Some French, but not a lot of kissing.

 

The Indian film industry used to have a . . . relaxed attitude toward intellectual property, freely lifting songs, scenes, dialogues, and sometimes entire movie plots from international sources, because who's going to check?  That sometimes leads audiences to overcorrect and declare a movie a ripoff if the plot or even the premise bears a superficial resemblance to a Hollywood movie, but I am very comfortable in saying that Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha (1998) is a shameless copy of 1993's French Kiss, and I am not just saying that because of Ajay Devgn's spiffy Kevin Kline mustache.

Sanjana (Kajol) lives alone in Paris.  She's quirky and clumsy and terrified of air travel, which will be important later.  She's also an orphan, but she is engaged to Rahul (Bijay Anand) for reasons which probably make sense to her; even this early in the film he's dreadful  Still, Sanjana has saved up enough money to buy them a small house, which will also be important later.   

And then Rahul has to travel to India for business.  Sanjana is supposed to join him, but her fear of flying is so bad that she gets kicked off the plane instead, and Rahul goes on alone.   A week later he calls Sanjana and tells her that it's over, he's in love with someone named Nisha (kashmera Shah), and he's never ever going back to France.  Which means that Sanjana needs to conquer her fears and fly to India!  

She tries, but sitting in her seat in the surprisingly spacious and comfortable plane (air travel has really changed since 1998) she starts panicking until Shekhar (Ajay Devgn), the man who happens to be in the seat next to her, starts an argument which distracts her long enough for the plane to take off, and then, since this is Bollywood, leads the passengers in a chaotic musical number to distract them when the plane encounters turbulence, pausing just long enough to see Yamaraj the God of Death on the wing of the plane.

 Shekhar has his own problem - he's a thief, returning to India after stealing a priceless diamond necklace.  (Well, not really priceless, but expensive.)  He's hidden the necklace in a small houseplant, which makes no sense in this context; it's a detail lifted from French Kiss, but Kevin Kline's character was from a family of vintners and hid the necklace in a grape vine which he had a reason to be transporting.   Obviously Shekhar's friendly nemesis Inspector Khan (Om Puri) is at the airport, and obviously Shekhar hides the plant in Sanjana's bag, and obviously after failing to meet Rahul at his hotel Sanjana's luggage is stolen so Shekhar has to help her try to get it back.

By the time they track down the thief, Sanjana's money is gone, and so is most of her luggage.  She finds her handbag, but Shekhar doesn't find the plant.  He needs to stick with Sanjana until he can figure out if she has his precious necklace, so he offers to help her win Rahul back by pretending to be her boyfriend and making Rahul jealous.  Rahul and Nisha have moved on to a beachside resort, so it's time for a roadtrip, but first they stop in Shekhar's village, where she meets his wonderful family and learns his sympathetic backstory.

 If you have ever seen a movie before (and especially if that movie is French Kiss) then you know how this is going to go; Sanjana will realize that Rahul is a vile little toad of a man and start to develop feelings for Shekhar, Shekhar will discover that he loves Sanjana, and one or both will wind up sacrificing their love in order to make the other one happy.  It's the details that matter.

Kajol is always great and this movie plays well into her talents.  She sparkles in the comedy bits early in the film, then carries the dramatic load later in the movie when the romance plotline takes over.  She's so good in this movie, in fact, that she was nominated for a Filmfare award for the role, only to lose out to . . . Kajol in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.  (There were five nominees for Best Actress that year, and three of them were Kajol.)

 Ajay Devgn, on the other hand, is better known as an action star than as a comedian or romantic lead, but he does suit the role of dashing rogue well, and the filmmakers have added action scenes to showcase his talents and allow Shekhar to crash cars and beat up masked gunmen.

Translating a story from America to India can be tricky, though it helps if you have a relaxed attitude toward intellectual property.  Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha isn't perfect, but it makes the transition well. 

 

Just one look and I can hear a bell ring.

 

The late eighties and early nineties were something of a golden age for star-crossed romance in Bollywood, and the young lovers in Banjaran (1991) are if anything more star-crossed than usual.  The film pairs the usual young aristocrat with a member of the nomadic Banjara people, set in a corner of Rajastan which has been stricken with drought since the pair were murdered in their previous and equally star-crossed incarnations.

The titular Banjara is Reshma (Sridevi), daughter of Sardar Malik (Sudhir Pandey).  She is young, but for once she is not carefree; every month, on the night of the full moon, she suffers terrible recurring nightmares, and to make matters worse, her father has arranged her marriage to Shakti Singh (Gulshan Grover).  Shakti is not only obviously evil (he is played by Gulshan Grover, after all), he's also a vain drunkard with a truly awful mullet.  Everyone says that Shakti once killed a lion with his bare hands, though nobody seems to have seen him do it.

 

Meanwhile, Kumar (Rishi Kapoor) has just returned to his ancestral palace after completing his studies.  His aristocratic father Rana (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) and mother (Anjana Mumtaz) are thrilled toi see him, and so is childhood friend Neha (Renu Arya).  neha obviously has feelings, and he is just as obviously not interested, but he does agree to paint her portrait.  However, the painting doesn't go as planned; Kumar seems to go into a trance while painting, and when he finishes he hasn't painted Neha, he's painted a mystery woman who looks exactly like Reshma.  Since neither Neha not Kumar have met Reshma yet, they're both mystified.

 

The mystery deepens when Kumar and his parents are invited to attend a Banjara festival to celebrate the band's ancestral ties to Rana's family.  Reshma is the featured dancer, and when she sees Kumar in the crowd she recognizes the literal man of her dreams.  She pulls him into the dance, and he performs well, but that ought to be the end of the matter.

 It is not the end of the matter.  The pair keep meeting, at first by accident, but they are clearly drawn to one another, and there's a mystery there, a mystery that only deepens when they take refuge from a dust storm in a ruined mansion, and the mute caretaker Girja (Sharat Saxena) seems to recognize them and points to another painting of Reshma on the wall.  Kumar and Reshma are gone by the time Girja has fetched the local sage Thakur Baba (Pran), but Thakur Baba is sure that his daughter has been reborn and that his penance is finally at an end.

Reshma and Kumar inevitably fall in love, but there's no way that a young aristocrat can marry a Banjara.  They are both promised to other people, and Neha's father is violently opposed to Kumar marrying anyone else, though Neha, to her credit, knows when she's not wanted and doesn't want to push things.  Rana and Sardar Malik, on the other hand, have a furious argument and both take stupid vows of vengeance.  Kumar leaves thew house after a confrontation with his father, while Sardar Malik takes his daughter away, imprisoning her until she agrees to marry Shakti.  Reshma is so opposed to marrying anyone with that haircut that she stops eating and throws things at Shakti every time he shows his face.  The Banjaras start to believe that she is possessed, and send for an exorcist, which gives Kumar a chance for shenanigans.

Reincarnation melodrama is a well established subgenre in Bollywood, though this one plays out a little differently than usual, since the people who remember Reshma and Kumar from their previous lives are repentant rather than malevolent; we have Pran to explain things to the angry parents rather than Amrish Puri menacing the hero's mother.  The reincarnation really acts as more of a frame story, allowing the movie to speed through the falling in love part and get to the star-crossedness, and allows the young lovers to have a happy ending and meet a tragic end.

 

This is very much a movie of its time, with wild swings in tone and mood, long and elaborate dance numbers,a nd entirely too much slapping in the second half (though most of the time it's not Sridevi getting slapped.)  Still, it is a well-executed movie of its time, and Sridevi is luminous as always. 

 

When you're a Bichchoo, you're a Bichhoo all the way.

 

Two street gangs, both alike in dignity

(In lovely Goa, where Josh (2000) lays its scene)

 From recent grudge break to more mutiny

Where filmi blood makes filmi hands unclean.

Now shadowed o'er the star-crossed lovers are,

For Shah Rukh Freakin' Khan is in the cast

Thru schemes of real estate, a silly car

And baking pranks, the end will come at last.

 Josh is loosely (very loosely) based on Romeo and Juliet; there's some strong influence from West Side Story (including an awful lot of snapping in the choreography)  but the end result is closer to Shakespeare than to Broadway, while being very much its own thing.

 In the year 2000 Shah Rukh Khan was Bollywood's King of Romance, but he was also old enough that no one would buy him as Romeo.  Instead, he's playing Tybalt, or the 19802 Goan equivalent.  Khan plays Max Dias, leader of the Eagles, one of the two street gangs that dominate the town of Vasco.  The gangs have split the town neatly in half, and Max is quick to defend his territory, but he also hangs out with his twin sister Shirley (Aishwarya Rai) and still finds time to harass sensitive and classy violinist Rosanna (Priya Gill.)

