Darmok and Jilad in Delhi

RRR (2022) was written and directed by S. S. Rajamouli, who also wrote and directed the Bahubali films.  Comparisons are pretty much inevitable.  Is this bombastic historical action drama really just Bahubali in the 1920s?  Kind of, but that's okay, because Bahubali in the 1920s is a really good idea.

It's 1920, and Bheem (NT Rama Rao Jr) is a man with a mission.  He is the protector of the rural Gond community, and on a recent visit outrageously evil British Governor Scott Buxton (Ray Stevenson) abducted a young girl named Malli (Twinkle Sharma) because his even more outrageously evil wife Catherine (Alison Doody) enjoyed her singing.  Gond has followed the villains to Delhi, and is searching the city for a way to reach them - he has a rather complicated plan to free Malli, a plan which involves capturing tigers, but he has to find the girl first.

Meanwhile, Indian Imperial Police officer Rama Raju (Ram Charan) is a man with a mission.  He is determined to be promoted to Special Officer, even if it means wading single handed through a mob of angry protestors in order to arrest the man who through a rock at a picture of the king.  Despite all the wading, however, he's still an Indian man working in a British organization in 1920.  He has a goal, but he needs a chance to make it happen.

Ram gets his chance when the Imperial Police are warned that Bheem is in the area.  Lady Catherine herself promises that any officer who can bring Bheem in alive will be promoted to Special Officer, and that's enough for Rama.  He goes undercover to search for Bheem.

He doesn't find Bheem, though, he finds Akhtar, whom he befriends when they team up to rescue a boy in a boat from a burning train.  (As you do.)  The pair quickly become close friends, but they're each keeping secrets - Rama does not reveal that he is secretly a policeman, and Akhtar doesn't reveal that he is secretly Bheem.  They do reveal some things about themselves, though - Rama reveals that he has  a girl he loves back at home named Sita (Alia Bhatt), and even Akhtar can't help but point out that the name is a bit on the nose, though the movie is going to get considerably on the noser.

When Rama, who speaks English, notices Akhtar, who does not speak English, staring at a wealthy British woman named Jenny (Olivia Morris), he helps him to meet and befriend her.  This is probably the most unrealistic part of the movie, since these two Indian guys are able to approach an admittedly very nice British woman on the street and the only problems they face are some dirty looks and snooty people being rude to them at a party, before the British snobs are defeated by Rama and Bheem's sweet dance moves.  

Jenny is the Governor's niece, and befriending her earns Bheem a visit to the house.  He uses the opportunity to find Malli, though he isn't able to take her home yet.  he decides it's time to put his plan into action.  And Rama is getting closer to his target, capturing one of Bheem's associates (Rahul Ramakrishna), but getting a highly venomous snake thrown at his face for his troubles.  After he's bitten, he sets his prisoner free and stumbles off to die in the company of his good friend Akhtar.  Bheem cures him, and while he's confined to bed recovering, reveals his true identity, then leaves to throw leopards at rich people.

Rama recovers and makes his way to the site of Bheem's attack, manages to capture him when no one else could, and finally earns his promotion.  he's heartbroken, though - not only did he betray his best friend, but Rama is really a revolutionary working undercover in order to fulfill an oath he made to his dying father (Ajay Devgn) and steal British rifles in order to arm the people of his village.  Now his goal is in sight, but Bheem is about to be executed.  Can Raja abandon everything he's worked for in order to rescue his friend?  Yes.  Of course he can.  It's that kind of movie.

RRR is supposed to be a historical flight of fancy, bringing two historical figures who never met in real life together for one grand adventure at the start of their revolutionary careers.  It's not, really.  This movie hits all the beats of an Indian mythological epic, complete with heartfelt vows, sudden deep friendships, demonic villains, and a climax involving explosive arrows.  It's just adapting a more recent mythology.

But that's not the whole truth, either.  Just as the Bahubali movies remixed and condensed the Mahabharata, RRR remixes and condenses the characters and events of the Ramayana.  Rama and Sita are, well, Rama and Sita, and while Bheem draws a little from the Pandava Bheem, he draws a lot from Hanuman, even making a  joke about burning down "Lanka" about five minutes after I did.

