Zoinks! It's a gh-gh-gh-gh-Gandhi!

Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006) is one of Bollywood's indirect sequels; several of Munna Bhai M.B.B.S's cast members return, but the only recurring characters are Munna and his faithful friend Circuit, and there are no references to the events of the previous movie.  It's also a solid improvement over the original film, which was already pretty good.

Regardless of continuity, Munna (Sanjay Dutt) is always Munna, a charming gangster who make shis living kidnapping people for profit and clearing houses at the behest of crooked real estate developer Lucky Singh (Boman Irani.)  As always, Munna is assisted and supported by his loyal right hand man Circuit (Arshad Warsi.)  They're not exactly gangsters with hearts of gold; the pair are funny, even affable, but they still make their living through the judicious application of violence, and they aren't sorry about it.

Munna's a bit distracted these days, because he's fallen in love with the voice of radio DJ Jhanvi (Vidya Balan.).  Munna refuses to work during her show, instead sitting by ocean and listening while Circuit handles all of their criminal duties.  So when Jhanvi announces a Gandhi trivia contest, with the winner having the chance to meet her in person, Munna has to win.

As always, Circuit makes it happen, organizing a phone bank to flood the lines so that no one else can get through and a small collection of kidnapped history professors to feed Munna the correct answers.  (The professors are sent home with a collection of nice prizes afterwards.)  Munna wins, obviously, and when he meets Jhanvi and she asks him what he does for a living, he blurts out that he's a history professor.  Jhanvi is delighted, and invites Munna to deliver a lecture to the residents of the retirement home she hosts at her house.  Before Circuit can stop him, Munna agrees.

There's no obvious way to cheat his way through a lecture, so Munna decides he has to learn something about Gandhi.  He heads to the library for five days of intensive study, and within a few days, he can see a vision of Gandhi (Dilip Prabhavalkar), who agrees to help him in exchange for a price to be named later. Nobody else can see Gandhi, though Circuit politely pretends. (Gandhi is quick to point out that he is not a ghost or a spirit, he is "inspiration."  This will be important later.)  With Gandhi's help, Munna delivers a rough but stirring lecture, impressing Jhanvi in the process.  Things are going well, and then Gandhi names his price: Munna must tell Jhanvi the truth about who he is.  Munna refuses, and Gandhi leaves, promising to return when he's called.

Meanwhile, Circuit has accepted a job from Lucky Singh to clear out an old folk's home.  Lucky needs the land as a gift, or perhaps dowry, for the future father in law (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) of his daughter Simran (Dia Mirza.)  Of course it's Jhanvi's house, but Circuit doesn't realize that.  Lucky does, however, so he offers to send Munna, Jhanvi, and all of the home's residents on a trip to Goa; after they're gone he quietly sends Circuit to clear out the house and take possession.

Munna and Jhanvi have a wonderful time.  He's about to propose when she gets the call that the house has been seized, so everybody hurries back.  There are legal remedies but they would take years, and if Munna tries his usual extortion on Lucky, his secret will come out, so only Gandhi can help them.  Gandhi promises to help, as long as Munna makes up with Circuit.  He does, and the dispossessed old folks begin a campaign of "Gandhigiri," camping out on the street in front of Lucky's house while Munna and Jhanvi host a radio show offering Gandhilike advice to the people who call in.  The show becomes a huge hit, and Munna and Jhanvi ask their fans to send flowers to their friend Lucky along with messages urging him to "Get Well Soon," because dishonesty is a disease but they will be there for him until he recovers.

Lucky makes Munna a fairly generous counteroffer and when Munna refuses, threatens to reveal the truth to Jhanvi at seven o'clock the following morning.  Gandhi offers Munna the only possible advice in that situation: tell her first.  he does, she slaps him and leaves, and suddenly Lucky is dealing with a determined (if peaceful) protest from a man with nothing to lose.  And the radio show is such a hit that Munna is allowed to keep doing it even without Jhanvi.  The only problem is that Munna told Lucky about Gandhi, and in a battle of public perception, knowing your opponent is getting advice from his imaginary friend is one heck of a weapon.

Lage Raho Munna Bhai was written in part as an attempt to rekindle public interest in Gandhi and his teachings.  And it worked!  The film sparked a wave of Gandhigiri style protests against various injustices across India and in the US, and many of them were successful.  The film also prompted a rise in public service projects by young people.  It's a good movie in the artistic sense, but it's also a good movie in the moral sense, in that it inspired actual people to do good in the real world.

It's still a movie, though, and the characters need to be as interesting as the politics.  Munna and Circuit start out as charming rogues living a life of apparently consequence free crime.  Their violent antics are funny up until the point when they are not, and they have to face the people they've hurt.  Fortunately Gandhi is here to help with that, too, and he gives some pretty solid advice.  Tell the truth.  Say "sorry" when you've hurt someone, and mean it.  let yourself be vulnerable, and take care of the people you love.  Caring about people and being open and honest with the ones you love is presented as an act of courage, a challenge that our heroes learn to meet.  Turns out this Gandhi fellow has some good ideas.

There's certainly less police brutality than in Singham.

Long time readers will know that I have a theory about film: any any premise can be turned into a comedy by adding the words "Wackiness ensues" to the description.  In the case of Son of Sardaar (2012), wackiness ensues when a man seeks to escape a murderous blood feud by hiding out in the house of his family's sworn enemies.

Jassi Randhawa (Ajay Devgn) is the titular Son of Sardaar, a freespirited Punjabi man now living a carefree life in London.  The opening musical number and subsequent fight scene serve to establish the important facts about his character in a hurry: he is serious about his culture and faith, he tells terrible jokes, he believes in peace but is very good at beating people up, and he is best friends with Pathan (Salman Khan), who will not be sticking around for the rest of the movie.  

 Jassi receives a letter informing him that his late father left him some land back home in India, which the government would like to buy.  Before Jassi leaves, though, Pathan's father delivers some important exposition: the Randhava family had been involved in a brutal blood feud with the neighboring Sandhus, Jassi's father was killed by the Sandhus, but killed their family head in the process, and the Sandhus will not rest until the Randhavas have been wiped out entirely.  Jassi laughs it off.  It's been twenty five years, and surely the Sandhus have forgotten the whole blood feud business by now.

Meanwhile, in India, a quick scene with the Sandhus establishes the important facts about their family: they have not forgotten the whole blood feud business, current family head Billu (Sanjay Dutt) has vowed not to marry his beloved Pammi (Juhi Chawla) until Jassi has been killed, Billu is terrifyingly good at beating people up, and the family takes the laws of hospitality very seriously.  They won't harm a guest while they are in the house no matter how much they deserve it, but the moment they step out, they are fair game.  Still, they are a nice family apart from the bouts of violence.

On the train to Punjab, Jassi meets Sukh (Sonakshi Sinha), and is immediately smitten.  She is at least somewhat amused by his antics, so there's a chance there.  Naturally, Sukh is actually Billu's (much) younger cousin, but the pair are separated before either of them can figure out the connection.

Jassi gets a ride from Billu's brother Tony (Mukul Dev.)  Tony does figure out Jassi's identity, but by that time Jassi has gone on his way, and all of Tony's repeated murder attempts end in cheap slapstick and an oblivious Jassi wandering off.  Jassi meets Billu and is invited to the family home, and it is only after he is safely inside that Tony manages to tell Billu who Jassi is, and Jassi figures out where he is.

Drama is all about conflict, and there's a clear conflict here.  Billu wants to kill Jassi and fulfill his oath and finally marry Pammi, but he can't as long as Jassi is in the house.  Jassi would like to not be murdered, and would also like to put an end to the feud if at all possible and while he's making a wishlist, marrying Sukh would be pretty great as well, so he needs to stay in the house, whether that means faking an injury or charming the members of the family who don't actively want to kill him yet.  And Pammi and Sukh are both active characters with their own goals that they work toward; granted, in both cases that goal is "Find a way to marry the man I love," but they actively pursue that goal instead of waiting around as a prize to be won.

Except the movie is not a drama, it's a strange genre hybrid, a blood-soaked revenge farce.  The tone is consistent throughout - even the flashback to the murderfest of twenty five years ago has a pretty good sight gag - but it's distracting.  The brain has to reconcile the slapstick comedy and light romance with Sanjay Dutt the lovable goofball with a dozen men with swords camped out to kill our hero the moment he steps outside.

Still, a movie can coast a long way on charm, and this movie has a great cast with charm to spare.  Sonakshi Sinha has spunk, Ajay Devgn manages to be both funny and badass, Sanjay Dutt has Munnabhai-like charm while being considerably more bloodthirsty than he was as Munnabhai, and Juhi Chawla is, well, Juhi Chawla.  And "Don't waste your life on a pointless blood feud, even if you took a vow" is something we all need to be reminded of every now and then.

If you're not angry, you're not paying attention.

There are a lot of Indian comedies that revolve around social issues (many of them starring Ayushmann Khurana - it's sort of his thing) but Jayeshbhai Jordaar (2022) is a comedy that really revolves around social issues.

Jayesh (Ranveer Singh) is the son of Pruthvish (Boman Irani), the head of their rural village.  Jayesh is outwardly meek, and will publicly back his father even when he does something utterly ridiculous like respond to complaints of sexual harassment at the village's school by banning soap for girls so that their fragrance cannot lead men astray.  Privately, Jayesh is utterly devoted to his wife Mudra (Shalini Pandey) and their daughter Siddhi (Jia vaidya).  They have a very traditional rural Indian marriage, but Jayesh secretly longs for a  kiss from his wife.

Pruthvish, on the other hand, longs for a male heir, and he's anything but secretive about it.  Mudra is pregnant again, and Pruthvish is very clear: if the ultrasound shows that it's a boy, the whole village will celebrate, but if it's a girl the pregnancy will be quietly terminated, just like the ones before.  The whole family is praying fervently for a male heir, but thanks to a quiet word from a discrete doctor Jayesh already knows that it's a girl, and he's been making plans.

They're not necessarily good plans; Jayesh has fixated on the idea of running away to the village of Ladopur, a village where the gender balance has completely toppled, leaving a population of friendly but lonely wrestlers who vow to protect all women.  When Jayesh's parents announce that they've found a new doctor to give Mudra an ultrasound, it's time to go, but they only way they can think of to get out of the house is faking an abduction, with Mudra holding her husband hostage with a pair of scissors.

And from there - well, they run.  Pruthvish chases them, helped by pretty much all of the men in the village. For a while, the movie pretends to be a road trip comedy, so they meet people, get separated, nearly get captured, are betrayed, are rescued.  It's increasingly clear that Jayesh is going to have to step up (Siddhi tells him as much) but he spends much of the road trip trying to figure out what form that can take.

And that leads to the central paradox of Jayeshbhai Jordaar; it's very serious social commentary dressed up as a roadtrip comedy, with a family of goofy eccentrics having adventures while running from a crushing and downright dystopian existence.  At its best, the movie reminds me of Terry Pratchett: often funny, always heartfelt, and incandescently angry.

The movie is not always at its best.  The escape-captured-escape cycle repeats a few too many times, the dialogue is a bit shaky at times, and while it's a movie about societal oppression of women, it's a very male-centered narrative. The focus is on Jayesh's emotional journey, though though that does help underline some of the ways in which men are also hurt by institutional sexism.  

In the end, Jayeshbhai Jordaar is like Jayesh himself; it's heart is in the right place, but it stumbles a bit along the way.

They do eventually get to the fireworks factory.

 Marjaavaan (2019) is a very retro film, but it's a particular kind of retro.  It hearkens back to the Bollywood of the 1980s, when seemingly every other film featured a hero seeking revenge on the man who wronged him, eventually leading to a blood soaked climax.  The only thing missing is Shakti Kapoor.