 The other gang is called the Bichhoos, led by Prakash (Sharad Kapoor).  While the Eagles are locals, the Bichchoos are largely from neighboring Maharastra, and they are Hindu while the Eagles are Christian and wear bright pastels while the Eagles wear leather.  The Bichhoos also have something like a regular racket; Goa's transition from Portuguese possession to Indian state caused many of the landholders to leave suddenly, so squatters are common and who owns which property can be hard to figure out; the Bichchoos help large real estate companies by driving inconvenient people from potentially valuable locations.

The situation is tense but stable, at least until Prakash's brother Rahul (Chandrachur Singh) returns home from college in Mumbai.  He's keen to take his mother (Suhas Joshi) and brother back to Mumbai with him, but they do not want to go.  Meanwhile Rahul decides to roam the streets and see the sights.  He wanders into Bichhoo territory and catches sight of Shirley.  It's love at first sight for Rahul and he follows her around for a while before approaching her in church.  It is not love at first sight for Shirley, though - she laughs in his face and tells him that if he wants a guide, he should ask Max.  

That's not the end of it.  Rahul is a man in love, and he decides to stay in Vasco and open a pastry shop.  Shirley is not exactly interested, but she is impressed by how Rahul stands up to Max, and makes a bet with the brave baker; if he dares to approach her in front of her overprotective brother she'll give him a kiss.  And there just happens to be masked ball coming up . . .

Rahul and Shirley move closer to a relationship, Max finally manages to win over Rosanna by remembering that he's played by Shah Rukh Freakin' Khan, and the movie stops being Romeo and Juliet for a while and focuses on real estate shenanigans as Prakash hatches a scheme to sell off the town square, a scheme made possible because Rahul accidentally discovered that the incredibly wealthy landlord Alberto Vasco had a couple of secret heirs.

Star-crossed lovers aren't exactly rare in Bollywood, and both Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story are easily adapted to Indian sensibilities.  In some ways Josh manages to improve on its inspirations, since the relationship between Rahul and Shirley actually develops over a period of time rather than jumping immediately to true love.  Shirley is kind of a terrible person for much of the first act, but she does improve considerably.

However, it's really not their movie - the relationship is a catalyst for what happens, but Max is played by Shah Rukh Khan and oozes screen presence, which means that Josh inevitably becomes a movie about Tybalt, and Max gets most of the big dramatic beats in the second half of the film.  It's really a great part for Khan, combining the goofy charm he's known for with the intense menace that made him a star.  

Colors are bright, emotions are big, the plot is twisty, and the music is fun.  I don't think Josh makes many top ten lists, but it's a fine example of late nineties Bollywood.

My Brother the Car

 

 Kutti Pisasu (2010) looks like a bit of a mess, a confusing blend of genres which includes vengeful ghosts, transforming robots, a spunky kid, a tiny evil guru, and the Invisible Man, all with Shaktimaan-level special effects.  But there's more to this movie than meets the eye: this is a devotional movie, and the end result is something like "Devi Maa meets Transformers."

Gayathri (Sangeetha) and Pichumani (Ramji) are a happily married Brahmin couple with a very nice house which they share with their precocious daughter Priya (Baby Geethika) and Gayatri's pandit father (Delhi Ganesh).  Priya is about five, but she's such a talented dancer that she gets to star in a big televised dance number, and this has no bearing on the plot whatsoever.  The art contest she won at school is a bit more impactful, as her teacher and classmates are all impressed by the yellow antique car she claims to have drawn without noticing.

Priya is slightly odd in other ways as well - when her grandfather asks her about favorite family members, she mentions a dark brother who only appears in her dreams, and she keeps repeating things that Gayatri's deceased friend Savithri (Kaveri) used to say.  And sure enough, on a dark and stormy night Priya is possessed by Savithri's spirit.

Surprisingly, that is a good thing.  Savithri's family have been protected by the Goddess Kali (Ramya Krishnan) for the past two hundred years, after an ancestor asked the Goddess for a boon, and while Kali clearly enjoys her work, she still takes it very seriously.  So what happened to Savithri?  A flashback eventually explains.