The mythological remix is a neat trick, and it's even more impressive the second time around.

My foot!

The Bollywood movies of the Nineties could get pretty wild, but Basant (1960) is a product of a different time, an age in which Shammi Kapoor and company could make sweet, uncomplicated romances that stick to a single genre throughout.  Nah, I'm just kidding - it gets pretty wild before the end.

Meenakshi (Nutan) is in love, but her stuffy, rich father Rai Bahadur (Murad) just doesn't understand, and he takes her to Calcutta by train in order to get her away from her paramour.  They argue, which mostly consists of them saying "My foot!" to each other at every conceivable opportunity.  During the night, Meenakshi sneaks away, hoping to catch a train to Bombay so that she can finally be with the man she loves, Rajesh (Pran).

If you know your Bollywood supporting actors, you know what a bad idea this is.  Pran had a long and varied career in which he played many different roles, but back in 1960 he was pretty firmly typecast as "Apparently rich jerk who needs money and has a thin mustache that makes him look like Evil Walt Disney."  Rai Bahadur is absolutely right to be concerned, though dragging your daughter to Calcutta is perhaps not the best way to handle the situation.

Before Meenakshi can get another train, her suitcase is stolen by Billoo (Johnny Walker), a surprisingly persistent petty thief.  She chases him to the circus, where she recovers her bag, discovers that her father has all the local police out searching for her, and performs a quick dance number onstage with out of work writer turned circus performer Ashim (Shammi Kapoor) in order to escape.

When she gets back to the train station, it's crawling with police.  She takes a bus, and winds up getting robbed again by Billoo.  Then the bus is boarded by police, and she's saved by Ashim, who pretends to be her overly possessive husband until the policeman leaves out of embarrassment.

And then it's road trip time!  They're both on the way to Bombay, and Ashim keeps helping Meenakshi, in part because he's just a decent guy who can't stand to leave someone in trouble, and in part because he thinks he can get a good story out of the adventure.  There are mishaps, they are pursued by Billoo, who wants the substantial reward Rai Bahadur is offering, and there's a great deal of bickering and "My foot!"s, but they also get to know one another a bit more, and we learn that Meenakshi is not so much spoiled as incredibly sheltered; Rajesh is pretty much the first man she's met outside of her father's supervision, and she's really more interested in freedom than suave, sinister mustaches.

And speaking of suave, sinister mustaches, Rai Bahadur is so desperate to find his daughter that he contacts Rajesh and tells him that he'll agree to the marriage, as long as Meenakshi comes home safely.  This suits Rajesh nicely, and he makes plans for the wedding, though he doesn't put any effort into finding his fiance.

By this point, Meenakshi and Ashim have inevitably fallen in love, though Ashim hasn't quite figured that fact out, even after Meenakshi asks him to take her home, rather than keep going to Rajesh's place.  It's only when they reach her front gate that she manages to explain the situation to him, using small words and a power point presentation.  They are in love!  It all sounds like a very sincere take on an old-school screwball comedy.  Actually, it sounds like a very sincere take on a specific screwball comedy, It Happened One Night, mostly because that's where they lifted most of the plot from.  But this is Bollywood, and there are always other genres to explore.  Time for a twist.

Ashim suggests that the spend a month apart, without contacting one another, in order to make sure that it's really love and not just infatuation brought on by an adventure in close proximity.  He has a point, given how she started her relationship with Rajesh, so they go their separate ways, promising to meet up again in a month.  What could go wrong?

Plenty.  At Meenaskhi's birthday party, Rai Bahadur announces her engagement to Rajesh.  Ashim is there in disguise (naughty Ashim), and immediately jumps to all the wrong conclusions.  They fight, they make up, they resume their separation, and the genres start flying fast and furious.

It's an adventure movie, as Ashim accepts a job to take a valuable necklace to a village in rural Assam, only to be robbed and apparently killed by Rajesh's men.  It's a melodrama, as Meenakshi crashes her car while speeding to the planned meeting with Ashim, only to end up in a wheelchair, her father dead of shock, and forced to depend on Rajesh and his passive aggressive protestations of disinterested love.  Then it becomes a Western?  Sure, why not?   Strict genre boundaries are a prison, and movies want to be free.

