Jaanemonth - Veer-Zaara

 It's common in Indian cinema for the titles of historical romances to be the names of the lead characters, without any pesky ampersands.  Examples include Bajirao Mastani, Jodhaa Akbar, and of course Veer-Zaara (2004), a movie set in the glamorous and distant past of 1982.

Prisoner 786 (Shah Rukh Khan) is an Indian man who has been confined to a prison in Pakistan for the last twenty two years.  Officially, his name is Rajesh Rathore, and shortly after being arrested, he signed a full confession and hasn't spoken a single word since.  Getting Prisoner 786 his freedom is the first case for newly minted lawyer Saamiya Siddiqui (Rani Mukherjee), and it already looks hopeless.  However, Saamiya does have one advantage: she knows that Prisoner 786 is really named Veer Pratap Singh.

After hearing his own name spoken after so long, Veer starts to speak.  First he talks about planes, and  his days as a rescue pilot for the Indian Air Force.  But Saamiya wants to hear the story of how Veer wound up in prison, and to tell that story, he has to start with Zaara.

Zaara Haayat Khan (Preity Zinta) is the daughter of the wealthy and respected Jehangir Haayat Khan (Boman Irani.)  She is young and carefree and convinced that nothing will ever change her, and she sings a song to that effect.  And then things start to change.  Her beloved governess Zahida (Zohra Sehgal) dies, and her last request is that Zaara take her ashes to Punjab and immerse them in the Sutlej River.  Zaara can't refuse, and she sneaks off to India, leaving her maid/sidekick Shabbo (Divya Dutta) to cover for her.

In India, Zaara's bus crashes, and she's rescued by handsome Indian Air Force rescue pilot Veer Pratap Singh.  She drops her bag during the rescue and insists on retrieving it; after they've made it to safety, Veer scolds her and stomps off.  That's not the end of the story, though; she bumps into him later, apologizes and explains that her bag contains Zahida's ashes, and Veer decides to help her on her journey so that he won't have to spend his life wondering what happened to that Pakistani girl.

After further delay and misadventure, Zaara succeeds in performing last rites for Zahida.  She asks Veer how she can ever repay him for his help, and he asks her for another day.  He takes her to his home village, introduces her to his aunt Saraswati (Hema Malini) and uncle Choudhary (Amitabh Bachchan), they celebrate Lohri, and everybody has a wonderful time and grows much closer.  It is really obvious to Choudhary that Veer loves Zaara, and he urges the younger man to confess his feelings before it's too late.

The next day, it's time for Zaara to return home to Pakistan.  Veer takes her to the train station, but before he can confess his love, they are met by Zaara's fiance, Raza (manoj Bajpal) and she quickly explains that her marriage has already been arranged.  Veer confesses his love anyway, but makes it absolutely clear that he doesn't intend to interfere with her wedding, and he goes away.

Of course Zaara loves Veer as well, and after she returns home she starts feeling his presence everywhere she looks; once again, there's a whole song about it. Shabbo can't stand to see her falling apart like this,. so she quietly contacts Veer.  He promptly leaves the Air Force (since an active officer can't visit Pakistan), crosses the border, and appears at one of the pre-wedding ceremonies.  Zaara runs to embrace him, while her husband collapses from shock.  Normally, that would be the end of the movie, but Veer-Zaara is three hours long, and there's a lot of crying still to come.

Zaara's mother Mariyam (Kirron Kher) approaches Veer and asks him to leave in order to save her husband's life (and political career, but she doesn't dwell on that.)  Veer is a noble soul, and agrees.  He talks to Zaara, and they decide to go their separate ways, live the best lives possible, and just keep loving one another hopelessly forever.  

They part, but when Veer boards the bus to take him back to India, he's arrested as a spy and dragged off to jail.  There Raza shows up to gloat, and tells Veeer that if Veer signs the confession, he'll ensure that Zaara has a blissfully happy life, but if Veer doesn't sign, he'll do everything possible to make her life hell.

Veer signs without hesitation, and becomes Prisoner 786.  The bus he was supposed to be on drives off a cliff, leaving no survivors, so as far as the world knows, Veer Pratap Singh no longer exists.  In the present Saamiya tries to convince Veer to let her get Zaara to testify, but he is a man of his word and won't do anything to risk her happiness.  Saamiya knows the case is probably lost without Zaara, but Veer is stubborn, so instead she travels to India, hoping to find someone from his village who can identify him.  She is not prepared for what she finds there.

Raza is terrible, but the real villain of Veer-Zaara is . . . okay, the real villain is still Raza.  He's the absolute worst, and he stands out even more because nearly all the other characters are so nice.  But the other real villain of Veer-Zaara is the border itself; one of the key themes of the film is that the only thing that really separates Pakistan's Punjab from India's Punjab is the border itself.  The land looks the same on both sides of the border, and the people share a culture and values, but that line on the map is enough to let Raza destroy a man's life out of spite.

One of the advertising taglines for Veer-Zaara was "A New Love Legend," and the film is definitely pitched as "grand, sweeping romantic drama."  It mostly succeeds, do ion large part to the cast; Shah Rukh is in his element here, showcasing goofy charm and teary nobility.  Preity made her name as the bubbly carefree love interest, and Zaara gives her the chance to transition form that to very much not that.  And Rani Mukherji is here to show sincerity and marvel at the noble spirits of the star-crossed lovers, and she sells sincere marveling completely.

That's not to say the movie is perfect. The script is suitably epic, but some of the plotting gets a bit muddled; the biggest unexplained plot hole is just how Saamiya knew Veer's name in the first place.  Also, the old age makeup used for present day Veer and Zaara is a bit distracting, especially since both characters are in their mid-forties at most.  But these are tiny issues.  Veer-Zaara promises grand romance, and it keeps its promises.

The Long Goodbye

RRR is a great movie, but not every Indian movie can be RRR.  And thank goodness for that!  If every movie is a bombastic, testosterone fueled festival of action, then they all start to blend together.  Soemtimes you need a change of pace, like a quirky feel-good family comedy set at a funeral.  And that's where Goodbye (2022) comes in.

Newly minted lawyer Tara Bhalla (Rashmika Mandanna) wins her first case and goes out to a nightclub to celebrate.  She leaves her phone at the club, only finds out that her mother Gayatri (Neena Gupta) has died suddenly when the bartender who returns her phone tells her.  She immediately makes plans to return to her childhood home in Chandigarh to be with her stern and very traditional father Harish (Amitabh Bachchan.)  She decides to leave her live-in boyfriend Mudassar (Shivin Narang) behind, since Harish doesn't approve.

