Ram Jaane

 

 Shah Rukh Khan may be the King of Romance, but he's played plenty of baddies over the years, including his fair share of brutal but charming gangsters.  Ram Jaane (1995) is an early example of Khan-as-gangster, and it's remarkable just how much it feels like a commentary on Khan's role in the Don franchise, despite being made more than a decade earlier.

The movie starts with an orphan nicknamed "Footpath" living on the street.  Footpath is even more orphaned than his best friend and fellow orphan Murli; Murli has a name and a shirt, while Footpath just has a nice hat.  The boy asks the village priest (Arun Ali) when he will finally be given a name, and the old man sadly replies "Ram Jaane" - God only knows, in other words.  The kid knows a good name when he hears it.

Murli and the newly christened Ram are friends with neighborhood girl Bela, and by friends I mean that they are both deeply smitten with her. She goes to school, but the boys spend their time committing minor crimes, then graduate to stealing from a train.  They're quickly spotted, though, and while running away Murli falls on the tracks.  Ram saves him, but that slows him down enough that he's caught by the brutal policeman Chewte (Puneet Issar), who is not shy about beating children.  

Ram is sent to reform school, but escapes along the way and makes his way back to Murli, who is now wearing a school uniform.  Murli explains that the priest has given him a chance to go straight, while Bela has been sent away to a hostel to study and become a fine lady who will marry a rich man.  All Ram Jaane can focus on is "Bela will marry a rich man," so he goes to work for the gangster Sameer Sanavla (Tinnu Anand).

Years pass.  Ram is now played by Shah Rukh Khan, and he's become Sanavla's top enforcer, though he still doesn't seem to own a shirt.  He is very good at his job, killing the henchmen of rival gang lord Mirchi (Amritpal) with style and an inordinate number of puns.  there's a problem, though; fellow gangster Pannu (Pankaj Kapur) is upset about being overshadowed by Ram, and possibly also about being nicknamed "Technicolor".  Pannu strikes a deal with Mirchi, arranging for an ambush at the end of Ram's Batman-themed musical number.  Ram manages to kill all of the attacking gangsters as well as Mirchi, but just as the last man falls, Inspector Chewte arrives and shoots Sanalva.  Ram attempts to kill Chewte, but he's overwhelmed by a large number of policemen, arrested, and sent to prison for four years.  

When he gets out Ram is placed in the custody of Murli (Vivek Mushran), who now runs an unlicensed orphanage.  Bela (Juhi Chawla) is a frequent visitor, and has not married a rich man.  She is also clearly in love with Murli, though Ram sees what he wants to see.

When Ram was sent to prison, Pannu promised him money and a share of the business when he got out.  Ram is ready to collect, but Pannu doesn't want to pay, and he is now in business with Bhau (Gulshan Grover) and thinks he'll be safe.  He is not safe.  Ram forces his way into he business by stealing bank records Pannu was responsible for keeping, and manages to cheerfully survive all of Bhau and Pannu's attempts to kill him.  

Meanwhile, Murli wants to save his friend's soul, but he's also worried about how much the boys at the orphanage look up to Ram.  He should be worried, since Ram has started using some of the boys to assist in his crimes.  And Bela just wants Murli to admit his feelings.

Things come to a head when corrupt businessman Baweja (G.P. Singh) hires Bhau to clear out the land the orphanage sits on, and Ram solves the problem by assassinating Baweja.  Everybody knows that Ram is responsible, so Chewte "investigates" by going to the orphanage and threatening childre.  Murli intervenes, and the situation escalates further when the boys start throwing things at the police.  Chewte retailates by shooting a fourteen year old in the head, then walks away.  Murli blames Ram, and Ram leaves, though he does stop long enough to beg Bela to go with him.And that's when Murli comes up with his worst idea ever: he asks, then begs, then emotionally blackmails Bela into agreeing to date Ram, hoping that that will be enough to reform him.  Unfortunately, while he loves Bela, Ram is still an awful person, and it does not solve the problem that he's too damned cool to be around impressionable youth.

Despite the similar career and general bravado, Ram Jaane is a very different character than Don.  Don is smooth, stylish, and always in control, while Ram is a bundle of anger who lives by instinct.  Don is always five steps ahead of the opposition, while Ram is one, maybe two steps ahead and makes up the difference with charm and improvisation.  