When Basant is a screwball comedy, it's pretty adorable.  Of course, it's lifted pretty directly from It Happened One Night, but when you steal you should steal from the best.  Shammi and Nutan have a relaxed and easy chemistry, and their escapades are fun rather than stressful.  It gives them plenty of time for character development, and that character development carries over into the chaotic second act, while Billoo transforms from annoying comic nemesis to annoying but genuinely useful sidekick.  It's still a chaotic mess, but it's a chaotic mess with heart.

No Jugni this time.

Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi (2018) is a very direct sequel to 2016's Happy Bhaag Jayegi, featuring many of the same actors playing the same characters, which is more unusual in Bollywood than you might expect.  Of course, it focuses on Happy and Guddu, the apparent leads of the previous movie, rather than Bilal and Zoya, the actually interesting characters.  Fortunately, the last movie's comic relief is along for the ride as well.

As the movie opens, Happy (Diana Penty) and Guddu (Ali Fazal) are happily married.  Guddu has received an offer to perform in Shanghai (for money, even!) so the young couple hop on a plane, not realizing that the scheduled performance is a trap.  Chinese gangster Chang (Jason Tham) has his men waiting at the airport to snatch the young couple, all part of a complicated and poorly thought out scheme to convince Bilal (The aptly named Sir Not Appearing In This Film) to hand over a contract to them by holding happy as hostage and sending Guddu to Pakistan as an intermediary.  The plane lands, and sure enough, Chang's men abduct Harpreet "Happy" Kaur.

The trouble is, they've grabbed the wrong Happy.  Harpreet "Happy" Kaur (Sonakshi Sinha) is a professor of botany who has arrived in China to take up a teaching job, though she has an ulterior motive which will be important later.  Happy tries to explain that she's never been to Pakistan, doesn't know anyone named Bilal, and they have clearly kidnapped the wrong woman, but Chang can't believe that there could be two Happy Kaurs from Amritsar, so he has his men kidnap more people from the first movie in order to convince her to cooperate.  Bagga (Jimmy Shergill) and Usman (Piyush Mishra) are delivered just in time to discover that Happy has escaped, and so Chang orders his new prisoners to track down his old prisoner, because Chang really isn't very good at crime.

The escaped Happy wanders the streets of Shanghai in search of someone to help her get to the college, and eventually she meets sad sack Sardar and embassy worker Kushwant Singh Gill (Jassi Gill), who finally agrees to help her by taking her to meet influential Pakistani-Chinese businessman Adnan Chow (Denzil Smith.)  (Chow has a dark secret, and you've probably already figured out what it is.)  Chow agrees to help, but urges Happy and Kushwant to lie low for a while, and especially not to go to the police, since his sources tell him that there's a warrant for Happy's arrest for drug smuggling.

Happy and Kushwant dutifully return to his apartment and  lie low, but somehow Chang manages to find them, with Bagga and Usman in tow.  This is clearly not the Happy that they know, so there's some confusion, leading to a brief scuffle, and Happy, Kushwant, Bagga, and Usman all escape together.

That's when Happy reveals her ulterior motive; she was left at the altar by childhood friend and arranged groom Aman (Aparshakti Khurana), and she's come to China to find him and drag him back to Punjab to apologize to her father.  The others agree to help, which means it's time for a road trip.  Kushwant keeps in touch with Chow, who offers helpful advice, while Chang mysteriously keeps finding them.

Meanwhile, after a very confusing day at the university, the other Happy and Guddu meander through Shanghai, enjoying an unscheduled second honeymoon.  Will the two plots intersect?  Eventually!

Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi is probably funnier than the first movie, but it's missing the little arthouse touches that made the first movie interesting, though to be fair most of those arthouse touches come from having Abhay Deol in the cast.  On the other hand, some things don't change. The original Happy and Guddu are still incredibly static characters who don't really change and don't learn anything.  They're also further in the background this time around; I think Bilal has more of an impact on the plot, and he's not even in the movie.