Meanwhile Harish and the family housekeeper Delna (Payal Thapa) are trying to contact the rest of the family.  Oldest brother Karan (Pavail Gulati) and his wife Daisy (Elli Avrram) promptly catch a flight form their home in Los Angeles.  Adopted son Angad (Sahil Mehta) has a bit more trouble, and winds up stuck in Dubai for an extra day.  And nobody can get through to middle son Nakul (Abhishek Khan), who is off climbing a mountain somewhere.

Most of the family finally arrives, though there's still no sign of Nakul, and the preparations for the funeral rites begin, under the direction of busybody neighbor P.P. Singh (Ashish Vidyarthi).  And they bicker; Tara doesn't feel that the very traditional funeral rites are what her not especially traditional mother would have wanted.   Harish doesn't think his sons are taking the rites seriously enough.  P.P. Singh is just kind of patronizing.  And the Greek chorus of neighbors and friends of Gayatri marvel at the goings on; it's definitely sad, but not solemn, as good-hearted people bumble their way through personal loss, trying their best to make everything perfect because it's the only thing they can do.

And then things start to get better.  With the help of an unconventional pandit (Sunil Grover) the family start talking to each other rather than at each other.  Secrets are revealed, but they're generally nice secrets.  Tara and Harish start seeing things from one another's perspective, and Nakul finally shows up.

And that's it.  That's the plot.  People suffer a devastating loss, and they process it onscreen.  It's a very gentle film, very quirky, and above all very human, mixing moments of gentle comedy with Amitabh's big speech.  It's definitely worth a look if you want a change of pace.

Shiva Universe

Brahmastra Part One: Shiva (2022) is a movie with a lot of jobs to do; it's a superhero origin story and the first film in a planned trilogy and lay the foundation for a new cinematic universe.  But there's a reason why most cinematic universes never really get going.  You can't spend your entire movie setting up future projects; the movie the audience is watching now has to be about something.  Fortunately, Brahmastra is about something.

But before the movie can really get started, it has another job to do: enable celebrity cameos.  Shahrukh Khan plays scientist Mohan Bhargav, and somehow I didn't already know that, so I was the ideal audience for the reveal. 

Mohan is alone in his Delhi apartment studying a mystical artifact when his home is invaded by thugs Zor (Saurav Gurjar) and Raflaar (Rouhallah Gazi.)  Fortunately for Mohan, he has an ancient artifact of his own, the Vanarastra, an anklet which gives him the proportionate sass of a monkey, along with heightened agility and jumping powers.  Mohan casually humiliates his attackers Spidey-style until their boss shows up; Junoon (Mouni Roy) has an artifact of her own, and she uses it to overpower Mohan.

Meanwhile, in Mumbai, plucky DJ Shiva (Ranbir Kapoor) is living his best life.  He keeps catching glimpses of Isha (Alia Bhatt), and he falls for her - plummets for her, really.  He manages to make contact by climbing up the outside of an elevator, and after a lot of banter invites her to a party at his place, and it's actually cute and charming rather than creepy because they're both being really open and honest about their intentions.

The party turns out to be a birthday party for a little girl at the orphanage Shiva cares for, and Shiva reveals a bit of his backstory and motivation: he was orphaned as a baby, left with only a conch shell to remind him of his mother, and he cares for other orphans and looks for the light in every situation.  The romantic mood is spoiled somewhat when Shiva runs away after being suddenly overwhelmed by visions of Mohan being murdered in Delhi, though.  When he returns home, Isha is gone, and he starts to lament the fact that he has no way to find her again but the kids cut him off and explain that Isha is their Facebook friend now.

 Shiva tracks Isha down at her wealthy grandfather's estate, but along the way he catches a news report about Mohan's "suicide," and realizes that his visions are real.  Then he realizes that the next target he saw in the visions, artist Anish Shetty (Nagarjuna Akkineni) is in terrible danger.  So he rushes off to Varanasi and Isha insists on coming along and they . . . spend some time enjoying a romantic tour of the city.

Then Shiva lets slip that he is immune to fire and has a sort of vague control over it sometimes, and they remember the superhero plot and go looking for Anish. Before they find him, though, Shiva sees Junoon and the boys and they realize they have very little time, especially since Raflaar is wearing the Vanarastra.  Shiva and Isha manage to find Anish first, and Anish helps them escape with his ancient artifact, the Nandiastra, which gives him the power of a thousand bulls.  

The trio flee the city, headed for the mountain ashram maintained by Anish's guru Raghu (Amitabh Bachchan), but Junoon and her crew are following in a truck.  Anish sacrifices himself to send Junoon and Zor over the edge of a cliff, but Raflaar still has his heightened leaping powers, and tracks Shiva and Isha to the gates of the ashram.  Then he makes the mistake of threatening Isha, and Shiva unleashes a torrent of flames, burning him to ash.

Then Amitabh Bachchan appears and delivers exposition.  Long ago a group of sages used the celestial energy of Brahm Shakti to produce astras, talismans which function as weapons of incredible power, representing a number of animals and forces.  At the same time, they accidentally created the Brahmastra, mightiest of the astras, a weapon so powerful that it could destroy the world if activated.  The sages became a secret society known as the Brahmansh, charged with guarding the astras, and Mohan and Anish were both members of the society and guarded a third of the now broken Brahmastra,  And Shiva is himself an astra, the Agnyastra, able to control fire without the need for any talisman.  

There's more exposition available, but Raghu won't deliver it unless Shiva agrees to stay at the ashram (which doubles as a school for young Brahmansh to learn to use their powers, like a Himalayan X-Mansion.)  Nandini is sent away, which is a shame because Shiva's power springs from love.  And of course Junoon and Zor survived the fall, and they're building a dark army to attack the ashram.

Most of the elements of Brahmastra are things that I have seen before; there's a hidden school for budding superheroes like in the X-Men, a scavenger hunt for mystical talismans like in Jackie Chan Adventures, and a fighting style that mixes martial arts and elemental power like in Avatar.  And of course the secret society of Indian monks empowering a champion to protect the world is straight out of Shaktimaan. The real bad guy even has a secret origin that's almost identical to that of Tamraj Kilvish.   Like Shaktimaan, Brahmastra is really taking its inspiration from Hindu devotional films, but with a much higher budget.  It's executed well.  It's a tight superhero origin story with consistent rules for the superpowers.

