at Kishore's adorable courtship and at Nutan's sweetly and willingly weakening resistance to it.  There are other very fun songs too, including two excellent cabaret numbers and an impressive display of synchronized swimming that features Nutan emerging from the petals of a giant lotus blossom.  But the sweet moments of Kishore's courtship of Asha - and her gradually warming  to his goofball earnestness - are the best pleasures of Dilli ka thug.  It's not in the same league as Chalti ka naam gaadi - but that is pure perfection, one of the most fun films ever made.  Still, if you liked Kishore and the tone of the romance in that movie, you will find something to enjoy in Dilli ka thug.

Ashanti (1982)

अशांति

Not all masala is created equal.  There is masala with a message - Amar Akbar Anthony comes to mind - where there is a bit of social commentary baked into the fluffy cake of  wild stunts, dashes of romance, comedic disguises, and over-the-top misanthropic villains.  And then there is masala that invites you to check your brain at the door and just come along for a wackadoodle ride.  Ashanti ("unrest") is that kind of masala.

Bhishm Bahadur Singh (Amrish Puri), scion of maharajas, is bitter that he is merely rich, and no longer royalty.  He vows to undermine law and order, sowing chaos and unrest to take his revenge against the democratic society that dethroned him.  To carry out this plan he engineers a counterfeiting operation and a string of bank robberies executed by his son Ramesh.  Police inspector Kumar (Rajesh Khanna) is framed and sent to prison by Ramesh.  Released from prison some years later, Kumar hunts Ramesh down, only to lose his leg in their violent confrontation.  Plotting his revenge, he collects three young women - Kamini (Shabana Azmi), Sunita (Parveen Babi), and Sonia (Zeenat Aman) - all of whom have been terribly and violently wronged by Bhishm Bahadur Singh and Ramesh's gang.  He trains them in combat and surveillance, and with the help of the spirited bootlegger Shankar (Mithun Chakraborty), they set to work tracking down the villains and seeing that justice is done.

As with many light-on-substance films, though, the pleasure of Ashanti is not in the intricacies of the plot - it's in the grab-bag of masala elements and over-the-top moments.  Ashanti puts its filmi touch on its Charlie's Angels-inspired setup.  Kumar and his three angels solemnize their vow of revenge in a temple in a kind of 4-way wedding.  The angels get up to wild disguised comedy antics as they carry out their plan.  And in the scenes leading up to the climax, they naturally perform a jaunty song to con their way into Bahadur Singh's palace.  To Ashanti's great credit, as well, it's very satisfying that the girls get to kick some serious ass in the movie's wacky fight scenes.

The angels aren't the only ones who contribute to the parade of memorable masala moments that make Ashanti thoroughly paisa vasool.  Shankar has a big gay shirtless fight with Bob Christo, and a truly terrific drunk song with Sunita.  A sweaty Bahadur Singh proves how badass he is by deliberately goading a venomous snake to bite him.  There's even a role for the wonderful Nadira, who in a kitchen fight scene, gets a brinjal in the mouth from Sonia:

That fight scene also bears mention as another of Ashanti's tempting, if trippy, set pieces - the girls take on the hijra kitchen staff with ridiculously comic violence, as when Sonia slaps dough on top of a hijra's head and stuffs the head, and the dough, into a tandoor - pulling out a perfectly cooked naan. 

Kumar, for his part, makes the most of his maiming - he gets a gun installed in one of his crutches and fires it with wild abandon, and in the film's climax he pulls off his prosthetic leg and beats Ramesh with it (never mind how he stays standing while he does so).

In short, if you are a fan of nutso masala, then run - or at least hobble on your bullet-loaded crutches - to the nearest DVD player and watch Ashanti.

