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.

Stupid Vows, the Motion Picture

 

 Legendary Bollywood director Yash Chopra directed twenty three films, including such classics as Chandni, Darr, and Veer Zaara.  Jab Tak Hai Jaan (2012) was his last film, and it's very Yash Chopra, a grand sweeping tale of love with huge emotions, great performances, and a plot that doesn't quite make sense if you think about it for too long.

Major Samar Anand (Shah Rukh Khan) is "The Man Who Cannot Die," the superstar of the Indian Army's bomb disposal unit.  he doesn't act like a rock star, though - he's surly and gruff, but very considerate of his subordinates.  He also refuses to wear any sort of bomb disposal suit, or any safety gear at all, almost as if he's actively daring God to kill him.  Samar obviously has a backstory,m and after he rescues plucky aspiring filmmaker Akira Rai (Anushka Sharma) from drowning in a lake, he accidentally leaves his diary behind.  Akira opens it, and discovers an extended flashback.

The movie jumps back ten years.  Samar is a street musician in London, but he works a variety of odd jobs in order to support himself and his Pakistani roommate Zain (Sharid Hashmi).   Samar is young and carefree and nothing is ever going to change him, at least until he spots Meera Thappar (Katrina Kaif).  Meera is young, but she's anything but carefree; her wealthy father (Anupam Kher) owns a chain of grocery stores, and she's a key part of his business, a respectable businesswoman who sometimes sneaks off to a nearby church to pray to Jesus.  (I say pray, but it's more like a negotiation - she asks Jesus for a boon, and when the boon is granted she makes a sacrifice, such as giving up smoking or wearing furs.  This will be important later.)  

By the time Samar and Meera properly meet, she's engaged to childhood friend Roger (Jay Conroy), and she is very careful to explain to the handsome musician that she's just met that she is very happy about that.  Really.  

 Meera wants to learn a Punjabi song that she can sing for her father at his birthday party, and she offers Samar money to teach her.  He has a different idea, and asks Meera to help him with his English.  naturally this leads to them falling in love, especially after Samar helps Meera to reconcile with her estranged mother (Neetu Kapoor) and stepfather (Rishi Kapoor).  They plan to make the relationship official, but before Meera can bring up the subject with her father, Samar is hit by a car and seriously injured.  Meera immediately strikes another bargain with Jesus: if He will spare Samar's life, she will give up Samar, the person she loves the most.  

Presumably Jesus accepts the bargain, because Samar makes a full recovery.  But when Meera tells him about her vow, he does not take it well.  He issues his own challenge to God - he will keep risking his life until God either gives up and lets him die, or gives up and lets him have Meera.  And ten years later he's disarming bombs for the Indian army.  

Akira is young and carefree and convinced that nothing will ever change her, so she obtains permission to make a documentary about the Indian Army's bomb disposal unit, and Samar specifically.  Things start off tense, but they soon develop an odd friendship.  While Akira has fallen for Samar, his heart still belongs to Meera.  After two weeks Akira is ready to wrap up the documentary, and it's good enough to get her a job offer from the Discovery Channel, but only if Samar will come to London and confirm his story.  Samar agrees to come, for one day only, just for Akira's sake, and then he's hit by another car.

In the hospital Samar asks for Meera and doesn't recognize Akira at all.  He has amnesia!  A very specific form of amnesia, which causes him to lose all memory of everything after his first car accident.  The only medical solution is for Meera to come to the hospital and help ease him into recovery. And to be fair that's all the doctors ask of her; nobody was expecting her to tell Samar that they're married, requiring an elaborate web of lies.  For a while Samar is happy and Meera is both happy and wracked with guilt, but it's all going to come crashing down sooner or later and Meera and Akira are competing to see who gets to make the big romantic self-sacrifice first.

The movie feels like the filmmakers knew they wanted the amnesia plotline, and then worked backwards to make that happen.  The details never quite line up properly, so the movie throws big emotions at you and hopes that you don't notice.  And to be fair, the big emotions are handled well; all three leads are complicated people, and Kaif, Sharma and Khan all put in great performances.

Normally I would be complaining that this is a problem that could be solved with five minutes of honest conversation, but they have the five minutes of conversation and it doesn't help.   Meera is unusually layered for a romantic heroine, and while she's wrong to give up her love because of a hasty vow, she is the kind of person who would do that,  while Samar is prickly and bitter enough that he has to change as well for the relationship to work.  As always, don't try this at home, and don't think too hard about the plot, but the big sweeping romance will sweep you along if you want it to.

 

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

 

Two street gangs, both alike in dignity

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

 From recent grudge break to more mutiny

Where filmi blood makes filmi hands unclean.

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

For Shah Rukh Freakin' Khan is in the cast

Thru schemes of real estate, a silly car

And baking pranks, the end will come at last.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If it wasn't for your misfortune, I'd be a heavenly person today.