However, both characters leverage Khan's effortless charisma, and in fact the central problem in Ram Jaane is that Ram is too damned cool.  That's because this is actually a surprisingly faithful remake of the 1938 movie Angels With Dirty Faces, with Khan in the Jimmy Cagney role.  There's an added focus on the love triangle, but I am never going to say no to more Juhi Chawla.

Bhooty Call: Bhoothnath

 Bhoothnath (2008) is a movie of two parts.  The film opens with the classic Bollywood haunted house scenario.  Aditya (Shah Rukh Khan) and Anjali (Juhi Chawla) are an attractive and modern young couple who have just moved in to a house on the outskirts of Goa with their young son Banku (Aman Siddiqui).  It's only when they move in that they realize that the house is supposed to be haunted, though the audience has already glimpsed the ghost driving people away.

As is typical in these films, Aditya has a job that takes him out of town; he's the chief engineer on a cruise ship, and he promptly sails away, leaving Anjali to deal with Banku, an oversized house with a very dangerous staircase, and Anthony (Rajpal Yadav), the alcoholic homeless man who used to squat there. She's already overwhelmed just getting the place cleaned when nobody is willing to work there, and that's before she realizes that Banku has a new invisible friend.

But this isn't a horror movie, it's a children's movie about a boy and his magical friend, so the ghost isn't a threat.  Banku manages to out-prank Bhoothnath, the spirit of Kailash Nath (Amitabh Bachchan) in short order, and after the requisite fall down the stairs the two become fast friends.  Which is good, because someone has to help Anjali with the house, as well as Banku's mean principal (Satish Shah) and classroom frenemy Jojo (Devandra).

It's all very by the numbers, though during the school sports day Bhoothnath refuses to use his ghostly powers to help Banku beat Jojo, instead encouraging the boy to work harder for what he wants.  Bhoothnath is full of good advice, actually, much of it revolving around forgiveness.  He helps the boy make peace with Jojo, then reconcile with Anjali after the mother and son have a nasty argument.

And that's when Vijay Nath (Priyanshu Chatterjee) returns to Goa.  Vijay is Kailash's son, and he's here to sell the family home; he's not a monster, and is quite happy to find Aditya and Anjali another place to live, but Banku doesn't want to go, and Bhoothnath absolutely refuses to lose his new family.

Normally this kind of problem is resolved through magical pranks, but the movie has already gone to great lengths to set up the importance of forgiveness and reconciliation.  Aditya returns, because it's time for the movie to enter its second part, as the senior actors all earn their keep with an emotional story about death and moving on.  The second part is pretty solid; it's a very filmi and melodramatic story, and well within the respective skill sets of Bachchan, Chawla and Khan, but it's a heck of a tonal shift, and Banku and the more comic actors like Satish Shah and Rajpal Yadav either fade into the background or vanish entirely.

Whether the movie is a children's fantasy or an emotional melodrama, though, one thing remains consistent: it is not scary at any point.  Some of the trappings of horror appear, but it's a story about family dynamics in a large but surprisingly cozy house.  They really need to do something about those stairs, though.

Lootere

 Lootere (1993) was one of three movies starring Juhi Chawla and Sunny Deol that came out in 1993.  The most famous of these movies was Darr, the movie in which Sunny Deol was so comprehensively out-charismad by plucky newcomer Shah Rukh Khan that audiences cheered for the bad guy and Khan and Chawla went on to star in a long series of romantic comedies together.  Shah Rukh isn't in Lootere, though, so let's see how Deol fares this time.

Things start on a grim note, with police officer Karan (Deol) having a nightmare about a woman named Anjali (Chawla) being thrown off a cliff by a gang of thugs.  Karan is working in a secluded rural area now, but Bombay's police commissioner (Subbiraj) drops by to deliver useful exposition, though only after "testing" Karan by faking a  bloody attack on the police station.  In short, Karan was supposed to be protecting Anjali from a crimelord named Chengez Lala (the usually cuddly Anupam Kher, playing very much against type.)  He failed, and Lala used his influence to have Karan transferred away from the city, but that's over now; Karan is going back to Bombay.

The commissioner encourages Karan to pursue his revenge rather than waste time doing actual police work, and offers the full resources of the department, but all Karan wants is his friend and former partner Ali (Chunkey Pandey.)  Ali has quit the force and is now running some sort of illegal bar, but Karan gives an inspiring speech and the partners are ready to begin their quest.  Step one: an extended flashback.

As the flashback begins, Lala has murdered a police officer at a party he was throwing, attended by some of Bombay's most respectable citizens, and the only person present who really reacts is bar singer Anjali.  She places a call to the police, offering to act as an eye witness, and Karan and Ali are assigned to bring her to the station.  They do, after rescuing her from the middle of a musical number and escaping via horse drawn carriage for some inexplicable reason.  That works about as well as you would expect, especially when the bad guys have cars and motorcycles, but Karan is very, very good at punching people, and they reach the station safely.

Anjali is terrified and wants to recant.  Karan convinces her to stand firm by bringing in the officer's widow and son and telling Anjali to explain to them why she won't testify.  She's placed in a safehouse, but Lala's men kill everyone there except Anjali, hoping to intimidate her into staying silent rather than solving their problem then and there.  

The city isn't safe, so Karan takes her to a secluded cabin in the mountains.  They have twenty four days until the trial, and so the attractive and spirited woman and the brave, pushy and kind of annoying man get to know each other, argue, and inevitably fall in love.

Lala has his men searching the city to find the woman that he should have killed when he had the chance.  Well, most of them.  His henchman Sikander (Naseeruddin Shah), at once the coolest, most effective, and most loyal of his men, appears at the party and then vanishes from the movie entirely.  He may be offscreen canoodling with Lala's sister Devyani (Pooja Bedi.)  

Meanwhile, up on the mountain, Karan asks Anjali to marry him.  She accepts, and he calls Ali at the police station to give him the happy news and invite him to be a witness.  he also tells Ali exactly where and when they'll be, which is a mistake, since there is a mole at the police station who was listening in on the phone conversation and immediately called Lala, blurting out the address before Ali could stop him.  So Lala's men show up, Anjali is tossed off the cliff, Karan is brutally beaten by henchmen who attack him all at once rather than one at a time, and the flashback ends.

Back in the present, Karan is planning his revenge, since that's the only thing he has left to live for.  At least until he and Ali drive past a temple and he sees Anjali, very much alive.  he gives chase, only to be interrupted by Sikander.  Karan knows she's alive, and Ali is willing to support his friend no matter what, and so they set out to gather information by means of a wacky scheme involving Ali dressing up as a German woman.  This isn't funny, and it's a seismic shift in tone, but at least it doesn't last long.

Anjali is indeed alive.  She survived the fall, and Lala decided to keep her alive rather than finally killing the woman who could put him in prison because . . . I don't know.  Some nonsense about death being too merciful.  Instead he hands her over to Sikander, encouraging his henchman to do whatever he wants with her.  but while Sikander is a killer and a drunk and a thug, he's not a rapist, so what he wants to do is keep Anjali safe, even thrashing some of his fellow goons who try to take advantage of her.  Anjali slowly grows to trust Sikander, and he begins to change for the better through her influence.  But he can't let her go, and he does not want Karan to take away the only person who treats him as a human being rather than an instrument of violence.

Like a lot of early Juhi Chawla characters, it is Anjali's role in life to suffer nobly; this movie came out in 1993, before Bollywood discovered that Juhi Chawla is really funny.  Despite that, Anjali is the real hero here; she's anything but fearless, but even when terrified out of her mind she stands her ground.  Karan does all the punching, but basically every victory in the movie is thanks to Anjali's courage.  It's really rare to see a female character of the era display so much agency, let alone drive the entire plot.

Karan can't help but be a little overshadowed.  There's just not much to the part; he's a pretty typical action hero of the era.  He's brave, prone to violence and solemn speeches, and he somehow manages to woo the heroine by annoying her, but there's nothing surprising about him.  Sunny Deol does his best, but he doesn't have much to work with.

And then there's acclaimed actor Naseeruddin Shah, who injects tremendous depth into the role of Henchman Number One.  Sikander is deeply flawed but very complex, and he has an actual character arc, which is more than the film's hero gets.  Sorry, Sunny.

What I say three times is true.

Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla rose to stardom thanks to their performance as star-crossed lovers in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak,  and they spent much of their early careers playing opposite each other as star-crossed lovers.  Love Love Love (1989) is one of those movies.

