In Gol Maal (1979), Amol Pelakar plays Ram Prasad Sharma, a
very pleasant, sports-obsessed young man with a moustache, a gift for
singing, a degree in accounting, and no job. His uncle, Doctor Kedar
(David Abraham), manages to get him an interview with Bhavani Shankar
(Uptall Dutt), an old friend and the owner of the Urmila Trading
Corporation. Bhavani is an old fashioned and eccentric man, so the
doctor has some advice before the interview: wear a kurta, don’t admit
to any knowledge or even interests outside of work, give your full name,
don’t try to namedrop, and above all, treasure your mustache, for
Bhavani believes that a man without a mustache can’t be trusted.
Thanks to this advice, Ram easily wins the job. He quickly earns a pay raise as well, because he happens to be a really good accountant. His friends offer to take him to an India-Pakistan hockey match, but Ram sadly explains that there’s no way the boss will give him time off for sports. At his friends’ suggestion, the orphaned Ram pretends that he must rush off to tend to his sick mother, and goes to the match. It’s just a tiny little lie, and only a one time thing; there’s no way anything could go wrong, right?
Naturally, things go wrong. Bhavani also attends the hockey match. (While he believes that young men should care only about their work, he’s old and therefore allowed to have outside interests.) He spots Ram, and the next day drags him into his office to confront him. A flustered Ram claims that he wasn’t at the hockey match, and that Bhavani must have seen his layabout, mustacheless brother Laxman Prasad Sharma, better known as “Lucky”. Ram thinks his problem is solved, until Bhavani insists on giving Laxman a job teaching music to his daughter Urmila (Bindiya Goswami).
And so it goes. One lie leads to another, and soon Ram is leading a full-fledged double life, supported by his sister Ratna (Manju Singh), an ersatz mother (Dina Pathak), and Bollywood actor Deven Verma (Deven Verma). The double life is a full time gig; Ram is working during the day, and then tutoring Urmila (as Ram) in the afternoon and wooing her (as Lucky) in the evenings, all while dealing with unexpected home visits from Bhavani. Naturally, wackiness ensues.
Gol Maal is one of those Bollywood movies where everybody is nice. There are no villains here; Bhavani is the natural foil, but he causes problems only because Ram consistently underestimates just how nice he actually is. Even at the end, when he’s chasing Ram around with a pistol (yes, I am spoiling a thirty year old movie here) he’s doing it out of love.
Gol Maal is a pleasant little movie. The characters are worth caring about, and the plot, while complicated, holds together remarkably well. It won’t change your life, but it’s a great way to spend a couple of hours.
Thanks to this advice, Ram easily wins the job. He quickly earns a pay raise as well, because he happens to be a really good accountant. His friends offer to take him to an India-Pakistan hockey match, but Ram sadly explains that there’s no way the boss will give him time off for sports. At his friends’ suggestion, the orphaned Ram pretends that he must rush off to tend to his sick mother, and goes to the match. It’s just a tiny little lie, and only a one time thing; there’s no way anything could go wrong, right?
Naturally, things go wrong. Bhavani also attends the hockey match. (While he believes that young men should care only about their work, he’s old and therefore allowed to have outside interests.) He spots Ram, and the next day drags him into his office to confront him. A flustered Ram claims that he wasn’t at the hockey match, and that Bhavani must have seen his layabout, mustacheless brother Laxman Prasad Sharma, better known as “Lucky”. Ram thinks his problem is solved, until Bhavani insists on giving Laxman a job teaching music to his daughter Urmila (Bindiya Goswami).
And so it goes. One lie leads to another, and soon Ram is leading a full-fledged double life, supported by his sister Ratna (Manju Singh), an ersatz mother (Dina Pathak), and Bollywood actor Deven Verma (Deven Verma). The double life is a full time gig; Ram is working during the day, and then tutoring Urmila (as Ram) in the afternoon and wooing her (as Lucky) in the evenings, all while dealing with unexpected home visits from Bhavani. Naturally, wackiness ensues.
Gol Maal is one of those Bollywood movies where everybody is nice. There are no villains here; Bhavani is the natural foil, but he causes problems only because Ram consistently underestimates just how nice he actually is. Even at the end, when he’s chasing Ram around with a pistol (yes, I am spoiling a thirty year old movie here) he’s doing it out of love.
Gol Maal is a pleasant little movie. The characters are worth caring about, and the plot, while complicated, holds together remarkably well. It won’t change your life, but it’s a great way to spend a couple of hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment