Come for the Machina, stay for the Deus.

 Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (2009) presents itself as a comic book movie, complete with bright colors, pop art titles, and a literal iron man providing narration in the frame story.  Not just any comic book, though, an Archie comic book.  This isn't superhero action, it's sunny romance filtered through broad farce.

The frame story is just an excuse to talk about Prem (Ranbir Kapoor), though.  He's a fairly typical Bollywood protagonist of the era - young, charming, unemployed, and a bit of a natural con artist who spends his time hanging out with his young and carefree friends rather than getting a job.  Prem is the president of the Happy Club, the spiritual descendants of the Youth Club from Bhoot Bungla.  Unlike the older movie, the Happy Club doesn't have any "No Girls" rule, but they do have their own code.  Happy Club members help people without expecting anything in return and are particularly determined to unite star-crossed couples, when they're not busy scamming food from the restaurant owned by Prem's father (Darshan Jariwala).  Prem also has a stutter which only surfaces when he's really emotional and it's convenient to the plot.

While helping one such young couple elope, Prem accidentally kidnaps Jenny (Katrina Kaif), and it's love at first sight - for him.  Jenny is understandably upset about the whole kidnapping thing, but after a few more misunderstandings they finally become friends.  Jenny also has a stutter which emerges during dramatically appropriate moments, and when she's explaining the circumstances of her adoption to Prem she begins to stutter which makes him start to stutter.  She assumes that he's making fun of her, slaps him, and storms off.  

But this misunderstanding doesn't last long either.  They make up and become fast friends.  Prem still likes her romantically, but can't work up the courage to tell her, so he tries to remake himself to become someone she could love.  That means getting a job, and for some reason it also means eating meat; Prem is a staunch vegetarian, but Jenny is Christian so they all assume she will want a man who is non-veg.  Prem feels so guilty about the meet eating that he feels he cannot fave his own God, and instead goes to Jenny's church to confess directly to Jesus and ask Him for His help in winning Jenny's heart.  This will be important later.

However Prem is so busy reinventing himself that he doesn't have time to spend with Jenny, so he doesn't find out that her parents are forcing her to marry the genuinely awful Tony Braganza (Pradeep Kharab) until it's almost too late.  He follows the family to Goa and manages to meet Jenny.  He promises to help her . . . and she asks him to contact Rahul (Upen Patel), the handsome, muscular and rich guy that she loves.

Prem takes the news surprisingly well.  He's sensible enough to realize that Jenny never said she wanted a romantic relationship with him, and that he had never worked up the courage to ask her for one. More than anything else he wants Jenny to be happy, Happy Club is all about uniting star-crossed lovers, and his motto the entire movie has been "No complaints, no demands," so Happy Club gets to work.

And wackiness ensues fairly quickly.  After Prem arranges an elopement, Rahul vanishes from the train, leaving Jenny with nowhere to go, so Prem has to hide her in his house.  Rahul has been captured by his own father, wealthy politician Pitambar Jalan (Govind Namdeo), so Prem has to outwit Jenny's parents, Rahul's parents, his own parents, and a group of gangsters led by Sajid Don (Zakir Hussain), and that's the easy part.   

The hard part is letting Jenny go.  After all of the strife, he can't stand to watch Jenny get married to someone else, so he leaves town, which means he's not there when Jenny realizes that Prem has done an awful lot to ensure her happiness and safety, while Rahul has done basically nothing.  Prem loves Jenny, Jenny now realizes that she loves Prem, but it's too late - in order for the pair to be united they'll need a literal Deus Ex Machina, and they get one.  In this case, it's Jesus driving a pickup truck.

Divine intervention is not unknown in Bollywood romance, though it's usually Krishna doing the intervening, and the rest of the plot is classic Bollywood romantic melodrama.  What's different is the tone - the romance is completely sincere, but the rest of the movie plays out as a broad farce, with elements drawn from silent comedies.  On the other hand, this is perhaps the cuddliest farce I've ever seen, with everything leading toward an emotionally satisfying happy ending for the adorable characters.  It's a weird movie, but it's the good kind of weird.

 

They look for their destiny in parrots.

 Apparently Deewane Huye Paagal (2005) is the unofficial Indian remake of There's Something About Mary, which means that once again, I have seen the Bollywood version but not the original film.  I'm pretty the subplot about the elixir of youth is unique to this version, though.