Perennial bad guy Gulshan Grover plays Vicky, son of local Don Sudhir Bhai (Raza Murad).  Vicky behaves like the wicked prince in a fairy story; he's tremendously entitled, cruel for cruelty's sake, and he does not think things through.  In theory, Vicky is a college student, and he introduced himself as "The Don of the college," but he spends most of his time going into dance clubs and humiliating everyone who annoys him.  (Grover was thirty four when this move came out, and he looks it.)  naturally, Vicky has a small coterie of sidekicks and hangers on, the most important being his girlfriend Reema (Juhi Chawla) and her brother Mahesh (Anand Balraj).  

Reema is visibly annoyed by Vicky's casual cruelty, but she never does anything about it.  And then one night, as Vicky and the gang are mugging an old man for money to buy a VCR (they can easily afford it, but Vicky gets bored if an activity doesn't involve hurting people) they are interrupted by good Samaritan Amit (Aamir Khan), who studies at the same college.  Vicky is obviously furious, but Reema is delighted, even if she still doesn't do anything about it.

And then . . .  well, it's Eighties Bollywood, so the romance is going to be weird for a while.  Vicky and his goons steal Amit's new bike, ride it around the campus (this time Reema is an active participant) and then destroy it in front of him.  (Reema did not participate in that part.)  Amit bumps into Reema at a disco and forces her to dance with him, which is seriously not cool.  Vicky arrives and makes some threats, and it's all kind of pointless because the actual plot hasn't kicked off yet.

The college principal (Chandrashekhar) selects Amit and Reema to represent he college at a quiz competition in Delhi.  He also insists that they travel by train together, unsupervised, in order to build team spirit.  That gives the young soon-to-be star crossed lovers a chance to get to know one another on equal terms, without either one coming across as a creep.  There's definitely a spark there.

Reema and Amit return victorious to Mumbai, and their classmates pressure Amit to hold a party the tiny house where he lives with his taxi driver father (Dalip Tahil).   Reema promises to come, but she literally cannot get away.  During the next attempted date she has to attend a boring cocktail party with her father (Om Shivpuri) and Vicky's father.  Amit tries to arrange more dates, and she never manages to show up, leaving his friends to darkly mutter that "rich girls can't be trusted."  

Finally Reema manages to sneak away long enough to meet Amit at the Disco Dandiya, and they declare their love for one another.  Amit and Reema make a plan to secretly meet every morning while jogging, And then Reema ruins everything by telling Vicky and her father that she's been meeting Amit, which leads to more threats, more beatings, and Vicky's terrifying father meeting Amit's father to make threats.  Amit is a dutiful son, so he agrees to leave Reema and go away when his father asks him to.

Reema is sad for a while, then she takes the initiative and tracks Amit down, leading to more happy dancing and frolicking.  Sudhir Bhai is forced to elevate his threats - either Reema agrees to marry Vicky, or he will have Amit killed; the fact that he makes this threat as they watch one of his goons try to run Amit over makes it especially convincing, so Reema agrees.

And then Vicky ruins everything, because he does not think things through.  He makes a point of taking Reema with him to deliver a wedding invitation and to invite Amit to attend Reema's birthday party, where the engagement will be formally announced.  The evil plan is to insult Amit so much that he doesn't even think of approaching Reema ever again, and Vicky and his friends are a bit mean, but the Reema publicly sings about her love for Amit to the tune of "It's A Sin" by the Pet Shop Boys, dances with Amit in front of everyone, and ends by kissing him on the lips, which is humiliation stacked on humiliation for Vicky.  The good guys escape, the bad guys are out for blood, and it all leads to a climactic showdown in an unlicensed Disney theme park.

There's a reason why I started by talking about Vicky rather than the actual protagonists.  He's a much bigger presence in the film than the usual unsuitable suitor.  That's an interesting choice, and it would be more effective if Vicky weren't so cartoonishly evil.  He starts chewing the scenery the moment he appears on screen, nearly every line is delivered with a snarl, and because he starts by threatening violence the moment he's thwarted in any way, he really doesn't have much room to escalate.  Gulshan Grover is great at playing scenery chewing villains, but this movie gives him more scenery to chew than usual, and it's a bit of a struggle for him to get through it all.

