Long-time readers will know that I do not hate love stories.

 I Hate Luv Storys (2010) opens with a montage of clips from famous Bollywood movies in which the hero proclaims that he does not believe in love, only for him to declare his love by the end of the movie.  The voiceover by J (Imran Khan), this movie's hero, points out what a cliche the hero's sudden conversion is, but the movie is calling its shot: this is what's going to happen, yes it's a cliche, but you're going to like it anyway.

J is an assistant director for Veer Kapoor (Samir Soni), Bollywood's leading director of romantic films and an obvious, if affectionate, parody of Karan Johar.  Veer is planning a new film, a sweeping romantic saga called "Pyar Pyar Pyar," but it won't be like all those other movies, because this time they'll be filming in New Zealand!  J is less than impressed, because he's young and cynical and he hates love stories; he'd rather be working on a more serious film.  To fix his attitude, Veer assigns him to work on props under the direction of Art Director Simran (Sonam Kapoor).

Simran loves love stories; she grew up on romantic movies, and she works in Bollywood because it gives her a chance to live in that world.  She's dating her childhood sweetheart Raj (Sameer Dattani), who is handsome, attentive, and predictably romantic, sending Simran a white lily every day.  And she's met J before; he spotted her at a movie theater and tried and utterly failed to flirt with her.  Simran and J are bound to clash, and they do.  Things go so badly that J is in danger of being fired.

J goes to a dance party on the beach to blow off some steam, and meets and hooks up with Giselle (Bruna Abdullah), then they run into Raj and Simran, which does not help the frosty work situation.  In the light of day Giselle turns out to be annoying and shallow, so that relationship crumbles quickly.  

And then things start to change at work.  J and Simran share a few unguarded moments, make a connection, and become friends.  Good, supportive friends, even.  Simran challenges J's knee-jerk cynicism, and he makes her question whether her perfect life is as perfect as she thinks.  

And then the inevitable happens.  Simran realizes that her feelings for J are not so platonic.  She goes to confess her love but sees J with another woman, and they have an enormously awkward conversation about it.  J says he's never thought of her as anything but a friend, she apologizes for jumping to conclusions, and they part amicably, but it's clear that things have changed.  Simran is polite but distant, and arranges for a new props assistant, allowing J to resume working directly for Veer.  And it's just in time, because Veer needs help wrangling the movie's self-absorbed star, Rajiv (Aamir Ali), who functions as a composite parody with Shah Rukh Khan's career and Salman Khan's love life.

J mopes.  He mopes more when Simran leaves early to finalize things for the shoot in New Zealand, and his friend Kunal (Kavin Dave) slowly and carefully explains to him that he is in love with Simran after all.  When the rest of the production team arrive in new Zealand, Simran is still distant, but J tries to maker a grand romantic gesture.  Simran rejects him, because she doesn't trust his feelings and won't hurt Raj again.  can J win her back?  Will Simran take a risk to claim the life that she really wants?  Will true love win in the end?

Of course it will.  The opening montage spells out what's going to happen, and the big twist in the story is someone running away from the airport rather than running to it.  This is a movie that consciously chooses to lean into cliche.

Here's why it still works.  First, the "Bollywood behind the scenes" setting is both fascinating in its own right, and allows the movie to comment on itself, showing the cliches and then showing where they came form.  It also means that we can have a relatively grounded and character focused romance with all of the trappings of a grand romantic saga.

And then there are the side characters, who should be one dimensional stereotypes but get a surprising amount of respect form the storyline.  Giselle, the one night stand who was only there to show the limitations of J's playboy lifestyle, comes back to play a small but pivotal role, and while she's still annoying and kind of shallow, she's also kind kind, and J actually recognizes her as a real person with agency.  And while Rajiv is absolutely a self-absorbed doofus who is entirely too proud of his own backside, all the romantic movies he's made have given him a genuine insight into matters of the heart.  

I Hate Luv Storys might pretend to be a parody from time to time, but it's not a parody at all.  This is a love letter to Bollywood romance, borrowing the imagery of the silver screen to mythologize a very humble and ordinary romance.  It delivers exactly what it promised.

It's been a long road.

 Dunki (2023) is Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan's third starring role after his recent Zero-driven hiatus.  There's a difference, though; both Jawan and Pathaan featured Action Shah Rukh, but Dunki has to do without beautifully choreographed violence, cool gadgets, or Deepika Padukone in a bikini.  Instead, the movie relies on Shah Rukh's affable charm, a strong supporting cast, and a clearly stated thesis.