Still, originality and execution are nice, but a movie should still be about something, and Brahmastra is about love.  Shiva is driven by love.  He's powered by love.  He saves the world through the force of his love, not in some hackneyed metaphorical sense, but literally loving the world enough to save it.  And while the movie gets dark at times (this is an Indian superhero movie, so it is not afraid to threaten children) there's a sense of optimism and hope throughout.  It's one of the most relentlessly positive superhero stories I've seen in ages.  

And then the movie ends with a plug for the sequel which couldn't be any more obvious without Nick Fury showing up.  But that is a story for another time.  Brahmastra is surprisingly self contained, despite being Part One.

Vikram and Ajju's Excellent Adventure, Expanded Edition

 This is an old review, but I am older and wiser and have more Bollywood experience than the first time I watched Fun2ssh . . . Dudes In the 10th Century; at the very least, I am better at taking screenshots.  Let's see what Me From the Past had to say.

Superman versus the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

 Krrish 3 (2013) is the sequel to Krrish, which is the sequel to Koi . . . Mil Gaya.  It's an odd way to build a superhero franchise, because Koi . . . Mil Gaya is not a superhero movie, it's a Bollywood spin on ET mixed with Flowers For Algernon; friendly alien Jadoo gives bullied and developmentally disabled Rohit Mehra (Hrithik Roshan) advanced physical and mental powers, enabling him to save the day, get the girl (Preity Zinta), and earn his happy ending.  Then, between movies, Rohit is kidnapped by Bollywood Lex Luthor Siddhant Arya (Naseeruddin Shah), and his wife dies of grief.  Fortunately, in the next movie Rohit's son Krishna (also Hrithik Roshan) becomes the superhero Krrish (which is still one of the lazier superhero names since Blackagar Boltagon started calling himself Black Bolt), rescues Rohit, and defeats Doctor Arya's future-predicting supercomputer.

Now, Rohit is a respected scientist working for the Indian Research Institute, and Krishna is married to plucky reporter Priya (Priyanka Chopra).  Krishna can't manage to hold a job, because he's always rushing off to save the day as Krrish.  However, Priya is expecting their first child, and the little family is absurdly happy and frankly adorable.

Meanwhile, quadriplegic and telekinetic scientist Kaal (Vivek Oberoi) has created a team of mutants enhanced with animal DNA.  There are a lot of them, including Ant Man, Rhino Man, and Scorpion Woman, but the important ones are Striker (Gowhar Khan), a dangerous brawler with a prehensile tongue, and Kaya (Kangana Renaut), whose chameleon DNA gives her the power to be Msytique.

But mutant making is only one of Kaal's interests.  He also creates viruses, releases them on unsuspecting cities, and then, as the head of Kaal Pharmaceuticals, he sells the cure for an absurd amount of money.  (And I have to say, this particular plotline hits differently in 2021 than it did in 2013.)

During the first part of the movie, the forces of good and evil don't really interact.  Kaal stays in his evil lair, making mutants, unleashing plagues, and gnawing on the scenery.  Rohit tinkers unsuccessfully with a device to replicate Jadoo's power to channel sunlight into lifegiving energy (and what are the odds of something like that paying off before the end of the movie?), and Krishna divides his time between hanging out with his family and saving people from various disasters, along the way inspiring a movement by telling a boy he's rescued that "Anyone who takes away tears and spreads happiness is Krrish."  It's a lot like the Shatktimaan Friends Club, only with more foreshadowing.

And then Kaal unleashes his latest virus on Mumbai.  Krrish does what he can, but this is a problem that he can't solve, even with superpowers.  But Rohit can; he notices that Krrish is seemingly immune to the virus, so he uses Krishna's blood to create a cure rather than wait for Kaal Pharmaceuticals.  Kaal is both furious and confused; both the virus and the cure are based on his own DNA, so how could anyone else make a cure?  He decides that it is, finally, time to unleash the mutants.

This is not the most original movie ever made.  Kaal's mutants are blatantly lifted from the X-Men movies, and while Kaal is no Magneto, he does seem to use his telekinesis to movie metal objects almost exclusively.  Meanwhile, Krrish is faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, though he combines the Superman power set with Peter Parker's career aptitude, and during one fight scene he duplicates Shaktimaan's trademark spin.

Original or not, though, Krrish 3 is a remarkably efficient distillation of my favorite superhero tropes.  Yes, there are amazing action scenes, but Krrish doesn't just fight bad guys and brood on rooftops.  He save people.  He inspires people.  (I am an absolute sucker for a good "I am Spartacus"/ordinary citizens standing up to the supervillain scene, and this movie has a great one.)  And he does it without ever losing sight of the people who love him.  This is "Stuff That I Love About Superheroes: The Motion Picture."

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna

Writer/director Karan Johar is either becoming more of a cynic or more of a romantic, and I’m really not sure which. Either way, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006) continues Johar’s examination of the boundaries of love. In Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, the boundaries are self imposed; Rahul is a widower who believes one can only love (and marry) once, while Anjali is engaged to someone else. In Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, the lovers have to cross boundaries of class and religion, and face familial opposition. In Kal Ho Naa Ho, Naina loves one man, and is forced by circumstances to marry another. KANK continues the theme of transgressive love by presenting star crossed lovers who are married to other people. In a Hollywood movie, this would be no big deal, but within the moral universe of Bollywood, it’s a daring move.

For rising soccer star Dev Saran (Shahrukh Khan), love is certainly not friendship. (This movie takes place in New York City, in that strange alternate dimension where Oxford University is in London, men’s soccer is a major US sport, and everybody is played by Shahrukh Khan.) He’s married to Rhea (Priety Zinta), an old friend from college, and the cracks in the relationship are already beginning to show; both are growing increasingly focused on their respective careers. Still, when he meets Maya (Rani Mukherjee), a reluctant bride wondering whether to go through with her own marriage to childhood friend Rishi (Abhishek Bachchan), he advises her to go ahead with it. He tells her that while she doesn’t really love Rishi, it’s better to marry now then wait for a love that she may not find, and that love won’t find her after marriage unless she goes looking for it. She’s convinced and goes inside to get married, while Dev is promptly hit by a car.

Four years later, Dev is a children’s soccer coach with a bad leg and a worse attitude. He’s the kind of coach who motivates his charges by shouting at them. He’s particularly nasty to his son Arjun (who plays soccer badly and really only wants to play the violin) but Dev is thoroughly unpleasant to everyone he meets. Rhea now runs a fashion magazine called Diva, and while she’s able to provide a very comfortable life for Dev, Arjun, and Dev’s mother Kamaljit (Kiron Kher), the disparity in incomes adds another layer of conflict to an already strained marriage.

