Due to recent events,
I am declaring Shilpa Shetty Week here at the Gorilla’s Lament; I
believe in paying my respects to people who are not mean whenever
possible, and what greater honor can there be than having one of your
films reviewed on an obscure Bollywood website run by some guy in Utah?
A quick check of the DVD shelf tells me that this week I’ll be
reviewing Karz: The Burden of Truth (2002).
Suraj (Sunny Deol) is one of the great two-fisted mama’s boys of Indian cinema. He’s a wealthy and highly successful and respected hotel manager with a loving adopted family and the ability to deal with an attempted extortion attempt by single-handedly beating up the thugs responsible. Without his mother, though, all of that means nothing. When he was a child, she rejected him, and focused all her love and energy on his younger brother. he was eventually abandoned entirely, and never knew why, so he spends his evenings drinking himself into a stupor.
Suraj’s empty, motherless life takes a turn for the better when he’s reunited with Sapna (Shilpa Shetty), daughter of an old friend of his adopted father; she’s attending college in the city, so she moves in with Suraj and his extended family. The pair quickly become friends, and she convinces him to give up drinking.
Naturally, Suraj secretly looooves Sapna, but he doesn’t dare tell her. His former drinking buddy (Saurabh Shukla) advises him to tell her before someone else comes along, but he doesn’t listen. The very next day, he meets Raja (Sunil Shetty), who has come to town hoping to woo a girl he saw once at a fashion show. Suraj is happy to help, until he discovers that the girl Raja is trying to woo is Sapna.
There are still dark secrets to be revealed, however, and the revelations all cluster together. Suraj learns that Raja is actually his long lost younger brother, and so he gives up on his hopeless secret love and devotes himself to playing Cyrano for Raja and Sapna. (This is good news for Raja, since he’s been pretty clueless about how to woo Sapna up until this point.) At Suraj’s insistence, Raja summons his mother, Savatri (Kiron Kher) and introduces her to Sapna. It’s one big happy family until Savitri realizes that Suraj is her son. She’s happy, but then has a sudden psychotic break, rejects him, delivers a great deal of exposition, and finally lapses into catatonia. (This scene features the clumsiest writing in the film; Savitri has to reveal dark secrets while freaking out, and she has to do so while addressing imaginary people who are already aware of the secrets she has to reveal. The only reason the scene works at all is that Kiron Kher is a very good actress.)
With the characters and motivations established, and with most of the secrets revealed, Karz settles in to action movie mode. Suraj finally has a a name to attach to all the pain in his past, the supposedly dead crimelord Yograj (Ashutosh Rana), and he teams up with police inspector Khan (Shabhaaz Khan) to bring him to justice. Along the way, they fight ninjas. (Ninjas with guns!)
If you’re looking for originality, Karz is not for you. It’s old-fashioned Bollywood: lots of action, long lost relatives, noble self sacrifice, mother-son relationships completely overshadowing the romance, and Johny Lever. Bollywood has changed over the last decade, but they do still make them like that sometimes, and I for one am glad.
Suraj (Sunny Deol) is one of the great two-fisted mama’s boys of Indian cinema. He’s a wealthy and highly successful and respected hotel manager with a loving adopted family and the ability to deal with an attempted extortion attempt by single-handedly beating up the thugs responsible. Without his mother, though, all of that means nothing. When he was a child, she rejected him, and focused all her love and energy on his younger brother. he was eventually abandoned entirely, and never knew why, so he spends his evenings drinking himself into a stupor.
Suraj’s empty, motherless life takes a turn for the better when he’s reunited with Sapna (Shilpa Shetty), daughter of an old friend of his adopted father; she’s attending college in the city, so she moves in with Suraj and his extended family. The pair quickly become friends, and she convinces him to give up drinking.
Naturally, Suraj secretly looooves Sapna, but he doesn’t dare tell her. His former drinking buddy (Saurabh Shukla) advises him to tell her before someone else comes along, but he doesn’t listen. The very next day, he meets Raja (Sunil Shetty), who has come to town hoping to woo a girl he saw once at a fashion show. Suraj is happy to help, until he discovers that the girl Raja is trying to woo is Sapna.
There are still dark secrets to be revealed, however, and the revelations all cluster together. Suraj learns that Raja is actually his long lost younger brother, and so he gives up on his hopeless secret love and devotes himself to playing Cyrano for Raja and Sapna. (This is good news for Raja, since he’s been pretty clueless about how to woo Sapna up until this point.) At Suraj’s insistence, Raja summons his mother, Savatri (Kiron Kher) and introduces her to Sapna. It’s one big happy family until Savitri realizes that Suraj is her son. She’s happy, but then has a sudden psychotic break, rejects him, delivers a great deal of exposition, and finally lapses into catatonia. (This scene features the clumsiest writing in the film; Savitri has to reveal dark secrets while freaking out, and she has to do so while addressing imaginary people who are already aware of the secrets she has to reveal. The only reason the scene works at all is that Kiron Kher is a very good actress.)
With the characters and motivations established, and with most of the secrets revealed, Karz settles in to action movie mode. Suraj finally has a a name to attach to all the pain in his past, the supposedly dead crimelord Yograj (Ashutosh Rana), and he teams up with police inspector Khan (Shabhaaz Khan) to bring him to justice. Along the way, they fight ninjas. (Ninjas with guns!)
If you’re looking for originality, Karz is not for you. It’s old-fashioned Bollywood: lots of action, long lost relatives, noble self sacrifice, mother-son relationships completely overshadowing the romance, and Johny Lever. Bollywood has changed over the last decade, but they do still make them like that sometimes, and I for one am glad.
This was years ago, and I no longer remember what Shilpa Shetty did to earn a whole week. Whatever it was, though, good for her!
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