Suhaag (1979)

सुहाग

Manmohan Desai has a knack for satisfying masala.  His movies are packed to the gills with his choice wacky elements and overloaded symbols - brothers separated in childhood, medically improbable blindness, gentleman rogues, grudges held for decades by heroes and villains alike.  Suhaag ("good fortune," particularly the sort of good fortune supposedly enjoyed by a married woman) is no exception, and if you check your brain at the door you will be rewarded with an amusing and goofy masala escape.

Durga (Nirupa Roy) is ruined when her husband, a gangster called Vikram (Amjad Khan), refuses to recognize their marriage and rejects their twin infant sons.  Matters get worse for Durga when a rival gangster Jaggi (Kader Khan) kidnaps one of the babies and sells him to a small-time crook (Jeevan) who makes his living exploiting child beggars.  Durga does her best to raise her remaining boy on her own, and he grows into Kishen (Shashi Kapoor), a devoted son and police officer of sparkling integrity.  The other boy, raised among petty thieves, becomes Amit (Amitabh Bachchan), a drunk and a con-artist.  Coincidence brings Amit together with Kishen and Durga, as he helps engineer a romance between Kishen and Anu (Parveen Babi), a sweet-hearted student who falls for Kishen.  For his part, Amit is in love with Basanti (Rekha), a recalcitrant tawaif with a secret connection to Anu. And things become very tangled indeed when Vikram resurfaces - he hires Amit to assassinate the meddling police inspector Kishen, unaware that either young man is his son. 

That plot, such as it is, is almost more trouble to describe than it is worth, something Suhaag has in common with other Manmohan Desai films like Amar Akbar Anthony and Parvarish.  It's enough to hang on to while it's happening, though.  After all, crazy coincidences are the bread and butter of masala - especially coincidences involving long-lost family members, which are particularly numerous here.  And for all its adherence to masala formula, Suhaag does offer a few rarer treats. For instance, Rekha's Basanti is one of the most appealing characters I've ever seen her play.  I am not a fan of Rekha's ephemeral, will-o-the-wisp persona, and in Basanti she offers a gutsy, earthy, worldly woman in sharp constrast to the aloof tawaif she played in Muqaddar ka sikandar - Basanti could have been a repeat performance of that character, and I was delighted that she was not.  

Durga, too, is a departure from Nirupa Roy's typical "Nahin!"-screaming maa roles - at least for the first half of Suhaag.  There, she is bold and forceful, taking charge and muttering snarky commentary; the sequence of scenes in which she meets Anu and tries to arrange Anu's marriage to Kishen is particularly wonderful.  Unfortunately, Durga's story is bookended by simpering devotion to her singularly undeserving husband Vikram.  This is Suhaag's great weakness; the movie lacks Amar Akbar Anthony's charming syncretism and paeans to Indian unity, as well as Parvarish's wry commentary on nature vs. nurture.  As a fan of Manmohan Desai's hearty message-masala, I felt baited and switched when the promising Durga was in some ways more Sita than Durga. 

Still Suhaag is fun when masala is on the menu - nothing else quite matches the buddy chemistry of Shashi and Amitabh ("Shashitabh," as the jodi is affectionately known in among Bollybloggers), who alone are worth watching for, and they plus the splendid songs ensure a satisfying, if silly, experience.  Of these, Parveen Babi's intoxicated turn in " Main to beghar hoon" and the buddy-jodi song "Ae yaar sun" are standouts, along with the hysterical "Tere rab ne bana di jodi," in which Amitabh and Rekha dance bhangra in disguise.

Gumnaam (1965)

गुमनाम

Gumnaam ("unnamed, anonymous") is a slapdash, inadequately scripted, totally non-suspenseful mystery. It is nevertheless great fun to watch, thanks entirely to a passel of thoroughly entertaining songs and fun comic performances by the likes of Helen and Mehmood.  

A group of strangers at a masquerade party are delighted when they are chosen, apparently at random, as winners of an exciting foreign vacation.  The trip gets off to a rough start, however, when an emergency forces their plane to land in a remote wilderness.  And things take an even more sinister turn when the plane takes off, leaving them stranded.  Soon they find an isolated mansion, tended by a valet (Mehmood) who knows their name and seems to have been expecting them.  A mysterious diary in the mansion reveals the reason they are there:  It says they are each responsible for an unjust death, and will be forced to pay the ultimate price.  And sure enough, one by one the travelers begin to die violently ... and the murderer must be among them.  

Gumnaam takes Agatha Chrtistie's Ten Little Indians as its inspiration. It follows that classic story fairly faithfully, but Gumnaam is very light on the plot details that made the original tight and compelling.  There is no real payoff - the killer's motivation for assembling this particular group is stated, but with a few exceptions we are told neither whose deaths they caused, nor why the killer thinks justice is his responsibility.

One result of the slapdash plotting is an utter lack of suspense, which is compounded by the travelers for the most part not behaving as if they fear for their lives. The other filmi touches, like Mehmood's broad South Indian caricature and other roles (like Pran's and Madan Puri's) played for laughs, don't bolster the story.  But unlike Raat aur din, where filmi touches detract from what could have been a taut psychological drama, in Gumnaam they are the saving grace of what would otherwise be a dreadful film. 

The best thing about Gumnaam is the film's songs, most of which are upbeat, splendid fun.  Helen, as one of the doomed guests, gets three of these, including Mehmood's fantastic dream sequence, an adorable beachside romp, and the rare treat of a drunken buddy-song in which the revelers are both women (Helen and Nanda). And no discussion of the songs of Gumnaam is complete without mention of the wild, mod goodness of "Jaan pehechaan ho".

Gumnaam is a masala film, and so of course a romance thread is woven through as well.  This thread is wasted, though, on the film's milquetoast hero and heroine, Manoj Kumar and Nanda.  Greta (of Memsaab Story; thanks to her for the screencap) commented that Gumnaam would have been a totally different movie if Shammi Kapoor had been the hero, and I have to agree.  It could possibly have been an all-time classic on the level of Teesri Manzil or Kashmir ki kali - with Shammi as the hero and Asha Parekh, Sharmila Tagore, or really anyone else as the heroine.  Nanda and Manoj's songs are entertaining enough, but they pale in comparison to the other songs in the film; Manoj attempts Shammi-like moves, but even though he's younger and slightly less chubby, he lacks the energy and charisma that Shammi brought to his best movies.

In the end, though, even to critique a movie like Gumnaam is to ask too much of it. It is thoroughly amusing while it's happening - at its best moments, it shines - and that's all it sets out to do.    

Bombay to Goa (1972)

It is sometimes commented that if you took all the extraneous side-elements out of a masala movie and focused on the plot, you'd be left with a streamlined tale that would be done in an hour. The road movie Bombay to Goa goes the other way - it dispenses with a plot almost entirely, leaving little but gags and silliness, and it clocks in at less than two hours.  While it lasts, though, it's a pretty enjoyable ride.

Mala (Aruna Irani) is beside herself with excitement when a man called Sharma (Shatrughan Sinha) promises to make her a movie star.  Her parents are not quite as thrilled, though; her father (Nasir Hussain) pops a gasket when he sees her picture in a flashy magazine.  His concern is to lock up her marriage to the young man they have chosen for her, Ravi (Amitabh Bachchan).  In the dead of night, Mala steals all her parents' cash and runs away to Sharma, handing over the bulk of the money for his bogus "production".  She soon learns that Sharma is not what he appears to be, and after she witnesses his murder of a compatriot over the loot he swindled from her, she flees.  She finds herself on a bus to Goa, under the care of its conductor, Khanna (Mehmood), and surrounded by an outrageous and rag-tag bunch of fellow-travelers.  Much wacky hijinks ensue.