The film opens with a cowboy hatted narrator (Vivek Oberoi) floating through a pink background.  The narrator summarizes the surprisingly complicated backstory - a brilliant but absent minded scientist (Om Puri) has developed a serum which can reverse aging.  His gangster brother Khurana (also Om Puri) wants it, and he's willing to kill to get it.  The scientist is even more absent-minded than the stereotype would suggest, and uses a stuffed parrot with a built in recording device to help him remember key information.  This will be important later.

 Meanwhile, Karan (Shahid Kapoor) is a college student working an the restaurant owned by Murugun (Johnny Lever.)  Like most of the students at his college, Karan is infatuated with Tanya (Rimi Sen), who performs concerts on campus for some reason.  Karan knows that he doesn't have a shot with Tanya, but after standing up for her mentally disabled brother Gullu (Rakesh Bedi) when he's threatened by Khurana's son Sunny (Suresh Menon) he suddenly does have a shot.  

 

Tanya and Karan grow closer, but on the night of Karan's birthday, she sees Khurana's competent son Baljeet (Baljeet Singh) murder his scientist uncle, and the parrot is left in her car.  Since the parrot holds the code to the safe that contains the youth formula, Baljeet is doubly motivated to find her, so Tanya has to flee town without telling Karan.  He looks for her, but the only thing he finds is a stuffed parrot, which he assumes is his birthday present.

And all of that is prelude.  Three years later, Karan is less geeky, but still pining for Tanya.  he bumps into some of her college friends and learns that she's moved to Dubai, and he wants to leave immediately, but Murugun convinces him to wait until they have arranged passports.  While they wait they hire private detective Rocky (Akshay Kumar) to find Tanya's address.  And that's when things get even more complicated.

 Rocky discovers that Tanya is now Natasha, and learns that she's become a popular singer who is about to release her first album, as you do when you are in hiding.  he also discovers that she's gorgeous, and quickly falls in love as well.  When Karan and Murugun arrive, Rocky spins a long list of lies, telling Karan that Tanya is overweight, in a wheelchair, running a laundry business in her home, and raising seven children with three different fathers.  Karan is even more determined to find her; if she needs him he's going to be there for her.  Finally Rocky claims that Tanya has left Dubai and is on a honeymoon with her new gangster husband, and they are also on the run from the law, so Karan sadly starts making preparations to return home and disappears from the movie for a bit.

 Rocky continues to spy on Tanya/Natasha so that he can present himself as the perfect man for her.  he also learns that he's surrounded by other men - her brother Gullu has died, but she has practically adopted Tommy (Paresh Rawal), who suffered brain damage after she ran him over with her car.  Her overprotective architect friend Sanju (Suniel Shetty) walks with crutches, and keeps telling her terrible things about her rich and charming ex-boyfriend Raj (Aftab Shivdasani).  And there's a blind man (Asrani) who keeps bumping into her for some reason.

 Rocky keeps spying and manipulating, and along the way he discovers that the men around Natasha are all in love with her and also all lying; Tommy isn't disabled at all, Sanju is an able-bodied plumber who makes things up about Natasha's suitors, and Raj is actually a decent guy, but thanks to Sanju he's out of the picture.  Rocky is better at manipulating Natasha than they are (though Natasha is spectacularly gullible, so it's not that hard) and he's nearly convinced her to marry him when Karan happens to bump into them.  

We have a love triangle!  Sort of!  Rocky is still lying, and while Karan is still devoted to Tanya, he's so reflexively noble that he's constantly about to leave so that she can be happy, and he never thinks to mention that he knows for a fact that Rocky isn't an architect or a navy captain.  

 The gangsters finally return, and secrets are revealed, leading to kidnapping, car chases, and an interminable climactic action scene involving motorcycles and an infinite supply of dune buggies.  

 This is a very silly movie, but silly isn't always bad.  There are some good things here!  Because the movie is so ridiculous, everybody pitches their performance to Johnny Lever levels, which gives him the chance to shine; Murugun is the most consistently sympathetic character in the film, and actually gets to contribute to the plot rather than just providing comic relief.  This is early in Shahid Kapoor's career, so he's still doing a Shah Rukh Khan impression here, but young Shahid does a good Shah Rukh Khan impression.