 Five years ago Savithri lived with her brother Karuppu (Ganja Karuppu).  She was absolutely devoted to her friend Gayatri, and for some reason as also engaged to scuzzy biker Nanjappan (Riyaz Khan.)  Nanjappan and his friends like to hang out in an apparently haunted mansion which is also a cave, and that's where they are reunited with old friend Mandhira Moorthy (Shafi), who is now a powerful magician.  Moorthy has a plan to attain the power of a god, but it requires a virgin sacrifice, and Nanjappan is happy to volunteer his fiance.  Kali appears to Karuppu and delivers a vague warning, but Karuppu refuses to interfere with his sister's wedding plans and tells the mystery woman to go away, which means that the Goddess is powerless to help.

The ritual is scheduled to take place on the same day that Gayatri goes into labor, and after dropping the mother to be off at the hospital, Karuppu goes to fetch his sister, only to discover that she's been abducted and taken to the haunted house.  He reaches the house and manages to spoil the ceremony, but dies alongside his sister, and the vengeful magician binds his soul to his car, chaining the vehicle to prevent him form taking automotive vengeance.  (Moorthy may have seen Taarzan the Wonder Car and decided to play it safe.)  

Five years later, Kali destroys the chains binding the car, and Savithri takes possession of Priya, because it is time for vengeance.  And so they take vengeance!  On Saturday one of Nanjappan's friends is ambushed down at the docks by an old yellow car which transforms into . . . well, it transforms into Bumblebee from Transformers.  Priya shows up to join in the fight, and the fire-breathing five year old delivers the coup de grâce.  Priya returns home and darkly warns that someone killed on a Saturday will be joined by someone else on the next Saturday.  And sure enough, on the next Saturday another of Nanjappan's friends is killed at an empty circus, and the security footage shows Nanjappan performing the deed.  He's arrested.

Priya/Savithri convinces Gayatri to let her continue her vengeance, but asks her to swear not to tell anyone, which I am sure will not cause any problems down the line.  Mandhira Moorthy returns and breaks Nanjappan out of prison, then sends his tiny Nepalese guru Kullumani (Kadhal Dhandapani) to impersonate Priya and convince Gayatri to tell the spirit of her friend to go.  Bad things happen, and soon it's clear that Kali will have to personally intervene; it may be what She was planning all along anyway.

I do not have the space to explain just how bonkers this movie gets, and just how bad the special effects are.  Still, the presence of Kali really ties everything together, and the Goddess is so powerful that pretty much everything can be explained.  Ramya Krishnan obviously having a fantastic time, and her performance drives the movie, which is just as well because the apparent lead, Baby Geethika, is a child who was probably cast for her dance skills rather than her acting.

Grave matters.

 

 Uppu Kappurambu (2025) begins with a dramatic voiceover explaining the history and peculiar customs of the village of Chitti Jayapuram, dramatized by children playing with traditional dolls.  The history isn't that important to the plot, but the customs are: the position of Village Head is strictly hereditary, and the villagers bury their dead rather than cremating them.  And when the Village Head dies, both customs are tested.

The late Village Head doesn't have any sons, so the position passes to his daughter Apoorva (Keerthy Suresh.)  She's shy and awkward, but her father has prepared her well, and she's armed with pat answers to most of the problems the villagers are likely to bring to her.  Unfortunately, the village is home to two rich and powerful men, and both stern and stentorian Bheemayya (Babu Mohan) and slick and vain theater owner Madhubaba (Shatru) want her to fail, so both men have their henchmen and sycophants ask a series of complicated questions to disrupt her first village council meeting.

Apoorva may be awkward, but she's quick on her feet and manages to deflect every question thrown at her, until Chinna (Suhas), the village undertaker, comes to her with a real problem: the cemetery is running out of space, and there are only four plots left.  The village laws are very strict about everyone being buried in the same graveyard, north of the village, and the surrounding area belongs to other villages.  There is no chance that anyone will agree to switch to cremation, so the four remaining plots are suddenly the hottest commodity in town, and a useful wedge issue for Bheemayya and Madhubaba to use to get Apoorva to step down.

 Apoorva doesn't step down yet, though.  She asks for time, and then consults with Chinna to find a solution.  Chinna knows the graveyard business, and he's clever, caring, loyal and highly motivated, since his own mother (Talluri Rameswari) is very ill, and her dying wish is to be buried in the village, in the shade of a large tree.  