The relationship between Maya and Rishi is also strained. He’s a bit of a slob, while she’s a neat freak bordering on obsessive compulsive disorder. More seriously, she doesn’t like him to touch her; naturally, Rishi is a bit frustrated.

Dev and Maya meet again by chance. I won’t get into details; the entire “Black Beast” subplot is goofy, and not in a good way. What’s important is that they meet, and make a bad impression. They cross paths again at a party Rishi’s publicity company is throwing for his father Sam (Amitabh Bachchan), and this time they realize that if nothing else, they share a dislike of big musical numbers. Fate keeps throwing them together, and they finally decide that they may as well become friends.

Thew evolving relationship between the two is handled very well. They really have a lot in common. (Maya is just as serious about keeping the world at arms length as Dev is, she’s just more polite about it.) Initially, the pair give each other advice with their respective marriages. None of their plans work out, and after a particularly unfortunate evening the pair meet up at a train station, and finally realize that they love each other. It’s a nice scene, featuring the most romantic line in the film: “I like blue.”

Dev and Maya drift into an emotional affair. Rhea and Rishi, meanwhile, rededicate themselves to making their marriages work. Unlike Dev and Maya their plans involve communicating with their spouses, so they meet with considerably more success. Both marriages suddenly have a fighting chance, but Dev and Maya start getting jealous, and so it is then and only then that they decide to sleep together. 

I like Karan Johar.He’s a very good writer, and has a fantastic ear for dialogue. KANK is no exception; the dialogue positively sparkles at times. (”I like blue,” indeed.) Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna is an interesting examination of his usual films; I was particularly struck by the fact that in all his movies, the lovers need an outside push before they can be united. Production values are high. The cast does quite well with some very heavy material. Dev, in particular, is a far cry from Shahrukh’s usual persona.

The problem is that I like Shahrukh’s usual persona. I don’t like Dev. Most of the main characters in this movie are varying degrees of unpleasant; Kamaljit is a virtuous Bollywood mother, and while Sam is a bit of a lad he gives good advice and his heart is clearly in the right place, but the rest? I often end reviews by essentially saying, “This is a terrible movie, but I enjoyed it.” Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna is the flipside of this; it’s a very good movie, probably, but I didn’t like it.

They laugh alike, they walk alike, at times they even talk alike.

Amitabh Bachchan was the King of Bollywood in the Seventies and Eighties, the "angry young man" who captured the spirit of the era.  Today, Bachchan is the industry's reigning patriarch, the finest of stern father figures, and he's branching out into a number of offbeat roles.  But there's a long stretch of time between these two periods in which Bachchan was appearing in movies like Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (1998).  

 

Bachchan plays police inspector Arjun Singh, who is not particularly angry or young.  Singh has a mother (Sushma Seth), a spunky younger sister named Seema (Raveena Tandon), and a partner, Pyare Mohan (Govinda).  Pyare and Seema secretly love each other, but they know Arjun would never approve, so they plan to get Arjun married to someone, hoping that it will put him in a better mood.

 

Meanwhile, hotel maid Madhu (Divya Dutta) sees smuggler Zorawar (Paresh Rawal) and his henchmen murdering a police officer.  She escapes, and files a report with Pyare and Arjun, but when she returns Zorawar is waiting and kills her.  Madhu's roommate Neha (Ramya Krishnan) witnesses this murder, escapes, and calls the police, but insists she will only speak to Pyare.  Since Pyare is out, the Commissioner (Anupam Kher) orders Arjun to pretend to be Pyare.  He does, and takes her to hide out at Pyare's home, which means that Pyare has to go and stay at Arjun's house.  With Seema.  Wackiness ensues.

 

Arjun and Neha fall in love, because it's that sort of movie, but she still thinks that he is Pyare, which means that a mistaken identity plot is inevitable.  It doesn't last long, though, and soon both couples are happily in love and Zorawar politely steps out of the spotlight so that the movie can introduce Bade Miyan and Chote Miyan (Bachchan and Govinda), two thieves who happen to look exactly like Arjun and Pyare, leading to an entirely different mistaken identity plot, this time partly cribbed from Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. 

 

Despite the tenuous Shakespearean connection, though, this is an aggressively dumb movie.  The pacing is off, with much of the early runtime devoted to setting up the first mistaken identity plotline, a plotline which is almost immediately discarded.  Zorawar just wanders from place to place menacing and murdering, rather than following any sort of coherent scheme, and one of his henchmen is killed at least twice but still shows up for the final fight scene.  And the movie never quite decides which Bachchan-Govinda pairing are the protagonists until the very end.

On the other hand, aggressively dumb movies can be fun, sometimes.  Bade Miyan Chote Miyan has some funny jokes and goofy action scenes and brightly colored dance numbers with terrible costumes and a completely gratuitous cameo by Madhuri Dixit.  Clearly a lot of people liked it, since it was the second biggest box office success of 1998, only overshadowed by megahit Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.  It was one of the high points of the low point of Amitabh Bachchan's career.

I am slapsticked out.

I like to watch a wide range of Bollywood and related cinema, but I have to admit that the nineties and early oughts are really my era.  I love a good nineties romantic action comedy, and I regret to inform you that Hello Brother (1999) is not a good nineties romantic action comedy.

Salman Khan plays Hero, a courier working in Mumbai, and he is . . . Look, I get that this movie is a goofy comedy, and characters are going to be drawn very broadly, but Hero is a capering  twit whose behavior doesn't even rise to the level of "buffoon."  He's like Pee Wee Herman with muscles.  He also has a habit of picking fights with little or no provocation, and he tends to end these fights by giving his hapless opponents purple nurples.  He is an interesting choice of protagonist.

 

Hero is in love with his next door neighbor/gal pal Rani (Rani Mukerji), but while they do flirt a little bit during the obligatory neighborhood "Boys Versus Girls" song, she makes it very clear that she thinks of him as a friend.  hero is still holding out hope, though, so he asks his boss Khanna (Shakti Kapoor) for some extra work, and Khanna is happy to assign him some extra, special deliveries.