The movie opens with Manu (Taapsee Pannu), a woman of a certain age, escaping from a London hospital.  She's determined to return to her home village in Punjab, but she can't get an Indian visa, so her lawyer Puru Patel (Deven Bhojani) puts her in touch with the one man who can help, her old flame Hardayal "Hardy" Singh Dillon (Shash Rukh Khan).  Hardy is thrilled to talk to her again, but when she asks him to meet her in Dubai, he says that he won't.  Manu knows better, and she gathers her friends Buggu (Vikram Kochhar) and Balli (Anil Grover) to join her on the trip.

And the film flashes back twenty five years.  Manu is desperate to get to England, hoping to earn enough money to pay off her father's debt and buy back the family home.  And she's not the only one; Buggu and Balli both want to earn enough money to support their respective mothers and escape the dead end jobs they're trapped in.  They've tried various shady visa brokers and been cheated every time, but there's always hope.  Manu is actually looking for a wrestling coach for the latest immigration scheme when she meets former soldier Hardy, who traveled for miles to return a tape player to her late brother, the soldier who saved his life.

Hardy is moved by her story, and agrees to train her as a way to repay his debt to her brother.  When the latest immigration broker vanishes, Hardy gets them all enrolled in an English class run by Geetu (Boman Irani), hoping to earn a student visa. In class they meet meet Sukhi (Vicky Kaushal) who wants to get a visa as quickly as possible in order to rescue the woman he loves from an abusive marriage.  This means that the core cast includes a group of five friends, but one of them is in a wildly different genre than the others.  This will not be the only example of an uneven tone.

Balli passes the test, but everyone else fails.  Balli promises to look up Sukhi's love Jassi as soon as he reaches England.  He keeps his promise, but it's already too late; Jassi has taken her own life.  Sukhi is heartbroken, and immolates himself.  At the funeral, Hardy vows to get his friends to England, no matter what.  Rather than wait for a visa that may never come, they'll take the "dunki" route, hopping from country to country until they are smuggled onto British soil.

Up until now, the film has veered between charming comedy and Sukhi's tragedy; now it becomes a full-fledged drama.  The trip to England is brutal.  People die, including characters who were introduced earlier as comic relief.  As a former soldier, Hardy has to use violence to protect his friends along the way, but the violence isn't cool, it's brutal and unpleasant and leaves everyone involved shaken.  And yet there are some flickers of hope; Hardy manages to confess his feelings for Manu, and she loves him as well, though they want to stay focused on the journey until they reach their destination.

And then England, which is its own kind of brutal.  Balli hasn't been as successful as he lead the others to believe, and life as an undocumented immigrant is hard.  hardy finally manages to contact Puru Patel, who offers a few possible routes to legal status.  Trying to get Manu married to a British citizen is a disaster, though, so the only option left is to seek asylum, claiming that they will be persecuted by the Indian government if they try to return home. Hardy is a patriot, and he absolutely will not lie about his country, but he can afford to have convictions, since he's only in England for Manu.  The others have families to provide for, and they all claim asylum while Hardy is deported.

And then the flashback is over, we're back in the present, and the movie is a comedy again, with Hardy scheming to smuggle his friends back into an India which doesn't want them because of their asylum claim.  Mostly a comedy, that is, because Manu was in that hospital for a reason, and that's what's driving her to get back to Punjab before it's too late.

This is obviously a deeply political movie; it pretty much has to be, given the topic.   The film is very much on the side of the little people seeking an opportunity to provide for their families, and has a lot to say about a system which is designed to keep poor people out, and the brokers who take advantage of the desperate.  Shah Rukh gets a good speech, angry in the Terry Pratchett sense.

The tone here is wildly uneven, but that is not that uncommon in Bollywood, and writer/director Rajkumar Hirani's earlier films, such as the Munna Bhai franchise and 3 Idiots, also mix moments of joy with unexpected tragedy.  The cast makes it work, especially Khan.  This is an unusually disciplined performance for him, and there are no winking references to Khan's earlier films to remind the viewer that they're watching a big star.  Like Hardy, Shah Rukh stays focused on the moment until he reaches his destination.

Tough love.

 Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya (1998) has a pretty typical setup for a nineties Shah Rukh Khan film, with hero Suraj forced to live with the family of his beloved Muskaan (naturally played by Kajol) in order to win over her uncle and overprotective brother, helping to solve the family's land dispute along the way.  However this is not a Shah Rukh Khan movie, it's a Salman Khan movie, and that makes a big difference.

Muskaan isn't just a love interest, of course.  She's a wealthy orphan, raised by her uncle, Ajay Singh Thakur (Dharmendra) and watched over by her fiercely protective and generally fierce older brother Vishal (Arbaaz Khan, Salman's real life brother).  Muskaan is both beautiful and wealthy, so she's attracted her fair share of gold digging suitors, but Vishal has always seen them off.  Since the suitors have been universally terrible, Muskaan is more amused than anything else.

Muskaan has dreams of her own, though, and after much preparation she finally convinces Vishal to let her leave the village and attend college in the big city.  He escorts her to the campus, glowers at the decadent students around him, lectures the college principal (Tiku Talsania), and then leaves.  And then someone steals Muskaan's bag.

The someone in question is Suraj (Salman Khan), who made a bet with one of his friends that he could get the beautiful new girl to chase him within five minutes.  Suraj makes a lot of bets, plays a lot of pranks, and fails a lot of classes, but he does seem to have a good heart.  Suraj apologizes, and Muskaan is quickly welcomed into his circle of friends, most of whom are broad stereotypes of one sort or another, including a tomboy who I would swear was a satire of Anjali from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, except that this movie came out months before KKHH.

It's possible that love is friendship in this movie as well; Suraj is certainly smitten, and Muskaan seems to be drawn to him as well, especially after learning his tragic backstory.  He confesses his feelings in a song, and she phrases her ambivalence in pretty much the worst way possible, singing that "In my reluctance hides a consent."  So they're sort of dating when Suraj spots her talking to a mysterious man, jumps to the wrong conclusion, and attacks him.  The mysterious man turns out to be Vishal; he beats Suraj soundly, warns him against trying to contact Muskaan again ever, and then drags his sister home.

However, Vishal doesn't notice Suraj riding the top of their bus.  Suraj finds the family compound, introduces himself to Vishal, apologizes for starting the fight, and announces his honorable intentions, then Vishal beats him up again and send him on his way.  As Suraj walks down the road, debating what to do next, he sees an accident and pulls Ajay Singh from the wreckage.  The two men talk, Ajay is impressed, and invites Suraj to stay at his compound.  They arrive during a convenient blackout, and by the time the lights switch back on Vishal has agreed to welcome his uncle's rescuer, while Suraj has agreed to do chores in order to earn his keep.

And at this point we're in very familiar territory.  Ajay Singh Thakur has no idea that Suraj is here to win Muskaan.  Vishal does, but Surj is a guest so he can't just be thrown out.  Suraj has to survive all of Vishal's "tests", win over his potential in-laws, make everyone's lives better, and unite Vishal with Ujala (Anjala Zaveri), the woman who loves him for some odd reason.  Meanwhile, Vshal needs to find a solid reason to kick Suraj out so he can marry her off to Vijay Singh (Nirmal Pandey), a long haired tough guy and nobleman whom he has just met.  

The problem is that this is early Salman Khan, before he had settled comfortably into his action hero persona.  Early Salman is trying to be charming, roguish, and most of all funny, but he expresses that through mugging for the camera, silly voices, and the occasional spontaneous Michael Jackson impression.  Suraj is not so bad when he's still at the college, but once he reaches the village and sets out on his mission to impress Vishal he seems to go out of his way to be as annoying as humanly possible.  I spent most of the movie rooting for the violent and weirdly possessive brother.

As for Kajol, sh's' always good.  She's a very natural actress, and gives her all in every scene I've ever seen her in, but her sparkling enthusiasm cannot cover for the spectacular lack of chemistry between her and Salman.  This was the only movie in which Kajol and Salman were cast as a romantic couple (apart from Salman's extended cameo in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, in which his lack of chemistry with Kajol was a plot point), and I am not surprised.  Shah Rukh's chemistry with Kajol is legendary, but her chemistry with Salman is not.  Turns out the casting makes a big difference.

Tiger 3: The One Without a Cool Title

 Pathaan established the Spy Universe as a genuine cinematic universe, weaving elements from the Tiger series and War into a more or less cohesive whole.  Tiger 3 (2023) has a different job - it needs to establish a direction for the new cinematic universe and find an easy way to distinguish the series' three renegade agent protagonists, all while telling an entertaining story and staying true to what people liked about the Tiger movies in the first place.