And that's the plot; Apoorva and Chinna try to solve the cemetery problem while dealing with  a village of eccentrics and a cluster of unexpected deaths, and along the way they develop a genuine respect and an unlikely friendship.  (Just friendship - the lack of a romantic subplot is kind of refreshing.)  This is a quirky comedy, so everything rests on the characters, and these charcaters fit the bill.  They're flawed but compelling, and it's worth spending some time to watch them grow.

Merry Monster Mash: Thamma

 It was bound to happen sooner or later.  The Maddock Horror Comedy Universe has been dropping hints about vampires for a few movies now, and the bloodsuckers arrive in force with Thamma (2025), bringing us that much closer to Bollywood's own House of Frankenstein, though perhaps not Abbot and Costello Meet Stree.

This is Bollywood not Hollywood, and like the other Maddock movies the film mixes movie monster mythology with ancient Indian legend; strictly speaking these are Betaals rather than vampires, created to protect the world by drinking the spilled blood of the demon Raktabīja.  We first see the Betaals in action as they feast on the armies of Alexander the Great, but by the present day they appear to be confined to a stretch of forest in northern India, and bound by a strict code that forbids the drinking of human blood.  Not every Betaal is happy with this arrangement.  In particular, Yakshasan (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), the sire and leader (or Thamma) of this sect believes that they should grow their forces and use their power to take over the world.  He is confined to a cave and bound by mystical chains until one of his descendants breaks the law and sires another Betaal, though, so it should be fine.

Mild-mannered journalist Alok Goyal (Ayushmann Khurrana) is not fine.  His attempt to create a viral  video clip has gone viral for all the wrong reasons, so he's gone camping with some colleagues deep in a secluded stretch of forest in northern India.  His selfie is photobombed by an enormous and angry bear, and he is chased through the woods by said bear, finally collapsing in a makeshift center, so he doesn't notice when something tosses the bear away and rescues him.

 When Alok wakes up, he's being tended by the beautiful but mysterious Tadaka (Rashmika Mandanna).  She promises to take him home when he's recovered from his bear-inflicted injuries, and that gives them plenty of time to fall in love, though every time Alok tries to kiss the girl, she vanishes.  (Mostly because she doesn't want to be tempted to drink his blood; Tadaka is obviously a Betaal, and the movie doesn't try to hide that fact.)  Tadaka is not supposed to keep humans in Betaal territory, though, so they are captured and brought to answer for their crimes.  They escape, and Alok convinces her to return to Delhi with him, because it's time for some fish out of water comedy.

Alok was declared dead after he went missing in the forest, and while his mother Sudha (Geeta Agarwal Sharma) is just happy to see him, his father Ram Bajaj (Paresh Rawal) is suspicious, especially because this striking woman appears to be interested in his son.  The comedy gets more complicated when a group of Betaals are sent from the forest to bring Tadaka back, Tadaka reveals her true nature to Alok while defending him and herself from a gang of rowdies, and Police Inspector P. K. Yadav (Faisal Malik), assigned to investigate the fallen rowdies, turns out to be a member of an urban faction of Betaals. Yadav insists that Tadaka go home.  She does, Alok follows, and after a fatal car crash Tadaka has to make a choice.  She chooses to save Alok by turning him into a Betaal, and then things get really complicated.

 Thamma is deeply rooted in the Maddock Horror Comedy Universe; Alok's father consults with Elvis Karim Prabhakar (Sathyaraj), the faith healer and exorcist from Munjya, and series stalwart Jana (Abhishek Banerjee) is also consulting with Prabhakar on a werewolf-related problem, leading to a cameo by Varun Dhawan and a completely gratuitous "Wolfman vs. Dracula" clash.  

On the other hand, this is a slightly different genre than the other Maddock movies.  They were all intensely personal hauntings that happened to resonate with particular social issues, while this is a story of star-crossed lovers set against a background of grand vampire politics.  Thamma is funny, but it's romantic-comedy funny rather than comedy-comedy funny.

Still, Thamma hits the necessary romantic beats, giving Tadaka a bit more agency than the usual star-crossed heroine while letting Alok display the appropriate dogged determination.  The movie has a great cast and some interesting world-building, and it sets up big things for the future of the franchise while still delivering a satisfying and self-contained story.