Aamir and Juhi have a bit more to work with, especially Juhi.  Reema has to walk a careful tightrope at the beginning, because she needs to be at least somewhat complicit in Vicky's bad deeds without becoming totally unlikable.  Reema also has more agency than a lot of the Bollywood heroines of this era, and even gets to join in on the last fight scene.  Amit is a more solid and traditional character, but he gets plenty of chance for heroic speeches and noble self sacrifice.

All that said, this is Eighties Bollywood, and it does showcase some of the flaws of that era.  The incidental music is largely lifted from western movies, with the Star Wars theme playing at key points and a chase scene accompanied by the music from Chariots of Fire.  The movie is set at a college campus where nobody ever goes to class.  The plot goes around and around in circles, especially as the film approaches the climax.  And unfortunately Vicky does end the movie threatening to rape Reema, which is a jarring shift in tone form the rest of the movie, making those scenes grimy and horrible, rather than the fun melodramatic romp it had been up to that point.

On the other hand, the hero's sister makes it through the entire movie without anything terrible happening to her, and Bob Christo, one of my favorite Bollywood henchmen, makes a brief cameo as an assassin named Bob.

There's certainly less police brutality than in Singham.

Long time readers will know that I have a theory about film: any any premise can be turned into a comedy by adding the words "Wackiness ensues" to the description.  In the case of Son of Sardaar (2012), wackiness ensues when a man seeks to escape a murderous blood feud by hiding out in the house of his family's sworn enemies.

Jassi Randhawa (Ajay Devgn) is the titular Son of Sardaar, a freespirited Punjabi man now living a carefree life in London.  The opening musical number and subsequent fight scene serve to establish the important facts about his character in a hurry: he is serious about his culture and faith, he tells terrible jokes, he believes in peace but is very good at beating people up, and he is best friends with Pathan (Salman Khan), who will not be sticking around for the rest of the movie.  

 Jassi receives a letter informing him that his late father left him some land back home in India, which the government would like to buy.  Before Jassi leaves, though, Pathan's father delivers some important exposition: the Randhava family had been involved in a brutal blood feud with the neighboring Sandhus, Jassi's father was killed by the Sandhus, but killed their family head in the process, and the Sandhus will not rest until the Randhavas have been wiped out entirely.  Jassi laughs it off.  It's been twenty five years, and surely the Sandhus have forgotten the whole blood feud business by now.

Meanwhile, in India, a quick scene with the Sandhus establishes the important facts about their family: they have not forgotten the whole blood feud business, current family head Billu (Sanjay Dutt) has vowed not to marry his beloved Pammi (Juhi Chawla) until Jassi has been killed, Billu is terrifyingly good at beating people up, and the family takes the laws of hospitality very seriously.  They won't harm a guest while they are in the house no matter how much they deserve it, but the moment they step out, they are fair game.  Still, they are a nice family apart from the bouts of violence.

On the train to Punjab, Jassi meets Sukh (Sonakshi Sinha), and is immediately smitten.  She is at least somewhat amused by his antics, so there's a chance there.  Naturally, Sukh is actually Billu's (much) younger cousin, but the pair are separated before either of them can figure out the connection.

Jassi gets a ride from Billu's brother Tony (Mukul Dev.)  Tony does figure out Jassi's identity, but by that time Jassi has gone on his way, and all of Tony's repeated murder attempts end in cheap slapstick and an oblivious Jassi wandering off.  Jassi meets Billu and is invited to the family home, and it is only after he is safely inside that Tony manages to tell Billu who Jassi is, and Jassi figures out where he is.

Drama is all about conflict, and there's a clear conflict here.  Billu wants to kill Jassi and fulfill his oath and finally marry Pammi, but he can't as long as Jassi is in the house.  Jassi would like to not be murdered, and would also like to put an end to the feud if at all possible and while he's making a wishlist, marrying Sukh would be pretty great as well, so he needs to stay in the house, whether that means faking an injury or charming the members of the family who don't actively want to kill him yet.  And Pammi and Sukh are both active characters with their own goals that they work toward; granted, in both cases that goal is "Find a way to marry the man I love," but they actively pursue that goal instead of waiting around as a prize to be won.