Enter grouchy supercop Vishal (Arbaaz Khan, Salman's real life brother).  Vishal has pretty much cleaned up the drug trade in his home city, so his superiors have arranged to have him transferred to Mumbai, where he is under the command of the explosively flatulent Senior Inspector Khan (Meeraj Vora) and ably assisted by Constable Hatela (Johny Lever).  Vishal is convinced that Khanna is using his courier business to ship drugs, so he marches out to the golf course and threatens him.  Hero does not believe that Khanna is capable of anything shady (because Hero is an idiot) and jumps in to defend his boss.

 

Before too long, Hero is the Roadrunner to Vishal's Coyote, stymieing his investigation at every turn, because apparently the police academy doesn't prepare you for dealing with nitwits.  And then one of Hero's packages spills, revealing drugs!  Hero races to tell Khanna about what he's discovered.  Vishal follows, alone, because he's a maverick cop who doesn't care about rules or backup.  It doesn't go well; Khanna kills Hero, then shoots Vishal through the heart.

 

But the movie isn't over yet.  Vishal is given Hero's heart, because apparently this hospital is run by maverick doctors who don't care about the rules.  And unfortunately Hero isn't out of the movie either; he's hanging around as a ghost that only Vishal can see.  The only way to make Hero go away is to avenge his death, so the pair are forced into an awkward buddy comedy alliance in order to take down Khanna.  And things get even more complicated when Vishal meets Rani and falls instantly in love.

One of the few things I liked about the movie is that Rani was completely sincere about being Hero's friend.  Once she finds out about his death, she immediately claims the body and arranges a funeral, and she genuinely mourns his loss.  It's the one bit of emotion in the film that isn't immediately undercut with stupid slapstick and fart jokes.

 

And the rest of the movie is, well, undercut with stupid slapstick and fart jokes.  Again, I get it, it's a goofy and incredibly broad comedy, but when Johny Lever is playing a more nuanced and dignified character than the movie's star, things may be a little too goofy, even for me.

Family drama. With dacoits.

Amitabh Bachchan rose to stardom in the early Seventies playing a series of angry young men, virtuous heroes fighting a lonely, doomed battle against societal injustice and a corrupt system.  Young Amitabh wasn't always angry, though; his character in Zameer (1975) is downright jolly at times, a charming rogue with a heart of gold fighting his own con gone wrong, along with the occasional bandit.

Millionaire Maharaj Singh (Shammi Kapoor) loves horses and guns, but he really really loves his wife Rukmini (Indrani Mukherjee) and their three year old son Chimpoo (Master Chimpoo.)  It's hard to find really competent staff, so when a group of bandits attack his stud farm, he's forced to defend it himself.  And he does, shooting and killing one of the bandits in the process.

 Unfortunately, the bandit he killed was the son of bandit leader Maan Singh (Madan Puri), who takes his revenge by kidnapping little Chimpoo.  Maharaj and Rukmini spend the next twenty years grieving; the film indicates the passage of time with a montage of untouched birthday cakes.  At this point, Rukmini has serious heart problems, and Maharaj has stepped back from the business in order to care for her.

 And the film cuts to Badal (Bachchan), who has just been released from prison.  Badal is bright, charming, and deeply cynical.  He claims that he'll do anything for money, but almost the first thing he does onscreen is steal from the rich and give to the poor.  Badal has a definite talent with guns and horses, and he is definitely not Chimpoo, because he doesn't have Chimpoo's birthmark.

However, he's good enough for Ram Singh (Ramesh Deo), a disgruntled former employee of Maharaj's.  Ram Singh hatches a scheme to pass Badal off as Chimpoo, then when the family's "long lost son" gets his hands on the family fortune, they can split the cash.  Badal doesn't have anything better to do, so he agrees.  The first step is to tattoo Badal with a copy of Chimpoo's birthmark.

Along the way, Badal meets a group of college students, and immediately falls for Smita (Sairu Banu.)  She's pretty taken with his singing and wild-horse-taming skills as well, but Badal has a job to do, so he makes his way to the stud farm.  He gets a job, and after some finagling manages to "accidentally" reveal his fake birthmark to Maharaj.  He is quickly recognized as the long lost son and heir.

But there's a problem.  Actually, two problems.  After spending time with Rukmini and Maharaj, Badal realizes how deeply wounded they are by the loss of their son, and how cruel this particular con really is.  And it turns out that Maharaj and Rukmini have a daughter as well - Smita.  Badal has a new and loving family, but he's lying to them, and he can't leave without breaking their hearts, and can't pursue the woman he loves because everybody thinks she's his sister.  He's trapped in his own con, and the only way out is to find the real Chimpoo.

While Bachchan's character is clearly the protagonist here, it's actually Shammi Kapoor who gets top billing.  And he probably deserves it, too; while Badal's character arc is pretty straightforward, Kapoor acts the hell out of his part as Generic Dad, infusing the character with a profound vulnerability.  This is silly escapism rather than cutting social drama, but the performances lend the movie a certain weight.

 

Family Bonds

I've seen a lot of Bollywood Bond pastiches over the years, but The Great Gambler (1979) is one of the more interesting ones, because it takes advantage of the shift in cultural context, mixing Bond-style international intrigue, cool gadgets, secret lairs and a sultry femmes fatale with Bollywood's focus on family, fidelity, and the heroism of the common man.

The common man in question is Jai (Amitabh Bachchan), a streetwise gambler.  Jai may seem rough, but he comes equipped with the requisite heart of gold, and is devoted to his sister Madhu (Madhu Malhotra.)  Jai's amazing gambling skills attract the attention of wealthy casino owner Ratan Das (Madan Puri), who hires him to fleece wealthy patrons in exchange for a share of the winnings.

Ratan Das presents the scheme as practically a joke, but what he doesn't tell Jai is that he's actually seeking to blackmail the losers and sell the material to an international spy ring, a spy ring which communicates through coded messages hidden in dance routines performed by Monica (Helen.)  Though sometimes they just communicate by calling each other on the phone; these guys are dangerous but not especially competent at spying.

After a botched handover, the police get their hands on one of the film canisters, and Inspector Vijay (also Amitabh Bachchan) quickly tracks down Monica, but she's murdered by Sethi (Roopesh Kumar) before she can say anything.  And then the plot kicks into high gear.

Saxena (Utpal Dutt), the spy ring's ringleader, sends Sethi to Rome, along with the secret atomic death ray plans Ratan Das managed to extract from a hapless debtor.  The plan is for offensive Italian stereotype Marconi (Sujit Kumar) to kill Sethi, but Marconi is perhaps the biggest idiot in the gang and fails miserably.  An angry Sethi contacts Indian intelligence and offers to sell the plans back to them, so Vijay is sent to Venice to make the deal.  However, Saxena's gang find out and they send Monica's replacement, Shabnam (Zeenat Aman) to waylay Vijay.

