Bhagyawan (1994) has an unusually ornate plot, even for the early Nineties. As the film opens, hard-working factory worker and family man Dhamraj (Pran) returns home from work only to discover that his sister Pushpa (Rubina) is pregnant. When Dhamraj learns that the father is his boss Hira (Ranjeet), he's furious. He drags Pushpa to Hira's house and demands that Hira do the honorable thing. Hira laughs in his face, Pushpa throws herself in front of a bus (spattering her brother with unconvincing blood), and Dhamraj and Hira both swear eternal vengeance on one another. Unfortunately Hira is a bit better positioned to carry out his vengeance; soon Dhamraj is penniless and out of work. He's so desperate that he decides to poison himself and his family, but before he can carry out the plan, an adorable orphan steals the poisoned food. Dhamraj chases the kid down and destroys the food, and in the process discovers a winning lottery ticket. He decides to adopt the obviously lucky kid, and that's all in the first ten minutes or so of the movie.
Twenty years later, Dhamraj owns a successful chemical business, while the orphan has grown into Amar (Govinda), an incorruptible police officer, devoted son, and fantastic dancer. Dhamraj's wife Savitri (Asha Parekh) is eager to marry Amar off, but he's not really interested in anyone . . . until he meets Geeta (Juhi Chawla), a quick-witted con artist and part-time Robin Hood who cares for a band of orphans with the help of her partner Jhoney (Johny Lever.) They meet, they fall in love, they get married, then he brings her home to meet the parents.
Unfortunately, Dhamraj's other children are not as nice. Widowed daughter-in-law Renu (Aruna Irani) is mostly petty, cynical and greedy in ways which do not impact the plot, but oldest son Vishwas (Kirti Kumar) is embezzling from the family business, spurred on by his equally terrible wife Alka (Sripradha), who has a dark secret of her own. Youngest son Kishan (Suraj Chaddha) is really just an amiable idiot, but he's in love with Radha (Shobha Singh), and the crazy kids decide to fake a pregnancy in order to convince her father to allow them to marry. Unfortunately, her father is Hira, and when Hira visits Dhamraj's house in order to arrange the marriage . . . things don't go well. And Hira is still much better at the vengeance thing.
And from this point on, the movie is basically King Lear. Amar's forthright nature (and propensity for stupid vows) gets him kicked out of the house, while Hira exploits the other siblings' worst character traits in order to bring ruin to Dhamraj's home. Fortunately, this is still Bollywood, which is known for its wild swings in tone and genre, which means a happy ending is still a possibility. (You'd think having a skilled con artist in the family would be useful, but no, most problems are solved by Amar punching people.)
Bhagyawan is very much a product of the early Nineties. The plot is much more complicated than it needs to be, the tone shifts back and forth with all the vigor of an inflatable tune man in front of a car dealership, and the action scenes are trying desperately to be like a Jackie Chan movie without Jackie Chan. Still, the movie stars a number of actors that I quite like, and also Govinda. Pran is particularly well cast, giving the part of embattled patriarch a solemn dignity and a playful spark. Juhi Chawla is splendid as the cheery con artist, and frankly a bit wasted as the dutiful daughter in law. And Johny Lever is relatively restrained here; there's some of his trademark mugging for the camera during some of the early con artist scenes, but Juhi is mugging right along with him, and later in the film he's just a loyal and surprisingly helpful friend. The movie is reasonably entertaining in its own right, but perhaps more interesting as a look into Bollywood's past.
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