Unfettered as it is by the requirements of a well-developed story, Bombay to Goa is free to focus on its humor, which derives for the most part from broad comedy strokes - slapstick and stereotypes.  The mish-mash of ethnic and regional archetypes paints a bus-bound microcosm of a nation that feels a bit like Mr. and Mrs. Iyer on crack.  But they are an awful lot of fun, and diverse and cleverly-rendered enough that it doesn't feel like ticking off the boxes on an Indian stereotype bingo card. Very funny comic performances by Mehmood, his real-life brother Anwar Ali as Conductor Khanna's bus-driver brother Rajesh (get it - Rajesh?  Khanna?), and the likes of Manorama, Lalita Pawar, Yusuf Khan, and Keshto Mukherjee as passengers ensure that the laughs keep coming. 

I'm a big fan of Amitabh Bachchan too, of course, and his earlier films are a particular pleasure.  Here he is in fine form - though I wish there had been more of him - especially in the manic song "Dekho na hai".  (His chasing down the bus on his motorcycle to rescue his lady from peril is almost certainly referenced by Arjun Rampal's similar ride in Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd., another film that packs a busload of diverse Indian personae off to Goa for comedy fun.)  A delightful cameo by the adorable Kishore Kumar - with a song, of course - rounds out the fun.  It may be light on substance, but all in all, Bombay to Goa is a thoroughly entertaining way to kill a couple of hours.   

Chhupa Rustam (1973)

छुपा रस्तम

It's not quite as stylishly perfect as Jewel Thief, nor does it achieve the sublime mod-noir heights of Teesri manzil.  But if you are a fan of Vijay Anand's unique brand of caper film, Chhupa Rustam (perhaps most pithily translated here as "hep cat," but used to mean a person with a hidden or unexpected talent) is definitely one to look out for.

Greedy Vikram Singh and his hapless son Bahadur are searching for ancient treasures in the mountains of Himanchal Pradesh.  To leverage their position Vikram Singh and Bahadur have captured the wife and son of a millionaire who holds the digging rights to the valley where the ancient city is nestled - hoping to force the millionaire's daughter Ritu (Hema Malini) to marry Bahadur, giving them access to the gold.   Ritu capitulates to the cruel captors' demands, only to be spirited away from her own wedding by the qawwal hired to perform there, Natwar (Dev Anand).  Sparks fly between Natwar and Ritu despite her anger and mistrust of him - but soon it becomes clear that he is not what he appears to be, and her warm feelings for him are not misplaced.  Together with Natwar's sidekick Jimmy Fernandes (Vijay Anand), Natwar and Ritu plot to give Vikram Singh and Bahadur their just deserts. 

The plot is unmemorable, but it is of little import; style and fun are the raisons d'etre of Chhupa Rustam.  As the performers romp through their roles they seem a hair's breadth away from bursting into irreverant giggles.  Hema Malini is as adorable as ever, and Dev Anand once again somehow manages to be an engaging hero despite being old enough to be her father - and despite the air of dirty old man that lingers about him every time he unleashes his leering grin. Prem Chopra's Bahadur (the name means "brave" or "gallant") is anything but; he's a delightfully hateable mix of smarmy and stupid, tough-talking and weak.  

But the film's real treat is Vijay Anand himself, who not only lends his directorial vision to the film (see Greta's review for a generous look at the film's fantabulous style) but is also laugh-out-loud hysterical as Natwar's big-hearted pal Jimmy.  He falls in love with Bahadur's moll (the delectably curvaceous Bindu) and the pair's two scene-stealing songs are among the highlights of the movie.  Actually all the film's songs are delightful, including this one in which Natwar wins over a recalcitrant Ritu with his ode to the humble bedbug.

Mr. India (1987)

What happens when two masters of populist, allegorical, entertaining screenwriting and a gifted, creative, intellectual director put their heads together with the goal of creating a film that is over-the-top even compared to the most outrageous masala Hindi films have to offer?   Mr. India is what happens.  Screenwriters Salim-Javed and director Shekhar Kapur, with some intrepid help from a terrific cast, pulled out every stop in this all-out goofy entertainer.  It's self-conscious, it's ridiculous, and it's riotous fun - but there's a patriotic moral, too. 