Meanwhile, Ratan Das has a new scheme; his old and very wealthy friend Deepchand (Iftekhar) has a daughter, Mala (Neetu Singh), and wants her to marry Ratan Das's son.  Ratan Das has no son, however, so he sends Jai to marry the girl in order to get his hands on Deepchand's considerable fortune.  Deepchand and Mala live in Lisbon, so both Vijay and Jai have flights to Europe, and that means that Shabnam actually waylays Jai, while Mala meets Vijay at the airport.

There is a lot of plot in this movie, but there's no time to get confused, because something is happening all the time.  Sometimes it's a car chase through the streets of Rome, sometimes it's a romantic evening in Cairo, but there is always something, and it's always dripping with Seventies cool.

The Great Gambler's biggest departure from the Hollywood spy films that inspired it is in the character of the protagonists.  Jai cleans up well, but he's always a street kid at heart, a lovable scamp who follows his own code rather than a cool and collected agent.  Vijay is a cool and collected agent, but he is also a model of proper behavior; he doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, and absolutely refuses to take advantage of Mala when given the opportunity.

I don't think I've ever seen a Bollywood Bond homage put so much effort in balancing spy action with personal drama, but The Great Gambler does it with style.  It still needs more Helen, though.

Bhooty Call - Om Shanti Om

Unlike most of this month's movies, Om Shanti Om (2007) is not a horror movie in any way, shape or form.  It's a masala flick, a heady mix of comedy, romance, reincarnation revenge melodrama, and enthusiastic celebration of all things Bollywood.  It makes the cut because it also features the rare Reverse Scooby Doo, in which our scrappy heroes fake a haunting in order to scare Old Man Mehra into confessing to a murder.

Om Prakash Makhija (Shahrukh Khan) is a "junior artist", an extra who makes his living through bavkground parts in the glsmourous world of 1970's Bollywood.  He has a loyal best friend, Pappu (Shreyas Talpade), a loving and overdramatic mother (Khiron Kher), and a dream.  One day he will be a big star, live in a big house, and get to meet Shanti (Deepika Padukone), the famous actress that he worships from afar. 

 Om gets the chance to meet Shanti sooner than he expected, when there's a fire on set and he leaps through the flames to rescue her.  She's grateful, and agrees to spend one evening with him.  With Pappu's help, he pulls out all the stops, and arranges a magical evening on an empty set.  Shanti is delighted, and they part as friends.

But Shanti has a secret; she's secretly married to producer Mukesh Mehra (Arjun Rampal).  When Om finds out, he's heartbroken, but lets her go and, after a sad song, throws himself into his acting.

Unfortunately, Mukesh also has a secret: he's engaged to another producer's daughter, and can't have Shanti around to spoil things.  She pleads with him to reconsider, but it goes badly.  Really badly.

Mukesh burns the set down with Shanti inside, then as he leaves sends some goons to make sure she doesn't escape.  Om turns up at just the right time, tries to save her, is beaten by the goons, burned, blown up, and then hit by a car.  he dies.

And thirty years later, Om Kapoor is a big star living in a big house.  Life is great, apart from his severe pyrophobia and the crazy old lady who keeps showing up at his film shoots claiming to be his mother. 

And then Om goes to a film shoot at an abandoned studio that burned down thirty years ago, and meets his father's old friend Mukesh, and the memories of his last life all come flooding back.  He tracks down his previous mother and Pappu, and they come up with a plan.  Om will recruit Mukesh to produce the film he abandoned thirty years ago, then they will use a duplicate Shanti to convince him he's being haunted, driving him to confess to her murder.  And soon enough they find their duplicate Shanti when clumsy, start struck Sandy (also Deepika Padukone) auditions for the lead.

Writer-director Farah Khan clearly loves Bollywood, and this movie is stuffed with all the things she loves about it.  In all my years of watching Bollywood, this is the Bollywoodest bit of Bollywood that I have ever witnessed.  And it is well made.  Khan made her name as a choreographer, and the dance numbers are frequent and lively and shot with a choreographer's eye; the last number recaps the entire plot so far in a splashy Broadway style number which doubles as an exemplar of "I know what you did and I'm gonna get ya" because she's Farah Khan, and she can do that. 

And then there's Shahrukh Khan.  Khan is a gifted actor, but he rarely has a chance to demonstrate that fact; people want to see his carefully crafted persona, and so that is what he delivers.  Fortunately, he's really, really good at delivering his carefully crafted persona, and Om Shanti Om was written to play to his strengths.  SRK deserves some special credit for the celebrity cameo-filled song "Deewangi Deewangi", which requires him to establish distinct relationships with thirty one different celebrities, all in the space of a few seconds each, while dancing.  He manages to communicate a lot through small gestures.

Om Shanti Om is packed with the things I love about late Nineties/early Oughts Bollywood, and manages to cram in most of my favorite actors in the bargain.  It's one Johny Lever cameo short of the full experience.

What can change the nature of a man?

Thugs of Hindustan (2018) is a movie about thugs.  In Hindustan.  These are not the murderous Kali cultists you may know from pulp fiction and British propaganda; these thugs are heroic freedom fighters, led by noble badass Kudabaksh (Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan) and his ward, literal warrior princess Zafira (Fatima Sahna Shaikh, who played one of the kids in One 2 Ka 4 and suddenly I feel so very, very old.)  Kudabaksh and Zafira have a tragic backstory, but the film explains it right away, so I'm not going to bother. The thugs are fighting against the tyranny of the British East India company, personified by the nefarious John Clive (Lloyd Owen), and their first move is to steal a British ship because in addition to being a drama about the struggle for Indian independence, this is also a pirate movie.

In order to locate Kudabaksh, Clive hires charming scoundrel Firangi Sailor (Aamir Khan), and I am deeply disappointed that this movie has a lead character whose name literally means "foreign sailor" and nobody ever makes the obvious "named after his father" joke.  Firangi manages to feign heroism long enough to join up with the thugs, betrays them, betrays the British, and so on.  One of the many criticisms of this movie is that Firangi is just a copy of Captain Jack Sparrow, but while there's an element of truth there (they're both weirdos with questionable loyalties, awesome hats, and eye makeup who somehow manage to convince people to trust them), Firangi is a more self-aware character than Sparrow is.  The movie is at its best when it's  about Firangi and Kudabaksh, two strong characters played by two great actors musing about human nature and whether change is really possible.