And I'm done saying nice things.  I have tried to present the plot as I understand it, but the whole thing is pretty incoherent, and even with the narrator it's hard to follow.  The actual jokes often land, but for a lot of the time the movie relies on mugging for the camera rather than bothering with actual jokes.  Tommy's mentally-challenged act is pretty gross. And even that is not the real problem.

The real problem is that the film thinks we like Rocky.  Karan vanishes for a good chunk of the runtime, and we're left to follow Rocky as he spies on, lies to, and manipulates Natasha.  Akshay Kumar is a very charismatic man, and he's great at playing lovable rogues, but Rocky is not a lovable rogue, he's a creep in dire need of a comeuppance that never quite arrives.  I don't want to follow him in his attempts at romance, and I actively don't want him to get the girl.  (He doesn't.)

 I realize that this is basically the same complaint I had about Blue, but Akshay's character here is even more unlikable.

 

Here we go again.

(No screenshots this week because of technical issues.)

Rajkummar Rao built his reputation with a series of roles in quirky movies that feature a strong social message; even the Stree franchise, his biggest success, is really about society's treatment of women rather than just ghosts.  Bhool Chuk Maaf (2025), though, looks like a family entertainer, a stealth remake of Groundhog Day combined with the traditional Bollywood liar film in which the hapless protagonist schemes and fibs throughout the film but comes clean in the end and is forgiven by all of their family and friends.

 Rao plays Ranjan Tiwari, who certainly qualifies as hapless.  Ranjan is in love with the lively, free-spirited and kind of bossy Titli (Wamiqa Gabbi).  Titli's father (Zakir Hussain) does not approve of the match, since Ranjan hasn't managed to land a government job.  Ranjan and Titli try to elope, but she has second thoughts, and they're stopped by a policeman while arguing, leading to both families feuding in the police station.  However, they do manage to reach a compromise: if Ranjan can land a government job within two months, they can get married.  Otherwise Titli will be married off to someone else.

The problem is that government jobs are a valuable commodity; they're reliable, come with benefits and even a pension, so competition is fierce, and Ranjan hasn't gotten any less hapless.  Fortunately his sister Keri (Pragati Mishra) knows a guy, and that guy leads him to Bhagwan Das (Sanjay Mishra), a shady employment broker who can get him a position in the Ministry of Agriculture for a price, and by price I mean a sizable bribe.  Titli pawns her mother's necklace, the bribe is paid, and then Bhagwan vanishes with the money.

 At this point Ranjan is genuinely desperate, and he visits a temple.  On the advice of a pandit he makes an offering to Lord Shiva and promises that if he gets a government job, he will perform an unspecified good deed.  And shortly thereafter he gets a call from Bhagwan, who didn't just run off with the money - the job is his, which means that the wedding is on!  The date is set for the 30th of the month.

Time passes quickly.  The 29th is spent in various ceremonies, he has a long and kind of romantic chat with Titli in the evening, goes to bed and wakes up . . . on the morning of the 29th.

Ranjan tries to figure out the nature of the time loop over the next few 29ths, before he realizes that he hasn't fulfilled his pledge and performed his unspecified good deed.  He tries various acts of charity without success, telling various friends and family members about the loop over and over again, and grows more and more frustrated along the way.  Finally, he stands on abridge overlooking the Ganges, preparing to throw himself off, and that;s when he meets Hamid (Akash Makhija), the man who should have gotten the job, because this is a Rajkummar Rao and the social issues are inevitable.

That doesn't mean the movie gets preachy though.  There's a very specific critique about the human cost of government corruption here, but it's wrapped in a broader message about doing good things for other people, which is in turn wrapped in a quirky romantic comedy complete with a hapless protagonist who comes clean in the end and is forgiven by all his family and friends.  All the pieces are there, and they all work.

 

Pride and Paneer.

 They say that Bollywood romance is dead, and it certainly doesn't dominate the industry as it did in the days when King Khan ruled the box office.   But they keep making romances.  Some movies try to reinvent the genre, and some movies, like Ginny Weds Sunny (2020) just tell a story about people.

Sunny (Vikrant Massey) has a problem.  He's a genuinely talented chef, and he dreams of opening his own restaurant, but he needs a building and infrastructure.  His father (Rajiv Gupta) is willing to hand over control of his hardware store, but only after Sunny gets married.  The problem is that Sunny is completely hopeless when it comes to dating; he's in it to get married, and he wants to sidestep as much of the build-up as possible.  His father agrees to try and arrange something; he happens to know a marriage broker, Shobha (Ayesha Raza Mishra), and he sets up a meeting.