Setting the movie in Shanghai is a bit of a risk, since Bollywood has a long history of offensive portrayals of Chinese people.  (Looking at you, Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani!)  Chang is the most prominent Chinese character here, and he's a violent gangster who is bad at his job, while his subordinates are fools, but their foolishness is not a function of being Chinese, and the various supporting characters are portrayed as people.  There are a few jokes based around "They all look the same to me," but the joke seems to be that Bagga and Usman are a bit prejudiced, and that prejudice comes back to bite them.

This is a sequel with surprisingly tight continuity with the first movie, with characters reflecting on previous events rather than merely recycling jokes.  It's still a sequel, though, recycling many of the plot points from the previous outing on a bigger scale, while omitting the actually interesting characters form the first one.  Fortunately, the new Happy and Kushwant are interesting ion their own right, and do experience plenty of character development.  Somebody has to.

The power of Jugni is a curious thing.

 Jugni is a recurring character and metaphor and theme in Punjabi folk music.  A Jugni songs usually features a wide eyed innocent young woman arriving in a strange place, learning something new and providing illuminating commentary, sometimes humorous and sometimes sad.  Many Indian movies feature Jugni songs, in part because many Indian movies are about young women traveling to new places and having adventures.  The Jugni song in Happy Bhaag Jayegi (2016), for instance, plays while a runaway Indian bride is running through the streets in Pakistan.

The runaway bride in question is Harpreet "Happy" Kaur (Diana Penty).  Her father (Kanwaljit Singh) has arranged her marriage to local politician Baggu (Jimmy Shergill), but she's really in love with penniless struggling musician Guddu (Ali Fazal).  Guddu's friend has arranged for a flower truck to be parked outside the wedding venue, and at the appointed time, Happy sneaks away and jumps into . . . well, she jumps into the wrong truck, and the next morning she emerges from the basket she was hiding in, to find herself in a mansion in Lahore, Pakistan.

Bilal Ahmed (Abhay Deol), son of retired politician Javed Ahmed (Javed Sheikh) is very surprised to find an angry Indian woman in his living room.  Bilal has spent his entire life trying to live up to his father's expectations, including giving up cricket (because who ever heard of a cricketer becoming successful in Pakistani politics) and agreeing to a political betrothal to childhood friend Zoya (Momal Sheikh), and he knows that having an undocumented young Indian woman in a wedding dress in the house is probably a bad look, politically, but before he can really do anything about the situation, Happy runs away.

She is promptly arrested by comic relief policeman ASP Usman Afridi (Piyush Mishra), who has always wanted to arrest an Indian spy.  Happy tries to bluff her way out of the situation by claiming to be a guest of the Ahmed family, and that brings Bilal around to collect her.  He's taking her to be deported when they are stopped by Zoya.  After a very complicated and frantic series of explanations, Zoya points out the obvious: Happy can still cause trouble for the Ahmeds after being returned to India, so the best tactic is to keep her happy.  The best way to do that is to bring Guddu to India, get the young couple married, and then send them both home - once the marriage is finalized, Happy's father will have to accept it, and Baggu can learn to deal with disappointment.

The plan is unnecessarily complicated.  Bilal and Usman travel to India to find Guddu, posing as music producers.  Guddu is being held by Baggu, so Bilal and Usman have to strike a complicated balance in order to convince Guddu that Happy is in Lahore, without letting Baggu know.  They succeed, meaning everything will be fine as long as Baggu doesn't discover the truth.

Baggu discovers the truth, and the plot gets much more complicated, with everybody in Lahore, multiple kidnappings, Bilal reconsidering all of his life choices, and Zoya noticing just how close Bilal and Happy have become.  The only solution to everyone's problems is a mass wedding, I guess.

It sounds like a farce, and there are certainly jokes and moments of humor, but the characters take the situation completely seriously.  Abhay Deol has built his reputation on quirky art films, and even in a  commercial entertainer like this one he brings a quirky art film energy, while Momal Sheikh is a soap opera actress, and she brings that level of intensity to every scene.

In the end, our Jugni doesn't learn much from her journey.  Happy and Guddu are both fairly static characters, and while their situation has changed by the end of the film, their personalities really haven't.  Zoya and Bilal, on the other hand, change a lot; they start the movie as a man who gave up on his dreams and his bossy fiance, and they end with a recontextualized relationship and a new approach to life.  That's the real power of Jugni.