The 1997 comedy Liar Liar, starring Jim Carrey, is about a
frustrated boy who wishes that his lawyer father couldn’t lie, leading
to wackiness when the wish is granted. I am not a Jim Carrey fan, so I never bothered to see it, but I’m willing to bet that Liar Liar
does not open with an hour and a half spent on the courtship and
marriage of the boy’s parents, unlike the film’s Bollywood doppelganger,
Kyo Kii… Main Jhuth Nahin Bolta (2001).
Raj Malhotra (Govinda) is a small town lawyer who comes to Mumbai with big dreams. From the moment he steps out of the cab, he begins conning the people around him, especially Mohan (Satish Kaushik), Raj’s roommate/partner/sidekick.
After seeing the renowned lawyer Tejpal (Anupam Kher) and his son in law Adarsh (Sharad Kapoor) in action, Raj sees his path clearly. Tejpal is a powerful, wealthy, and respected lawyer, and he got where he is through hard work and skill. Adarsh is nearly as wealthy and respected, and he got that way through marrying Tejpal’s daughter. And Tejpal has another daughter . . .
So Raj sets out to win the heart of Sonam (Sushmita Sen), the other daughter. Through a carefully orchestrated campaign of deceit, he impresses her with his essential honesty and decency. Most notably, at Sonam’s request, he successfully defends a poor couple against eviction proceedings, and after the case makes a big deal about how he can abandon anything else, but never the truth. It’s enough. Raj and Sonam are soon married.
Unfortunately, Raj has played his part too well. Sonam “knows” that Raj would never consent to live off her father; an honorable man like him would want to make it on his own, and she refuses to put her own comfort ahead of his principles. The couple is soon living in Mohan’s cramped, dingy apartment, and Raj must find another way to make it big.
He gets his chance, and sooner than expected. Local Don Kalra (Ashish Vidyarthi) is looking for a lawyer to defend his obviously guilty brother (Shahbaaz Khan), who has been charged with burning a man to death in a public park. Raj takes the case, and through some inspired courtroom grandstanding, gets the brother off while implicating the sole witness willing to come forward. To finish off a good days work, he then embarks on an affair with Kalra’s assistant Tara (Rambha). This is the point where I lost all sympathy for Raj.
Flash forward seven years. Raj and Sonam are living in a mansion, and have a young son. The husband of the couple Raj defended so many years ago has been murdered, and Sonam makes him swear to prosecute the case and bring the murderer to justice. He agrees. The problem is, the murderer is Kalra’s brother. Raj has a simple solution, though; he’ll deliberately lose the case. Just to make it look good, he recruits his long-term nemesis Adarsh to be counsel for the defense. When Sonam finds out about Raj’s betrayal, she threatens to divorce him. Their son, desperate to keep his family together, wishes upon a falling star that Raj can no longer lie, and finally, after two hours and with a mere forty minutes of running time left, the premise kicks in, the movie finally starts, and wackiness begins to ensue.
When “Indianizing” a Western film, adding detail to interpersonal relationships is an important part of the process. This can often make a character more sympathetic, since we have a better grasp at what shapes and motivates his actions. In Kyo Kii… Main Jhuth Nahin Bolta, though, this backfires. If the film had glossed over Raj’s lifetime of deceit, we may have been able to see him as a charming rogue. Having watched him lie to everyone around him, though, he comes off very badly. He’s not just a jerk, he’s a borderline sociopath, and though he does reform when forced to tell the truth, he still seems to get off too easily. He is granted a redemption that he has not earned.
Beyond that, the film is very lopsided. Govinda is primarily a comic actor, but his comic material doesn’t really pick up until two hours into the film. Much of the early comic relief is provided by Sushmita, which makes her character more sympathetic, which in turn makes Raj even less sympathetic than he otherwise would be. Govinda’s performance here is actually rather restrained; normally I’d be cheering, but in this case, a cartoony performance would have helped to soften Raj’s unpleasant side.
Govinda is also justly famous for his dancing, and Sushmita also acquits herself well. It’s interesting to note, though, that Sonam is generally taller than Raj while acting, and he’s generally taller while dancing. Subtle symbolism, or poorly disguised insecurity over a very tall leading lady? You be the judge.
