Fortune's fool, fooling around.

The world of cinema has seen some great cinematic rivalries over the years: Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy, Ecks vs. Sever, Kramer vs. Kramer, Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus, Ladies vs. Ricky Bahl,  Godzilla vs. Kong, and now, at long last, Romeo vs. Juliet (2015).  

Our scene is not laid in fair Verona, however.  Instead, the film opens in a small village in Bengal, as the village elders hold a meeting for anyone with complaints against Romeo (Ankush Hazra).  It's mostly an excuse to harangue Romeo's mother Bidisha (Tulika Basu), as the assembled villagers point out Romeo's flaws - he's a liar, he doesn't measure up to his late and respected father, he's a bad influence on the other village youth, and everyone is pretty sure that it's Bidisha's fault.

For all his many flaws, Romeo is a devoted son, and he can't let anyone treat his mother that way.  He's still pretty flawed, though, so his solution is to try and win over the village elder's beloved niece, Shyamali (Neha Gupta.)  The plan works a little too well, with Shyamali announcing their engagement to everyone, and now Romeo has a different problem.

It's time for a new plan, and this one is even worse.  Romeo announces that he's in love with someone else, and when pressed he names Juliet (Mahiya Mahi), a beautiful woman living in London; Romeo and Juliet have never actually met, he just found her picture while scrolling through Facebook.  The villagers are suspicious, probably because Romeo lies so much,, so he must fly to London to bring back Juliet as his bride in order to protect his mother's honor.

In London he meets fellow Bengali expatriate Anu (Nita Mistry), and she agrees to help, which is just as well, because Romeo is utterly clueless.  It turns out that Juliet is an heiress, soon to be one of the richest women in London, so winning her heart is probably off the table, and instead they try and fail to get a picture of Romeo and Juliet together, because that way he can at least send something home.  

 However, in the course of wacky sitcom shenanigans, Romeo manages to save Juliet from a gang of assassins, because  village rowdies will always be better fighters than trained goons.  Juliet's father left behind a very specific and confusing will, stating that if anything happens to her before her twenty first birthday, his estate will be divided between the rest of the family, and she turns twenty one in two months, so she selects Romeo as her bodyguard, which means that he finally gets his picture.

He also has a chance to get to know Juliet while repeatedly saving her from assassins.  She's not the shallow rich girl that she seems, and they're getting along well, but he also learns that she has a boyfriend named Rahul (Joey Debroy), who is currently in America.  

And then Romeo gets another terrible idea: he'll take Juliet back to his village in India.  Dramatically that makes a lot of sense; it means that sophisticated city girl Juliet gets a turn as fish out of water, taking over for country bumpkin Romeo.  It means that Romeo and Juliet will spend more time together in a new place, and Juliet has a chance to grow closer to Bidisha, discovering the warmth of a loving family.  It means new locations for the fight scenes when the assassins inevitably show up.  But it also means a constant juggling act to keep Juliet and Bidisha from learning about Romeo's many, many lies, and I have to admit the cycle of "Juliet discovers a part of the truth and Romeo comes up with a new lie" gets a bit tedious.

There's a lot to like here.  Romeo and Juliet have some actual chemistry by the end of the movie, and both songs and fight scenes are frequent, visually interesting and move at a good pace.  But the plot really doesn't hang together, and the villain's plan makes no sense.

The big problem is Romeo himself, though.  He's supposed to be a charming scamp, but too much of the time he comes across as a smug jerk (especially when dealing with Shyamali.  And he doesn't really learn anything, because he never really gets any sort of a comeuppance.  When each lie is revealed, Juliet is mad for a while, but both she and Bidisha are quick to forgive, so Romeo doesn't really grow.  And he really, really needs to.

Shah Rukh Week: Pardes

 Pardes (1997) is a movie with a message, and it conveys that message through a combination of dogged determination, arthouse symbolism, and all the subtlety of a Fourth of July Parade, but still winds up delivering a different message than intended.