 

Shobha has a daughter, Ginny (Yami Gautam), who has romantic troubles of her own.  Ginny broke up with her rich and handsome boyfriend Nishant (Suhail Nayyar) a year ago, and they're supposed to be platonic friends now, but it's clear that Ginny isn't over him, and Nishant is happy to string her along.  Ginny has rejected every potential groom Shobha has presented her with, and that doesn't seem likely to change.  

As it happens, though, Ginny and Sunny went to school together, and he always had a huge crush on her - Shobha can tell, using her keen Marriage Broker Senses.  So she makes a suggestion to Sunny - he can marry Ginny!  He'll have to be careful, though, since Ginny wants a love marriage, but with her mother's secret advice Sunny can befriend her, woo her, and eventually marry her.  It should be simple, right?

Shobha didn't reckon on just how bad Sunny is at romance, though.  Thanks to Shobha he manages to keep meeting Ginny "by chance," but all his attempts to impress her backfire.  So instead he tries just talking, and that makes a difference.  Sunny is goofy and earnest, Ginny is sharp and cynical, but they get along surprisingly well and slip into a genuine friendship, though Sunny is clear that he has romantic intentions and Ginny is clear that she's too hung up on her ex at the moment to make any serious commitments. Credit for honesty, except that Sunny hasn't told her that he's been working with her mother this whole time.

Ginny kind of likes Sunny, but her friends all definitely like Sunny, so he's invited along when they go on vacation, and it goes really well.  For once in his life, Sunny is in with a shot, and he picks his venue, picks his moment, and is about to propose when Nishant returns to announce that he loves Ginny after all, and he's ready to get married.

Ginny is surprised to realize that she would actually rather marry Sunny, at least until she learns that he's been working with her mother the whole time.  They're both mad, and before long Sunny is engaged to Neha (Isha Talwar), the daughter of some local gangsters, while Ginny is determined to attend their wedding and celebrate out of spite.  

Any romance is only as good as its lead characters.  Ginny is sarcastic and blunt, but she hides a lot of pain beneath her brittle exterior.  Sunny is undeniably a doofus, but he's a doofus who listens, and once he starts paying attention to what Ginny says rather than what her mother says, he is able to be honest with Ginny and himself, and to give her a truly spectacular birthday present.  This isn't a case of "opposites attract," it's a case of "opposites are maybe not so different after all."  I'm rooting for them.

 

Sowing the seeds of DEATH

 Rudraksh (2004) is an ambitious action movie, mixing elements of the Ramayana with pseudoscience to create a martial arts fueled special effects extravaganza.  It is also really bad.  I don't normally say this right at the top when talking about a movie, but I think it's worth pointing out.

let's start at the beginning.  In the early nineties, an archeological expedition in Sri Lanka has discovered what is apparently the capitol city of the rakshasa king Ravanna.  They keep digging, because there's no way that that could possibly unleash an ancient evil upon the world.  Labor contractor Bhuria (Sunil Shetty) spends his days walking around the  whip site with a whip to keep the laborers working, and his nights smuggling artifacts out with the help of his girlfriend Lali (Isha Koppikar).  After the archeologists dig up a large idol of Ravanna, Bhuria discoversd a secret compartment which contains Ravanna's rudraksha, the dried seed of an utrusam bean tree used as a prayer bead and the repository of Ravanna's power.  Bhuria immediately becomes obsessed with the rudraksha, and after the archeologist take it from him he returns to the site and kills them all.

Years pass.  Bhuria meditates on the rudraksha, gaining great supernatural powers.  he also uses his hypnotic abilities to reshape Lali's mind, Chris Claremont style, transforming her from a slightly shady rustic woman to a sophisticated and ruthless assassin and eager accomplice in Bhuria's demonic schemes.  Still, after all this time he has never been able to touch the rudraksha, and he knows that it is destined for someone else.

Meanwhile, research scientist Gayatri (Bipasha Basu) and her all-female team have arrived in India to search for evidence of psychic powers.  All she finds are frauds, at least until she discovers Varun (Sanjay Dutt), a devout spiritual healer/martial arts instructor/nightclub bouncer with a mane of long hair that is probably supposed to evoke Fabio but kept reminding me of Samurai Cop.  Varun is the real deal, able to help the afflicted by taking their pain into himself, and Gayatri thinks that he's really great, so much so that in addition to making him the center of her study, she's also dating him, because what are ethics, really?