Except the movie is not a drama, it's a strange genre hybrid, a blood-soaked revenge farce.  The tone is consistent throughout - even the flashback to the murderfest of twenty five years ago has a pretty good sight gag - but it's distracting.  The brain has to reconcile the slapstick comedy and light romance with Sanjay Dutt the lovable goofball with a dozen men with swords camped out to kill our hero the moment he steps outside.

Still, a movie can coast a long way on charm, and this movie has a great cast with charm to spare.  Sonakshi Sinha has spunk, Ajay Devgn manages to be both funny and badass, Sanjay Dutt has Munnabhai-like charm while being considerably more bloodthirsty than he was as Munnabhai, and Juhi Chawla is, well, Juhi Chawla.  And "Don't waste your life on a pointless blood feud, even if you took a vow" is something we all need to be reminded of every now and then.

A role that's so nice, they cast it twice.

 When Bollywood legend Rishi Kapoor died in 2020, shooting for his last film, Sharmaji Namkeen (2022) was still incomplete.  Rather than scrap the movie, the producers considered a number of frankly terrible ideas such as creating a CGI Rishi Kapoor or putting Kapoor's son Ranbir in prosthetics to play the part, but instead veteran character actor Paresh Rawal stepped in to complete the missing scenes.  The end result is a movie with two leading men both playing the same role, and it works better than you might think.

Our hero is Brij Gopal Sharma (Kapoor and Rawal), who has just been forced to take early retirement from the kitchen appliance company where he worked.  Sharma is not cut out for sitting at home and watching TV, so after driving the entire neighborhood crazy with home improvement projects, he spends some time bouncing from hobby to hobby and job interview to job interview.  His only real passion is cooking, but when he suggests opening up a small stall, his older son Rinku (Suhail Nayyar) shuts down the idea immediately; it's not a respectable position for someone of their social class.

However, when his old friend Chadda (Satish Kaushik) asls him to cook for a relative's religious function, Sharma agrees.  he cooks wonderfully, the people are all nice, everything is great . . . until Sharma catches a glimpse of the guests and realizes that he's not cooking for a religious function, he's cooking for a kitty party!  (A kitty party is a mostly Indian tradition, one part social outing and one part savings club, in which a group of (usually) women pool money in a "kitty", and then they take turns every month using the money to host a party for the group.)

Sharma is horrified, leaves immediately, and makes polite excuses whenever the women call him and try to hire him again.  But it was nice to have something to do, and even nicer to be treated with respect.  And he's intrigued by one of the women in the group, the beautiful, sophisticated, and widowed Veena (Juhi Chawla.)  So he goes back again.  And again.  Soon he's a fixture at the kitty parties, but he's still careful to keep his new career secret from his family and friends.

Sharma's not the only one keeping secrets.  Younger son Vincy (Taaruk Raina) has been focused on his dream of dancing, and has failed his college exams.  And Rinku is in a relationship with coworker Urmi (Isha Talwar).  They're practically engaged, and Rinku has already made a large down payment on an apartment, but the corrupt developer seems intent on keeping the money without letting the young couple move in.  Everybody's tired, and everybody's stressed.  And then a family friend finds footage of Sharma dancing at a kitty party on Facebook.

This is a very Rishi Kapoor movie. The man was a versatile actor, and he's put in some strong performances in a variety of roles, but even before he aged out of playing romantic leads his public image has always been cuddly and avuncular.  Sharmaji Namkeen has a charming, cozy ambiance that plays into that image.  There's conflict, but it's mostly conflict between people who love each other, and we know they'll make it work in the end.  The closest the movie gets to social controversy is its portrayal of kitty parties as a space where women can express themselves without worrying about their assigned societal roles.

It takes a little while to get used to the dual lead actors alternating scenes, but it's not as distracting as you might think.  It helps that Paresh Rawal doesn't look very much like Rishi Kapoor and isn't trying to do any sort of Rishi Kapoor impression, he's just  playing to the emotional truth of the character in his own fashion, a bit less cuddly and a bit more exasperated.  It lets Kapoor and Rawal fade into the background and lets Sharma take center stage.

This is not a groundbreaking movie, but it's a fun and comfortable movie, and casting Juhi Chawla as the female romantic lead in a new movie will always get bonus points from me.

Turns out a serpent's tooth is also pretty sharp.

Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, Mansoor Khan's story of star-crossed young lovers, was a huge success, launching Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla into stardom.  Naturally, Bollywood producers set about trying to recreate the magic, and Khan and Chawla were cast in a number of films about young lovers with varying degrees of star-crossedness.  Results were . . . mixed.  Tum Mere Ho (1990), for instance, is notoriously bad.  On the other hand, it's a schmaltzy melodrama with Juhi Chawla, an angry naga, and black magicand I like all those things, so if anybody's going to like the movie, it'll be me.  Let's dig in.

When wealthy Thakur Choudhary (Sudhir Pandey) catches sight of a Naagmani (a magical gem set in a cobra's head) he is consumed by a Tolkeinian desire to possess it, so he kills the snake.  Unfortunately, the snake's mother (Kalpana Iyer) is nearby.  Choudhary pleads for mercy, telling her he was blinded by greed when he casually murdered her son, but for some reason she is not impressed.  She vows revenge, and later bites Choudhary's four year old son, apparently killing the boy.  The parents sadly set the body adrift on the river, while the angry snake watches.

I say that the boy was "apparently killed, because he's pulled from the river by Baba (possibly Ishrat Ali, but the IMDB entry isn't really clear), a kindly snake charmer and black magician.  Baba draws the poison out of the boy's body using his magical powers, then decides to raise him as his on son and apprentice, because, hey, free son!  he names the boy Shiva, and by the time Shiva has grown up to be played by Aamir Khan, he has mastered both his adopted father's crafts.

 

While performing at a village fair, Shiva catches a glimpse of Paro (Juhi Chawla), daughter of the wealthy and powerful Choudhry Charanjit Singh (Ajit Vachani).  Shiva is immediately smitten, and surprisingly, so is Paro!  When they meet later, she asks him to sjhow her his snake-charming technique, and soon they're wandering the hills together, singing about love and occasionally getting caught in the rain.

 

It can't last.  When Paro's father finds out, he hires another black magician (Anirudh Agarwal) to deal with the upstart.  Shiva easily wins the magical duel, so Singh decides on a more direct approacjh; he gathers a band of ruffians and has them beat up Shiva, but before he can shoot the boy, Baba arrives and pleads for his son's life, promising that he won't come around Paro anymore.

 

When Paro finds out about the beating and attempted murder, she's furious and confronts her father, but her mother takes her aside and explains just how starcrossed she actually is.  It's not just that Shiva is a poor traveler and therefore not husband material; Paro's marriage has already been arranged.  In fact, she's already married, and has been since they were small children.  In fact, she's already a widow, since her husband was bitten by a snake and died soon after the wedding.  (And at this point you've probably already figured out how the story will end.) In fact, in a few days Paro will go to her in-laws home to live out the rest of her days in miserable solitude as a widow, because there's no possible way she could ever remarry.  Paro agrees that this is completely logical, and meets Shiva one last time.  She pretends that she never loved him, he lashes out angrily, and stalks off, apparently never to return.  Paro makes the sad journey to her in-laws' home, content that at least Shiva will be safe.

 

Of course, Shiva discovers that she lied and really does love him almost immediately, so he convinces Baba to move the entire band north, ostensibly in search of better snakes, but mostly so that he can stalk Paro.  He hangs around outside her house, playing snake charming music, hoping to draw her out.  It works.  Shiva suggests that maybe Paro shouldn't have to spend her whole life alone and miserable because of a marriage that she didn't consent to and wasn't even told about for years.  Paro is torn. She really does love Shiva, but nothing has really changed, and they still can't be together without leaving everything behind.

And then there's the angry snake lady.  When she discovers that the boy she bit all those years ago is still alive, she tries to finish the job, but Shiva is a powerful magician, so she can't get to him.  Paro, however, is not so well protected . . .

First things first. This movie is a product of the late eighties/early nineties Bollywood film industry, which means that the treatment of women is pretty bad.  Paro in particular is seemingly born to suffer, and she's betrayed and abused at various points in the film by pretty much everybody she loves, and that does include Shiva.  In the end everyone is forgiven because this is late eighties/early nineties Bollywood and the family unit must be preserved at all costs, but that doesn't make it okay.

On the other hand, Paro has a surprising amount of agency for a heroine of the period.  Shiva doesn't rescue her from her dismal life as a widow, he convinces her to rescue herself, and it's not a decision that comes quickly or easily.  Paro makes a choice, and it is definitely her choice.