Raghu (Sidharth Malhotra) is an orphan, raised by crime lord Narayan Anna (Nassar) to be his strong right hand.  He's got the whole orphan-turned-enforcer package: swaggering charm, almost supernatural fighting skills, a band of loyal friends (Shaad Randhawa, Godaan Kumar, and Uday Nene), an unofficial relationship with beautiful bar dancer Arzoo (Rakul Preet Singh) and the undying envy and hatred of Anna's biological son Vishnu (Riteish Deshmukh).  Vishnu is a little person and unable to perform the violent acts of daring that Raghu can, so he feels that Raghu has taken his place in his father's heart, and is just waiting for a chance to destroy him; it's all very Shakespearean, but not in a good way.

And then Raghu meets Zoya (Tara Sutaria), a mute woman who teaches music.  Tara is looking for local children to perform in a music festival in Kashmir.  Raghu is immediately smitten, and helps her gather some students, including Payal (Alina Kazi), Arzoo's sister.  Soon, Zoya is also smitten, and the pair are singing love songs.  (Well, he's singing, she's signing.)  And at last, Vishnu has his opening.

Vishnu has his goons kidnap one of Zoya's students, leading her to follow.  He orders the boy to shoot the captive Gaitonde (Anant Jog), one of Anna's enemies, and when the boy refuses he shoots him himself.  Zoya sees everything, and manages to escape Vishnu's goons, so Vishnu contacts his father, and then Anna orders Raghu to deal with the problem by shooting this Zoya girl.

Raghu does not want to shoot this Zoya girl, so instead he finds her and they prepare to go on the run together.  Vishnu responds by having some of his men ambush the young lovers, but only after they have kidnapped absolutely everyone he could use as leverage against Raghu, up to and including a nice old lady that Raghu helped for a single scene earlier.  

Before Vishnu can have everyone killed, Anna intervenes.  In gratitude for Raghu's earlier services, he promises to let everybody go, but only if Raghu carries out his original order and shoots Zoya.  Raghu refuses, but Zoya takes matters (and the gun) into her own hands.

Six months later, Raghu is in prison for Zoya's murder, but Vishnu still doesn't dare leave the family compound.  He tries to have Raghu murdered in prison, but Raghu is still just too good at fighting to die, so instead he has Raghu released, planning to ambush him during the inevitable revenge-fueled rampage.

Raghu does not rampage; he just wants to be left alone to drink himself to oblivion.  Vishnu knows he has to be faking, so he keeps trying to provoke the inevitable rampage with more and more acts of villainy.  Raghu suffers every humiliation with silent resignation.  Will he ever fight back?  Well, yes, because this is a revenge melodrama, and there's no way to avoid the upcoming volcano of stylized violence.

Let me begin with the faint praise: Marjaavaan is a very well made bad movie.  The action scenes are imaginative and well choreographed, the leads are engaging, and everybody spouts their ridiculous dialogue with utter sincerity.  It's a very faithful recreation of the 80s Bollywood revenge melodrama without an ounce of parody.

The problem is that it's a very faithful recreation of the 80s Bollywood revenge melodrama without an ounce of parody, which means that it has all the flaws of an 80s Bollywood melodrama.  Zoya and Arzoo have strong personalities, but ultimately they're just there to further Raghu's story, which is a very familiar one.  There's an early item number featuring a sexy hen party which is particularly gratuitous and exploitative.  The movie is unabashedly violent, even as the characters praise their own devotion to peace, leading to a muddled sense of morality.

And then there's Deshmukh, who gives a fantastic performance in a role that he should not be playing.  It's probably the best performance of a Bollywood actor who is not a little person playing a little person that I have seen, but there's really no excuse for not casting an actor of appropriate stature.  And the problems with Vishnu go beyond the casting; Vishnu's physical differences are supposed to represent the corruption in his soul, which was awful back when Shakespeare did it and has not become more palatable in the intervening centuries.  And Vishnu is constantly making references to height and size just to make absolutely sure that the audience understands that he's short.