But the movie is not always at it's best.  A good masala movie will leap over genre boundaries with purpose, while Thugs of Hindustan just sort of meanders from one genre to the next.  There are pirates, and then Firangi is dressing up as a British officer to woo a courtesan (Katrina Kaif) and then there';s a literal Benny Hill chase scene, and on to the next thing, over and over.  The same meandering spirit affects the fight scenes, which should be great.  Kudabaksh glowers impressively, Zafira is fast and acrobatic and seems to have the bow from Hawk the Slayer, and Firangi swashes all the buckles, but there's no real weight to anything, so it all comes off as very by the numbers - pretty numbers, but numbers nonetheless.

I'm a little frustrated.  Thugs of Hindustan is not a bad movie, but it could have been a really good movie.  Like Firangi, it needs to commit.

For entertainment purposes only.

It’s entirely possible that I have no taste. I certainly spend a lot of time watching and writing about movies which the Indian film-going public, the Bollywood fan community, and humanity in general have decided are crimes against the cinema. This week, that means Jaadugar (1989), part of the string of flops that (temporarily) killed the career of superstar Amitabh Bachchan.

Shankar (Aditya Pancholi) has finished his medical training in America. he and his sassy and apparently platonic galpal Mona (Amrita Singh) arrive in the village of Dharampur, only to discover that Shankar’s father (Amrish Puri), formerly a respected if somewhat shady businessman, has become Mahaprabhu Jagatsagar Chintamani, a flamboyant guru who uses an array of magic tricks to rule over the superstitious villagers.

When he sees just how corrupt his father has become, Shankar is horrified, and decides he must take action. On the advice of Gajender (Pran), his father’s former partner in crime from the shady businessman days, Shankar travels to Mumbai to recruit the fabulous Goga (Amitabh Bachchan), the greatest magician in the world, believing that it takes a magician to catch a magician.

The two men settle on a price, and Goga agrees to come to Dharampur. At the airport, though, Goga catches sight of aspiring actress Meena (Jayapradha), and the movie is derailed by a romantic subplot which includes boorish behavior, outrageous coincidences (she’s staying in his apartment while he’s supposed to be in Dharampur!) and some truly unfortunate subtitles.

And after the romance, it’s back to Dharampur and back to work. Goga assumes a variety of wacky disguises in order to test the limits of the Mahaprabhu’s abilities, and then becomes the heavenly sage Gogeshwar in order to steal his followers and usurp his position at the ashram. Of course, what happens when the villagers start worshiping Gogeshwar is sort of an open question.

I am willing to concede that Jaadugar may very well be a terrible movie, but I enjoyed it, for two reasons. First, I am a big fan of Bollywood’s perennial supporting actors, and this movie features several of my favorites, including Pran, Bob Christo, and even a young Johnny Lever. And rather than simply recycling Mogambo or Mola Ram, Amrish Puri creates yet another memorable villain; the Mahaprabhu is certainly corrupt and evil, but he’s also a clueless dad who’s genuinely trying to make a better future for his son, and who is baffled by Shankar’s resistance.

Second, while the script is wildly uneven, the writing does include a very clever bit of sleight of hand. When everything is at its darkest, and our beleaguered heroes have no one left to turn to but God, they are saved by an apparent throwaway character who was briefly introduced at the beginning of the film, but has been offscreen for most of the intervening time. You can’t even call it a Deus Ex Machina, because it was set up almost from the beginning.

Jaadugar isn’t going to top my list of favorite movies, but I had fun. Then again, what do I know?

Eight brides for seven and a half brothers.

It’s no secret that Bollywood movies frequently lift plots form Hollywood. Sometimes these Bollywood remakes are scrupulously, tediously faithful to their source. Sometimes they adapt the story without thinking about the different cultural context, leading to a movie which doesn’t make very much sense. And sometimes you get the occasional bit of mad genius, which twists, spindles, folds, and mutilates the original story into something unexpected. Satte Pe Satta (1982) is a fine example of the latter; someone in India watched Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and thought, “This would be better if there was a professional hit man.” And they were right.

Ravi (Amitabh Bachchan) is the oldest of seven brothers (Shakti Kapoor, Sachin, Paintal, Sudhir, Kanwalji Singh, and Inderjeet.) Both parents died when even Ravi was very young, so the brothers have been forced to raise themselves. Results have been mixed; the brothers run a successful farm, and have formed a stable and loving (if quarrelsome) family unit, but they’re also a batch of crude, ill-mannered horse wrestling rowdies who fight at the drop of a dime and don’t bathe.

Things change when Ravi meets independent, tough-minded Indu (Hema Malini). He’s immediately smitten, and tries to woo her in his own rough way, only to be shot down in the bluntest and most direct terms possible. Undeterred, Ravi decides to try not being a weird scary loner who smells; he shaves, changes his clothes, and does his best to act like a civilized person. It works! After a song, the pair are married.

Ravi’s brothers are an unpleasant surprise for Indu; during the entire courtship, the only brother he even mentioned was the charming youngest, Shani (Sachin), and she only learns of their existence when the happy couple arrive at the farmhouse to discover a full-fledged brawl going on. She adjusts quickly, however, and before long she’s managed to train the brothers to a near approximation of civilization. For their part, the brothers have decided that women aren’t so bad after all, and are interested in finding wives of their own. And that’s when they catch sight of paraplegic heiress Seema (Ranjeeta Kaur) and her six attendants (including Prema Narayan, Madhu Malhotra, Aradhna, and Asha Sachdev; the IMDB doesn’t have a complete list) frolicking on the beach.

Now if you’ve seen Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, you know where this is going. The boys fall for the girls, and after various hijinks, including a brawl at the Red Cross charity ball, they kidnap their intended brides. Indu puts her foot down, but circumstances prevent the girls from going home, giving everyone a chance to fall in love.

However, Seema has an uncle named Ranjit Singh (Amjak Khan). Ranjit is very worried about being seen as a wicked uncle out to murder his defenseless ward and claim her inheritance, largely because he is a wicked uncle out to murder his defenseless ward and claim her inheritance, but he doesn’t want to get caught. After his personal henchman (Mac Mohan) fails to arrange an “accident,” Ranjit recruits the extremely scary and dangerous Babu, who has just been released from prison and looks an awful lot like Ravi.