The last forty minutes of Kyo Kii… Main Jhuth Nahin Bolta make for an entertaining screwball comedy. You may not want to sit through two hours of dramatic character study to get there, though.
Raj Malhotra (Govinda) is a small town lawyer who comes to Mumbai with big dreams. From the moment he steps out of the cab, he begins conning the people around him, especially Mohan (Satish Kaushik), Raj’s roommate/partner/sidekick.
After seeing the renowned lawyer Tejpal (Anupam Kher) and his son in law Adarsh (Sharad Kapoor) in action, Raj sees his path clearly. Tejpal is a powerful, wealthy, and respected lawyer, and he got where he is through hard work and skill. Adarsh is nearly as wealthy and respected, and he got that way through marrying Tejpal’s daughter. And Tejpal has another daughter . . .
So Raj sets out to win the heart of Sonam (Sushmita Sen), the other daughter. Through a carefully orchestrated campaign of deceit, he impresses her with his essential honesty and decency. Most notably, at Sonam’s request, he successfully defends a poor couple against eviction proceedings, and after the case makes a big deal about how he can abandon anything else, but never the truth. It’s enough. Raj and Sonam are soon married.
Unfortunately, Raj has played his part too well. Sonam “knows” that Raj would never consent to live off her father; an honorable man like him would want to make it on his own, and she refuses to put her own comfort ahead of his principles. The couple is soon living in Mohan’s cramped, dingy apartment, and Raj must find another way to make it big.
He gets his chance, and sooner than expected. Local Don Kalra (Ashish Vidyarthi) is looking for a lawyer to defend his obviously guilty brother (Shahbaaz Khan), who has been charged with burning a man to death in a public park. Raj takes the case, and through some inspired courtroom grandstanding, gets the brother off while implicating the sole witness willing to come forward. To finish off a good days work, he then embarks on an affair with Kalra’s assistant Tara (Rambha). This is the point where I lost all sympathy for Raj.
Flash forward seven years. Raj and Sonam are living in a mansion, and have a young son. The husband of the couple Raj defended so many years ago has been murdered, and Sonam makes him swear to prosecute the case and bring the murderer to justice. He agrees. The problem is, the murderer is Kalra’s brother. Raj has a simple solution, though; he’ll deliberately lose the case. Just to make it look good, he recruits his long-term nemesis Adarsh to be counsel for the defense. When Sonam finds out about Raj’s betrayal, she threatens to divorce him. Their son, desperate to keep his family together, wishes upon a falling star that Raj can no longer lie, and finally, after two hours and with a mere forty minutes of running time left, the premise kicks in, the movie finally starts, and wackiness begins to ensue.
When “Indianizing” a Western film, adding detail to interpersonal relationships is an important part of the process. This can often make a character more sympathetic, since we have a better grasp at what shapes and motivates his actions. In Kyo Kii… Main Jhuth Nahin Bolta, though, this backfires. If the film had glossed over Raj’s lifetime of deceit, we may have been able to see him as a charming rogue. Having watched him lie to everyone around him, though, he comes off very badly. He’s not just a jerk, he’s a borderline sociopath, and though he does reform when forced to tell the truth, he still seems to get off too easily. He is granted a redemption that he has not earned.
Beyond that, the film is very lopsided. Govinda is primarily a comic actor, but his comic material doesn’t really pick up until two hours into the film. Much of the early comic relief is provided by Sushmita, which makes her character more sympathetic, which in turn makes Raj even less sympathetic than he otherwise would be. Govinda’s performance here is actually rather restrained; normally I’d be cheering, but in this case, a cartoony performance would have helped to soften Raj’s unpleasant side.
Govinda is also justly famous for his dancing, and Sushmita also acquits herself well. It’s interesting to note, though, that Sonam is generally taller than Raj while acting, and he’s generally taller while dancing. Subtle symbolism, or poorly disguised insecurity over a very tall leading lady? You be the judge.
The last forty minutes of Kyo Kii… Main Jhuth Nahin Bolta make for an entertaining screwball comedy. You may not want to sit through two hours of dramatic character study to get there, though.
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