The movie opens . . . well, it opens with an extended and plot-relevant flashback, but I'll get to that later.  Then it cuts to a Bond style cold open action scene, as Tiger (Salman Khan) rescues his former handler and best pal Gopi (Ranvir Shorey) from the Taliban.  Tiger and Gopi have a complicated relationship; Gopi was last seen in the first Tiger move, Ek Tha Tiger, when he shot Tiger in an attempt to keep him from escaping with Pakistani agent Zoya (Katrina Kaif).  But Tiger isn't one to hold a grudge, and he rescues his old friend.  Gopi is wounded in the process, and before dying he warns Tiger that there's a mission being planned in Pakistan and that there's a mole helping the enemy: Zoya.

Tiger returns to his home in Austria and is reunited with Zoya.  Fortunately the "can Zoya be trusted" plotline doesn't last too long.  They've been married for years, and the question has come up in every movie so far.  The answer is always the same - yes, she can be trusted, as established by a quick musical number.

Tiger is satisfied and sets out on his next mission, traveling to St. Petersburg to extract one of Gopi's informants.  Naturally, there's an attempt on the informant's life, and the mysterious assassin removes their motorcycle helmet to reveal - Zoya!  She is the mole after all!  They fight, and it's close, but Tiger gets the upper hand, then is knocked out by a mysterious assailant.

Tiger wakes up bound to a chair, watching a projection of Zoya and Aatish Rehman (Emraan Hashmi), Zoya's former mentor in the ISI as established by the opening flashback.  Rehman has poisoned Tiger and Zoya's son Junior (Sartaaj Kakkar) in order to force Zoya to work for him.  He explains his very personal grudge against Tiger (it's complicated spy stuff, but Tiger had to shoot Rehman's pregnant wife Shaheen (Riddhi Dogra) while protecting a peace conference.)  He offers Tiger the same choice he offered Zoya - perform a mission for him and Junior gets the antidote, but otherwise the boy dies.  And Tiger immediately escapes, because when forced to choose between love and duty, Tiger will pick love every single time.

The couple are assigned to retrieve a briefcase from a locked vault in Istanbul, and suddenly the film switches to a heist movie.  Tiger recruits his old friend and tech expert Rakesh (Kumud Mishra) along with a pair of starstruck RAW agents, Zoya has a martial arts fight with a Chinese general (Michelle Lee) while dressed in a towel, the item is retrieved, and Tiger is captured and sent to Pakistan for trial.  This is bad, because the briefcase contains Pakistan's nuclear launch codes.  Suddenly Tiger and Zoya are the most dangerous terrorists in the world, disavowed by their hoke countries, and Tiger is sentenced to death.

Fortunately for Tiger, he's part of a cinematic universe now.  He's rescued by Pathaan (Shah Rukh Khan) and after a great deal of banter, even more shooting and an exploded bridge Pathaan flies out of the movie and Tiger goes underground in Islamabad, staying with his adopted son Hassan (Vishal Jethwa),  last seen in Tiger Zinda Hai.  

Of course Tiger's not done.  He and Zoya have to get the band back together, gathering supporting characters form the previous movies in order to foil Rehman, save Pakistan and clear their own names, pretty much in that order, and they have to do it by assaulting the Prime Minister's office.

Every installment in the Spy Universe has ramped up the level of action, and this movie finds a new top to go over, especially after Pathaan shows up.  Still, there's no shakey-cam, and the fights are kinetic and move at a good pace.  If you want to see a movie about Salman Khan punching absolutely everybody, Tiger 3 has you covered.

The movie also continues with the Spy Universe's running theme of the importance of human connection.  Rehman has lost his connection and fallen from grace, while Tiger and Zoya succeed because they have each other and genuine friends.  

And then there's the MCU style mid-credits scene, in which Kabir (Hrithik Roshan), the protagonist form War, is assigned to assassinate a mysterious enemy, setting up a Spy Universe Thanos and laying out the differences between the spies, boyband style: Tiger is the cool tough guy, Pathaan is the smart and funny one, and Kabir (who was the antagonist for half of his own movie) is the edgy bad boy loner.  It works.

Though I have to ask - when does Zoya get her name in the title?  She's been the co-protagonist for all of the Tiger movies, and Tiger's single-minded devotion to his wife is the most interesting thing about him.  It's past time Zoya got the credit she's due.