Arun Verma (Anil Kapoor) is a musician with a cheerful disposition who looks after a houseful of adorable orphans.  When his natural charm ceases to satisfy the shopkeepers and landlords from whom he wrangles rice and credit, he sets out to find himself a paying guest to supplement his income.  He rents a room to a persnickety, child-hating reporter named Seema (Sridevi) and they proceed to get on one another's nerves.  Soon Arun learns that his father, a scientist who died when Arun was a small boy, had been killed by some goons intent on stealing an invisibility formula the scientist had devised.  Now the goons are back, at the behest of their despotic boss, Mogambo (Amrish Puri), and they want not only the invisibility formula but all of India to boot.  Arun learns of the terrorist tactics of Mogambo's thugs, who use such nefarious tools as tainted food supplies and explosive-rigged toys to sow the seeds of fear in the populace, and he decides to use the invisibility formula to mete out justice against Mogambo's army of evildoers, transforming himself into Mr. India, the invisible avenger of the people.

The best parts of Mr. India are the moments that are crafted with no purpose other than to showcase the stars' first-class shtick.  In one delightful sequence, for example, Sridevi launches into an extended Charlie Chaplin impression that highlights her talent for adorable physical comedy; in others, she flings her dangerous curves across the screen in both a comical dance sequence and a passionate one.  Amrish Puri is at his bug-eyed, scene-chewingest best in every one of Mogambo's scenes, preening and strutting and ingeiously crafting a seemingly limitless number of ways to utter the villain's signature phrase, "Mogambo khush hua." ("Mogambo is pleased.")  These elements are brazenly, unabashedly entertaining in the manner in which Hindi films are particularly excellent; it is art without artifice.  Even the big-hearted sweetness Anil Kapoor shows nurturing his passel of adorable orphans is calculated more to win the hearts of the audience than to support the story. 

But for all its wanton crowd-pleasing, Mr. India is still a Salim-Javed film, and so the masala can be expected to be served up with an edge and with a generous side helping of social message.  The former manifests in Salim-Javed's willingness to kill even some of their most loveable characters; the latter in Arun Verma's declaration, as the invisible force called Mr. India, of the power of the "aam hindustani," the ordinary Indian.  The film's central message that larger-than-life forces of bloodshed and terror - represented by the larger-than-life Mogambo - can be stopped by the invisible yet undeniable power of the compassionate Indian citizen who looks out for the interests of his compatriots.  Mogambo's critical error is to presume that Arun Verma loves his own life more than he loves his country; Arun's patriotism and his love for every citizen of India, is Mogambo's downfall.  That's a heavy message indeed, that the commitment of the aam hindustani can defeat the devil himself; Mr. India works by lightening the load, delivering it in an outlandish and fun package. 

Mr. India was my (long overdue) first Sridevi film, and for the record I absolutely can see what all the fuss is about.  The three segments mentioned above - the Charlie Chaplin scene, the fantastic comedy number "Hawa Hawai," and the sensual song "Kaate nahin kate yeh din yeh raat" together represent a very nice sampling of her abilities.  She is adorable and precise, thrillingly sexy and at the same time uproariously funny.  It is Sridevi's misfortune that she reigned during a particularly bleak period of Hindi films, but I am nevertheless eager for more of her. 

Om Shanti Om (2007)

ओम शांति ओम

God bless Farah Khan.

This nervy director proves in her reincarnation saga Om Shanti Om what I already suspected after Main hoon na - that she knows better than anyone how to use Shah Rukh Khan.  Om Shanti Om is not without its warts, but it's a solidly entertaining film, pure modern masala in the tradition of (and with cheeky homage to) the likes of Manmohan Desai and other masala greats of the past. 