I don't mind a lack of subtlety.  I'm even fine with the movie's constantly repeated Ramayana references, which are there just in case anyone anywhere missed that Vishnu is the demon who took Raghu's love away, and that Raghu is the righteous avenger that will overcome said demon with the repeated application of violence.  It's fun to watch Vishnu gleefully hasten his own demise.  But ultimately, it's a thin story with no real surprises; even Zoya's death was telegraphed early on.  It's presented well, but it's nothing you haven't seen before.

It's Tabu's world, we're just living in it.

Long delayed sequels are apparently a thing in movies nowadays, both in India and the West.  But sequels vary; Bunty Aur Babli 2, for instance, was a very direct sequel with close ties to the original film, but Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 (2022) is a sequel in the traditional Bollywood sense, sharing at least one cast member, a few character names, and some broad thematic similarities with the original Bhool Bhulaiyaa, but remaining very much his own thing.

Ruhaan (Kartik Aaryan), a charming young man and enthusiastic traveler, meets Reet (Kiara Advani) at a ski resort.  Reet is engaged to Sagar (Sparsh Walla), though she's not very enthusiastic about the match, and she's on her way home to Rajahstan to get married.  Ruhaan convinces her to visit a local music festival and catch a later bus.

And it's a good thing she did, because while catching that later bus they learn that the original bus tumbled off a cliff, killing everybody onboard.  Reet calls home using Ruhaan's phone, but before she can talk to anyone, she overhears her sister Trisha (Mehak Manwani) telling Sagar that she had been praying for the wedding to be cancelled so that they could be together, but not like this!

So, the fiance who Reet isn't that interested in is in love with her sister.  Reet's father (Milind Gunaji) is stern and traditional and would never accept a substitute bride scenario, so Reet decides to stay dead in order to protect her sister's happiness.  (This is a fairly terrible plan, but that's Bollywood tradition.)

Reet convinces Ruhaan to accompany her to Rajahstan and they hide out in her family's abandoned mansion, but Chote Pandit (Rajpal Yadav), one of the local comic relief priests, notices that the lights are on, so the entire family leaves Reet's funeral and goes to investigate.  Ruhaan is spotted, but he quickly spins a story about being a medium led to the house by Reet's spirit, which will only be able to achieve salvation if the family all move into the mansion together, and if Trisha marries Sagar in her place.  Reet had told him just enough about the mansion and her family to make in convincing, so they accept Ruuhan as an intermediary, and everybody movies in and starts planning the wedding.

The problem is, the mansion really is haunted; Reet's sister-in-law Anjulika (Tabu) had an identical twin, Manjulika, who was consumed by jealousy and turned to black magic.  Manjulika tried to kill Anjulika on her wedding night, but ended up dying herself, and after a ghostly rampage her spirit was confined to a room on the third floor which must never be opened under any circumstances.

 And then Chote spots Ruhaan with Reet, and brings a mob of villagers to search the mansion and prove that Reet is really alive and Ruhaan is lying to everyone.  There's only one place to hide that the villagers definitely will not search, and Reet doesn't believe in the ghost anyway.  What could possibly go wrong?

The original Bhool Bhulaiyaa played coy about whether or not its ghost was real, but the ghost in Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 is definitely real.  She is played by Tabu, so she's also spectacular.  Tabu steals the show with a pair of fine performances, but then that's pretty much what Tabu does these days: she steals shows with fine performances.

Both the Bhool Bhulaiyaas are horror comedies with a (possible) ghost haunting a mansion and threatening to derail a wedding after being released from a forbidden room.  The movies rhyme, with music and other motifs from the first movie reappearing in the second, most notably a frenzied kathak in which secrets are revealed, but while the these are similar, the two films spin them in different directions.  That's enough to make this one of the most satisfying sequels I've seen in a long time.