She does have another subject, a man she calls "Pagal" (Raj Zutshi), who has been confined to an institution for years, is surrounded by an ominous black aura (kirlian photography is apparently a large part of Gayatri's work), and constantly chants a demonic mantra.  Gayatri manipulates Varun into using his powers to help Pagal, causing the healer/martial arts instructor/nightclub bouncer to fall unconscious and confront a vision of Bhuria, who calls Varun "brother" before engaging in a spiritual katana fight.

That's not Gayatri's only bit of evil science, though.  Her assistants have forced a lab rat to listen to a constant loop of Pagal's demonic chanting, which changes the rat's DNA and gives it mind control powers, which it uses to seize control of lab assistant Suzy (Agnes Darenius).  Bhuria summons Suzy to his evil lair, then sends her to attack Gayatri as a test of Varun's skills.  Varun and Gayatri travel to the Himalayas to visit his father Ved Bhushan (Kabir Bedi), a powerful sage, gives Bhuria the opportunity to attack and kill the old man.

And then the movie starts spinning its wheels in earnest - Varun and Gayatri research Bhuria's past, hoping to find clues about where he is and what he's planning.  The problem is that the audience already knows about Bhuria's past, because it was covered in the opening scenes of the movie; Varun picks up a few extra details, but they don't really change anything and they are unreliable because Bhuria is using his hypnotic powers to mess with Varun's psychometric visions.  And then Bhuria hijacks the TV to tell them where he is anyway, making the entire search for clues completely moot.  

The main problem with Rudraksh is the writing; Gayatri spouts a constant stream of garbled pseudoscience and Varun responds with an avalanche of vague platitudes about God and the internet.  And the movie takes itself far more seriously than a story involving sensual healing massage and death by rat hypnosis really should.  Add that to the inconsequential search for information and padding by flashback, and the movie plods.  The action scenes should inject a little life into the film, but they are similarly turgid and drowning in cheap CGI.

 Sanjay Dutt almost manages to coast through this movie on sheer charm and make it somewhat watchable, but he really doesn't have much to work with.  His best roles tend to be funny, and it's all just so po-faced that even he flounders.  At times it is at least entertainingly bad; it turns out that the rat hypnosis is the high point.  Still better than Samurai Cop, though.

 

 

Two jewel boxes.

 Laapataa Ladies (2023) is a new variation on Bollywood's grand old tradition of blurring genre lines.  The premise and structure says "gritty social drama", but the tone says "feel-good romantic comedy."  Can it be both?  It's going to try.

 Deepak (Sparsh Shrivastava) has just married the beautiful and sheltered Phool (Nitanshi Goel), and the pair are traveling by train to the groom's village home in the fictional state of Nirmal Pradesh.  They are not the only married couple in the compartment, and Deepak begins to feel self-conscious as the other grooms brag about the dowries they've been paid, but but he's happy with his new bride, and late at night, when the train reaches their stop, he nudges Phool awake and they leave the train.

Or so he thinks - all three of the brides in the compartment are dressed in red wedding saris, and they are all modestly veiled, which means that their faces can't be seen and they can't really see anything either.  When Deepak gets home, the family gathers to meet their new member, only to realize that the brave-hearted young man has brought back the wrong bride.  She introduces herself as Pushpa (Pritabha Ranta), and because Deepak's family are decent people, they let her stay while Deepak tries to sort everything out.

Meanwhile, Phool wakes up when the train reaches the end of the line.  She realizes that Deepak is not there and that she's at the wrong station, but thankfully she does not talk to Pushpa's new husband Pradeep (Bhaskar Jha) because he's terrible.  Pradeep stomps around the station looking for his wife, mumbles a few threats, then gives up and decides to spend the night with his mistress.  He's mostly angry because she was carrying the wedding jewelry, and because his first wife died in a mysterious and convenient kitchen fire and he doesn't want to have to deal with the police again.