Om Prakash Makhija (Shah Rukh Khan) is a two-bit actor, struggling to rise above his junior artiste status in the competitive melee of the 1970s Bombay film scene.  Advised by his sidekick Pappu (Shreyas Talpade), Om throws himself into his small parts, dreaming that someday, he'll be a revered hero.  He has other dreams as well - he is in love with a young superstar heroine, Shantipriya (Deepika Padukone), and spends his free time pining before her three-storey effigy on a film hoarding.  After a mishap on a film set, Om bravely saves Shanti from a fire, and the two become friends.  Shanti has dark secrets, though, some of which involve the shady producer Mukesh Mehra (Arjun Rampal), and these lead to a calamity from which Om cannot save Shanti - or even himself.  On his death Om is reborn into the body of Om Kapoor, the scion of a filmi dynasty, who grows up to be a spoiled, vapid diva of a superstar known in the biz by his initials, OK.  Circumstances conspire to jog OK's memory of his past life, and he resolves to right the wrongs that led to Om Prakash and Shanti's premature demise.

Om Shanti Om is stuffed to the gills with self-referential humor and filmi references.  The jokes come fast and thick, especially in the first half, and some of them are ingenious.  A constant barrage of filmi jokes might or might not get tiring to someone who grew up with Hindi films, but to me it is a pure delight even to be able to get as many of the jokes as I do.  There are hilarious spoofs of filmi conventions and filmi lore, clever uses of footage from classic films, and an absolutely uproarious Filmfare Awards ceremony in which nothing is sacred - everything is skewered, from Shah Rukh Khan's penchant for bubblegum romance to the recent trend toward sequel-mania to industry nepotism to the big egos of the stars.  Even my beloved Shabana Azmi is not above the fray, joining a lengthy parade of superstars who give cute, self-deprecating cameo appearances. 

And at the center of all the self-referential humor is Shah Rukh Khan himself, who cuts loose with all the body language and exaggerated range of facial expressions that his fans find so charming and the rest of us so irritating.  But in Om Shanti Om, subtlety is not the order of the day, and Shah Rukh's special style fits right in, working well as broad, scene-chewing, physical comedy; as his character notes:  "overacting mere khandan mein hai" - overacting runs in my family.  This is the special intelligence of Farah Khan, and it's what makes her movies with Shah Rukh Khan great watching even for this non-fan - she knows not to use him in earnest.  His excess of lover-boy intensity may induce eyerolls in a romance, but it's perfect for a Farah Khan musical dream sequence.  Same for his lip-quivery emoting, which doesn't always pass for acting in a serious movie; it's perfect in comedy, as in the hysterical sequence where Om tries to tell Shanti his feelings - his poetically-formed thoughts come out in voice-over, while his eyebrows wobble and lips tremble, unable to form the words. 

For all its side-splitting cleverness, the film has been criticized as a series of genius bits in search of a soul, and this criticism is not without merit.  The reincarnation-revenge plot doesn't offer much to sink one's teeth into, and yet the film's second half drags in service of its resolution.  And, as Beth points out, as fearless and terrific a woman as Farah Khan is, she doesn't give her heroine a whole lot to do.  Deepika Padukone, here in her debut, is pretty and elegant as Shanti, and serviceable in her acting, showing the right mixture of innocence and melancholy.  She fades in the second half, though; she has a few comic turns that she handles adequately but there's little of substance in her role.  Arjun Rampal as the villainous Mukesh fades as well; an amusing homage to slick Danny Denzongpa characters in the first half, he recedes in the second half, losing his villainous edge just as good storytelling would demand that he get nastier. 

If such weaknesses deny Om Shanti Om masterpiece status, though, they don't detract from the good solid fun to be had throughout most of this stylish, witty comedy.  After an outstanding opening it will surely go on to reach blockbuster status in India, and it deserves to be seen and enjoyed; any fan of Hindi films should find something to laugh at within.  And I remain a steadfast fan of Farah Khan and her special cheeky brand of spectacle.  Here's to many more.