Juhi does a fine job as the long-suffering Paro.  Snake movies are essentially a subgenre of supernatural melodrama, and they demand a kind of heightened reality in the performances.  Naturalistic acting wouldn't work at all.  Juhi commits, and so does Aamir; they are acting well for the genre of movie that they appear in.

So, does Tum Mere Ho deserve its bad reputation?  Maybe?  I'm pretty sure it's not a good movie.  It's dated, it's often silly, and it's certainly problematic, but I also found it compelling.  It really needs more snakes and a lot less suffering, though.

. . . is an ungrateful stepsibling.

David Dhawan is famous for directing a number of incredibly broad, incredibly formulaic comedies, often starring Govinda or the director's son, Varun Dhawan, and with further comic relief provided by some combination of Shakti Kapoor, Johny Lever, Kader Khan, and/or Paresh Rawal.  The movies are sometimes tasteless, predictably predictable, and irregularly funny, but when you watch a David Dhawan movie, you know what you're getting.  And then there is his first hit, Swarg (1990).  While Govinda and Paresh Rawal both have important roles, this is perhaps the least David Dhawany David Dhawan movie I have ever seen.

 Kumar (Rajesh Khanna) is a wealthy businessman with a large family, including his wife Janki (Madhavi) and much younger stepsiblings Ravi (Dilip Dhawan), Vikram (Raja Bundela), and Jyoti (Juhi Chawla), along with Ravi's wife Naina (Neena Gupta) and maybe Ravi and Naina have a son?  A kid shows up in a few scenes, but nobody ever really talks about him.  When his stepmother was dying, Kumar promised her that he would always take care of her children, and even took a vow that he would never have children of his own, a decision that I am sure will have no negative consequences.

And then there's Krishna (Govinda), the family servant.  Krishna was an orphan, taken in at a young age, and he views Kumar as a father, showing so much devotion that he;'s in danger of overdosing on filial piety.  Krishna is not a very good servant, but he is clever, loyal, and good at punching bad guys, skills which he puts to good use when rescuing Jyoti from a fate worse than death.  (It is nineties Bollywood, after all; you have to threaten the heroine with a fate worse than death at some point.)

 

In any case, it's a big, wonderful, loving family and everybody is so happy that they named the house "Swarg," because it is a heaven on Earth.  And then, Kumar wins the election to become president of the Mill Owners Association.  His predecessor Dhanraj (Paresh Rawal) is not happy, because he's been using the position to fill his own pockets for years, and he knows the scrupulously honest Kumar will not let the matter go.  Dhanraj sets out to ruin Kumar's happy home.

 

And he does!  It turns out that ruining people is surprisingly easy.  With the help of Nagpal (Bharat Kapoor), one of Kumar's employees, he manipulates Kumar into using the mansion as collateral to secure a large loan, a loan which becomes impossible to repay when the factory burns down.

Kumar is ruined overnight, and his stepbrothers reveal themselves to be selfish jerks who refuse to help the man who has supported them for so many years.  (Jyoti is played by Juhi Chawla and so remains virtuous.)  When Krishna has had enough and confronts them over their disloyalty, they frame him for stealing Jyoti's jewelry and he is thrown out of the house.  

 

Krishna travels to Bombay (the name won't officially change for another five years) and after a rough start, he meets a friend named Airport (Satish Kaushik), gets a job as a spot boy on a movie set, and accidentally becomes a rich and successful film star almost overnight.  Now that he has money and power and a loyal sidekick, Krishna returns home, determined to save his family, or at least avenge his fallen master.

Despite the different genre, David Dhawan still doesn't do subtle; this is drama rather than comedy, but it's still incredibly broad.  Dhanraj has two identifiable personality traits: he's evil, and he likes to remind people that he's from Gujurat.  Krishna is virtue personified.  Kumar is bound by his vow, and suffers nobly.  After the first half hour, nobody really has a chance to be funny, which is honestly a bit of a waste since half the cast have strong comedic chops; Juhi Chawla is right there, people!

 

The end result reminds me of a scaled down production of King Lear, swapping some of the play's cosmic nihilism for brightly colored dance numbers, because drama or no drama, Govinda is going to dance.  It's definitely not what I was expecting from David Dhawan.