The impressive thing about Satte Pe Satta is how smoothly the film makes the transition from lighthearted Hollywood-style musical comedy to 70s Bollywood action movie. Ranjit acts like a classic Bollywood villain, complete with island lair. (Sadly, he does not have a throne room full of deathtraps and go-go dancers, but I guess we can’t have everything.) And the main characters are drawn well enough that they can move between genres without changing personalities, while most of the brothers and all of Seema’s attendants are such ciphers that they have no real personalities to change.

In the end, this is an extremely silly movie, but it’s the best kind of silly; it’s bright, cheerful, and far too busy being entertaining to worry about the unfortunate implications of abducting potential brides.

Aladin Sane

Because Bollywood actors are often working on several movies at one time, filming a week or two for one film before moving on to the next, it’s not unusual for a movie to take years to produce. That doesn’t always make for a bad movie, but even the best of these multi-year projects can end up feeling disjointed. Aladin (2009) is a case in point.

Aladin (Ritesh Deshmukh) is the orphaned son of globe trotting adventurers who spent their lives searching for Aladdin’s magical lamp, hoping to use its power to help the world. Aladin is now a young college student, mostly ignored by nearly everyone apart from the owner of a small cafe (Ratna Pathak), who acts as a surrogate big sister, and Kasim (Sahil Khan), his childhood bully, who even after all these years thinks it’s hilarious to gather his friends and force the hapless Aladin to rub random lamps.

When the lovely Jasmine (Jaqueline Fernandes) transfers to his college, Aladin is immediately smitten. Unfortunately, so is Kasim. A psychological bully of tremendous skill and experience, Kasim throws a birthday party for the hapless Aladin as a means of making himself look good to Jasmine, and even manipulates her into presenting Aladin with an old lamp as a birthday present, and asking him to rub it. Aladin does, and then heads for home.

On his way home, however, Aladin is stopped by Genius (Amitabh Bachchan), the one and only Genie of the Lamp. Genius is one month from retirement (no, really!) and he just wants Aladin to make his three wishes so that he can be free. Aladin, after a lifetime of lamps being shoved in his face, isn’t interested. After some cajoling by Genius and a few moral qualms of his own, Aladin finally wishes for Jasmine. It doesn’t go well. His second wish is used to undo the first, leaving him with a girl to woo, a bully to defeat, and one wish to do it with.

Kasim isn’t Aladin’s biggest problem, however. That would be former genie Ringmaster (Sanjay Dutt) and his gang of evil circus folk, including a bald knife thrower, a Klingon strongman (strongKlingon?), a masked firebreather, and a clown who is incredibly creepy even by clown standards. Ringmaster plans to use the power of an approaching comet to become a genie again, kill everyone, and rule the world. (In that order. Ringmaster is crazy.) Despite not being a genie anymore, Ringmaster still has impressive supernatural powers, and holds a fragment of the lamp, so Genius can’t touch him. Fortunately, there is a prophesied chosen hero who can defeat him. Unfortunately, that prophesied champion is the decidedly hapless Aladin.

Aladin’s two plotlines never really intersect; while Ringmaster is doing vaguely menacing things in the background throughout the movie, Aladin never even hears about him until after the Jasmine situation has been resolved. The character development is oddly paced, as well. Despite expectations, Genius never really urges Aladin to confront his fears or anything of the sort, flatly declaring that Kasim is not his problem, and the Kasim situation never reaches the expected climax. On the other hand, it’s actually kind of refreshing to see a movie where the bullied protagonist doesn’t ever hit the bully; Aladin doesn’t ever hit anyone, in fact, leaving the physical heroics to Genius and Jasmine. (Jasmine studies karate, and actually gets to use it!)

Storyline and character development is rather beside the point, anyway. Just as one of the major attractions of The Forbidden Kingdom was watching Jackie Chan and Jet Li fight, the real charm of Aladin is watching Amitabh Bachchan and Sanjay Dutt try to out-charisma one another. (I’m going to call it a tie.) Despite all the newfangled special effects, this is a movie which wisely relies on good old fashioned scenery chewing.

Not mighty enough.

At this point, I’ve seen more Bollywood remakes of Jim Carrey movies than I’ve seen Jim Carrey movies. The latest is God Tussi Great Ho (2008), which lifts its plot almost directly from Bruce Almighty.

Salman Khan plays Arun Prajapati, a somewhat hapless TV anchorman with a grudge against God. Arun’s life is by no means perfect. His retired civil servant father (Anupam Kher) is constantly nagging him to get a nice, steady civil service job, with benefits and a pension. His otherwise beautiful sister (Rukhsar) has thick glasses and pock marks on her face, so no man will marry her. He can’t work up the courage to confess his feelings to Alia (Priyanka Chopra), the woman he loves. And his new series was canceled because of a freak accident in the first episode. Arun takes everything personally, and after every setback shakes his fist at the heavens and demands to know why God is picking on him, even if he happens to be standing next to a beggar at the time. He is, in other words, the whiniest man in the world.

And then Arun meets Rocky (Sohail Khan, Salman’s brother), who gives him something to complain about. Rocky is an old friend of Alia’s, and the new Creative Director of the TV station. He’s also vindictive, petty, malicious, and almost cartoonishly obnoxious. (The idea seems to be that Arun will be more sympathetic if his rival is deeply unpleasant; apparently this is easier than just making Arun less of a self-centered jackass.)

Rocky promptly starts putting the moves on Alia, less out of any actual romantic interest in her than out of spite for Arun. He also sabotages the presentation for Arun’s new show idea, then presents the same work as his own. Arun protests, but the boss (Dalip Tahil) doesn’t believe him, because apparently it’s more plausible that Arun scheduled a presentation but did no work, while Rocky, who wasn’t involved in the project, created a DVD just in case, based on a short description from Alia. Rocky is made host of the show, while Arun is fired and thrown out in disgrace. Once again, he blames God.

The next morning, Arun gets a phone call from a mysterious man offering him a job. He goes to a fancy hotel room to meet his potential employer, who turns out to be God, in the form of Amitabh Bachchan. Arun presents his complaints, which boil down to “Why don’t you give people what they want?” God makes him an offer. He will give Arun His power and responsibility for ten days, which should be enough time for Arun to prove his point. Will Arun squander this divine gift, only to learn a valuable lesson? Yes. Yes, he will.

God Tussi Great Ho isn’t entirely awful; the premise is solid, some of the jokes are good, and Amitabh Bachchan is always worth watching. Bachchan isn’t in the movie at all until halfway through, though, and even then only appears in a few scenes. We spend most of our time with Arun, a character who is not particularly interesting, let alone sympathetic. God is great. This movie? Not so much.