Kishorilal (Amrish Puri) is a wealthy businessman who now lives in America; he might be the richest man in America if some of the dialogue is to be trusted.  On a visit to India he meets old friend Suraj (Alok Nath) and Suraj's large extended family, including an indeterminate number of nieces and nephews and one adult daughter, Ganga (Mahima Chaudhry).  

While he lives in America, Kishorilal loves India and Indian values, and he decides that Ganga would be the perfect wife for his son Rajiv (Apurva Agnihotri), acting as a living reminder of his spiritual home and passing on proper values to his grandchildren.  Suraj agrees, but before a match can be made the young couple have to meet.  Since Rajiv has lived in America his entire life, Kishorilal decides to send his foster son Arjun (Shah Rukh Khan) to make sure everything goes smoothly and prepare things for Rajiv's arrival.

Arjun is a mechanic and musician, with a studio above his garage so that he and his fellow mechanic/musicians can record their songs after working on cars.  He's kind and utterly loyal to his foster father.  He's also very fussy, and he clashes with Ganga and the children initially, but they quickly become friends.  Soon Rajiv arrives, and after a rocky start it looks like everyone likes each other and the match will soon be made.

Because Ganga and Arjun have become such good friends, she asks him directly if Rajiv is a good match and whether her future husband has any bad habits or vices that she needs to know about, because her future happiness depends on an honest answer.  Arjun assures her that Rajiv is a good Indian boy at heart, so she accepts the proposal, the couple are formally engaged, and Ganga and Ranjiv fly off to America.

America is not at all what Ganga expected.  There's the expected difference in values and culture, but almost all of Rajiv's family are awful people, especially his aunt Neeta (Madhuri Bhatia).  Arjun is there, but she's shocked to find that the rest of the family consider him a servant rather than a relative, someone to fix their cars and feed occasionally but not someone to socialize with.  

And worst of all, it quickly becomes clear that Arjun lied.  Rajiv smokes a lot.  he drinks, too, and he is a mean drunk.  Kishorilal urges her to teach his son proper values, but Rajiv is not interested in changing anything, and the situation gets worse and worse, and while she's still mad about the whole lying thing, Arjun is the only friend Ganga has in America.

The trouble is that the rest of the family notice the friendship as well, and convince Kishorilal to send Arjun to manage the family auto company in LA.  He leaves on a solo road trip, while Rajiv takes ganga to a wedding in Las Vegas.  And that's when things get much, much worse.  they have a fight, and Rajiv decides that he's tired of pretending to like India.  Ganga throws the engagement ring in his face and cancels the wedding, but Rajiv attacks her.  She knocks him out and escapes.  Arjun finds her and takes her back to India, but her father leaps to exactly the wrong conclusion, while Rajiv and Kishorilal arrive to bring Ganga back.

And that leads directly to the intended message of the film.  There's a lot of talk in the movie about traditional Indian values versus modern Western values, and it's clear which side we're expected to take.  The opening song is all about how great India is, and Kishjorilal and most of the nice character sing it at various times in the film.  Rajiv has been corrupted by growing up in America, while Ganga is sweet and pure and named after after the Ganges; much of the time she's more of a symbol of India than a character in her own right.

However, traditional Indian values don't really acquit themselves very well either. The village elders demand a kabaddi match to decide if Ganga can marry Rajiv rather than the distant cousin everyone assumed she was promised to, and when Suraj thinks that his daughter has eloped with Arjun, he threatens her with a sword, then locks her away until Rajiv and Kishorilal can come collect her, because she belongs to them now.

That's not how it ends, obviously.  Arjun wins the day through the classic Shah Rukh combination of persistence, noble speeches, and weaponized filial piety, and  it's left to Ganga's grandmother (Dina Pathak) to deliver the movie's actual message: women are people and they should be allowed to make their own decisions instead of always sacrificing themselves for everyone else's happiness.