 That doesn't help Phool.  She's alone in a strange city, she doesn't dare talk to the police, can't remember the name of her new husband's village, and won't return to her parents because it will bring shame to her family.  A beggar named Chhotu (Satendra Soni) gives her a place to stay for the night, and in the morning he introduces her to the magnificently cynical Manju Maai (Chhaya Kadam), who eventually takes her in and gives her a job at her tea stall, along with some excellent advice about learning to live for yourself.

Deepak goes to the police for help, but the cheerfully corrupt Sub-Inspector Manohar (Ravi Kishan) seems more interested in the extra bride.  Pushpa doesn't want to talk to the police at all, and instead slowly gains the family's trust and begins to subtly make their lives better, providing a nontoxic way to deal with the insects that are damaging the crops, and encouraging Poonam (Rachna Gupta) to develop her artistic talents.

However, Pushpa is hiding something.  Several things, really, starting with the fact that her name isn't Pushpa, it's Jaya.  Sub-Inspoector Manohar is suspicious, and starting to close in.

 The social commentary here can be quite pointed; Manju Maai in particular has a lot to say about women not realizing their own power because they're hamstrung by a strict code of social conduct.  And yet, nearly everybody is nice.  Deepak is truly devoted to his wife and desperate to find her, while Phool learns to be more independent and value herself and then chooses to go back to her husband.  Social dramas don't normally get happy endings, but I'm not complaining.

 

Some men just want to watch the world learn.

 Some movies have unlikely heroes, but Dasvi (2022) has one of the unlikeliest.  Ganga Ram Chaudhary (Abhishek Bachchan) is the charming, arrogant, and gleefully corrupt Chief Minister of the semi-fictional state of Harit Pradesh.  (The "state" is actually a region in Uttar Pradesh with some cultural and linguistic differences which some have proposed breaking off as a new independent state.  It's clearly fictional, but perhaps a bit more plausible than an American movie dealing with the internal politics of the state of Cascadia.)

 Chaudhary's crimes may have finally caught up with him; he's implicated in a scam involving funding money form the state's schools, though it's never entirely clear whether Chaudhary was involved personally.  In any case, he's sent to jail and, at first, enjoys a comfy life. He has a luxurious private room, the guards and other prisoners are obsequious, and his shy wife Bimla (Nimrat Kaur) is able to serve as CM while he's away.

Things change pretty rapidly.  Stubborn and incorruptible new prison superintendent Jyoti Deswal (Yami Gautam) takes over, and suddenly Chaudhary has to stay in a regular cell and eat and work with the other prisoners, while Bimla has broken out of her shell and learned to love being in power.  She can only be CM while her husband is in jail, so suddenly the party machine is a lot less helpful.

Chaudhary is assigned to work in the wood shop, making chairs.  He does not want to make chairs, so he tries everything to get out of it, but Jyoti won't budge.  And then he gets his big idea - education!  Many of the prisoners are studying in the prison library to earn their high school diplomas, and Chaudhary is legally entitled to the same opportunity.

 It starts as a scam, but while reading about the history of the struggle for Indian independence, Chaudhary gets swept up in the narrative and starts imagining himself as a part of history, Wishbone-style.  Chaudhary learns from history so that he won't be condemned to repeat it, and dedicates himself to earning his degree properly.  In fact, he vows that he will not serve as CM anymore unless he can earn his degree.

There is a problem - Chaudhary is kind of a lunkhead with no noticeable skills beyond politics.  Fortunately some of his fellow prisoners are there to tutor him, and bicycle thief Ghanti (Arun Kushwah) discovers the secret - he teaches math using vote counts and election probability, and Chaudhary gets it!  Soon he's making strides in every subject except Hindi, and the only one he can turn to is Jyoti.  Meanwhile Bimla has realized that if Chaudhary doesn't pass the test and earn his degree, she gets to stay as CM, so she does everything she can to subtly interfere with his efforts. This causes tension in their marriage.

Chaudhary and Jyoti grow closer, and another movie would probably end with them realizing that they love each other, but Dasvi does not.  It's refreshing to see a genuine friendship develop onscreen between a man and a woman, and see that platonic relationship presented as something valuable that's worth fighting for.

 In any case, by the end of the movie Chaudhary's true love is education.  He's still something of a lunkhead, but he's a lunkhead who wants to learn, and wants to make it possible for others to learn as well.  I expected wacky school-related hijinks, but I did not expect a movie making such a strong argument for education for its own sake.  Perhaps Chaudhary is not such an unlikely hero after all.