 I See You (2006) is a Bollywood ghost story with a difference.  It's a romance, with a ghost who is not actually a ghost, and a plot that bears a strong resemblance to the Hollywood film Just Like Heaven.  (I am assured that both films are based on Marc levy's novel If Only It Were True, and I am willing to believe it.)  But that's not the real difference.

 Raj Jaiswal (Arjun Rampal) lives in London and hosts a popular Hindi language talk show called "British Raj."  Raj is a carefree bachelor, which in this sort of movie means that he's a walking HR nightmare who hits on every woman within reach, including his new co-host Dilnaaz (Sophie Choudry).  She agrees to a date, though it's not clear whether that's because he is charming or she is ambitious.  And it doesn't really matter, because when Raj gets home after making the date he discovers Shivani (Vipasha Agarwal) in his apartment, and she just won't leave.

Shivani claims to be a spirit.  Not a ghost, exactly - she explains that she's not actually dead, she's in a coma, and she is thrilled to meet someone who can see, hear, and even touch her.  Raj assumes that his best friend Akshay (Chunky Pandey), but after some comic business and a quick trip to the hospital to see her body, Raj accepts his spectral roommate.

It takes a little while before they warm up to one another.   At first Raj tries to use Shivani's ghostly nature to help him pick up girls and cheat at poker, and she takes the opportunity to mess with him.  But soon enough they're friends, leading to more comic business as Raj apparently talks to himself in public and the people around him assume that he's lost his mind.  Before long, though, they're close.  Raj talks about Shivani all the time, much to Akshhay's chagrin.  

And just as the relationship is starting to get romantic, Shivani reveals her secret:  the car crash that put her into a coma wasn't an accident.  before the crash she stumbled across an organ trafficing ring run out of the hospital, with Doctor Shah (Ashwin Mushran) as the ringleader.  Shah is in charge of Shivani's care, and if he can't convince her mother (Kirron Kher) to sign the papers to take her off life support, he'll take care of the problem himself.  It's time for Raj to take action - ill-advised and largely ineffectual action.  Fortunately minor comic relief character John Smith (Michael Maloney), a police inspector who appeared as a human interest story on The British Raj because he learned Hindi through Bollywood movies in order to woo the movie theater cashier, is on the case.

The plot of I See You is not terribly unusual; in addition to Just Like heaven and Vismayathumbathu (a South Indian movie which came out in 2004 and is, I am assured, based on the same novel), 2021's Teddy takes the same coma-and-organ trafficking plot beats and adds violence and a giant Teddy bear.  Still, the movie is reasonably well made and entertaining.  Arjun Rampal is probably miscast; he does better with brooding action heroes, but the role is crying out for Rajkummar Rao.  Still, he does his best, and the movie is sufficiently fun.

The real difference is the music.  Composers Vishal-Shekhar created a bright and poppy soundtrack with a vibrant eighties techno beat -  it's Bollywood by way of New Order, and it doesn't sound like any Indian movie I have ever seen.

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.

Shah Rukh Week: Pardes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Passing the torch.

 Deewana (1992) isn't a romantic comedy, it's a romantic drama, a grand sweeping tale of love and tragedy starring veteran actor and known sweater enthusiast Rishi Kapoor.  It's also the cinematic debut of a plucky young stage and TV actor named Shah Rukh Khan.  Still, Bollywood's a rough business, and it's very hard for someone without any family connections to make it, so we probably won't be seeing him again.

Kapoor plays Ravi, a wealthy and handsome eligible bachelor.  Ravi is pursuing a music career, so he leaves running the family business to his mother Laxmi (Sushma Seth) and his transparently evil uncle Dhirendra (Amrish Puri).  Dhirendra is all smiles and compliments when people are looking, but he is Laxmi's stepbrother, and he's been nursing a grudge about that for decades.

Ravi shares a little banter with his mother about the importance of getting married and providing the family an heir, then he leaves for a show in a mountain town.  While preparing for the show Ravi stays with aspiring poet and musician Devdas Sabrangi (Deven Verma), and that's where he meets Devdas's niece Kajal (Divya Bharti).  

Kajal is . . . well, she's young and carefree and nothing is ever going to change her.  She's spunky, prone to pouting and telling people "I'll kill you" when thwarted, which is a lot more charming than it sounds.  And she's a huge fan of Ravi, with posters covering her walls.  Ravi and Kajal spend more and more time together, and he keeps extending his trip, but eventually he has to go home.  At first Kajal is heartbroken, but Ravi decides to marry her immediately and take her home with him.

So, Ravi is happy, Kajal is happy, Laxmi is thrilled, and Dhirendra is not happy at all.  He's charming when meeting his new niece-in-law, but the moment he's alone with his son Narendra (Mohnish Bahl) they start scheming.  The first plan involves Narendra assaulting Kajal, but Ravi returns home just in time and Narendra is thrown out of the house, with Dhirenra joining in the rebuke in order to preserve his position.

The second plan is much simpler.  When Ravi and Kajal go away to spend some alone time in the family's farmhouse, Narendra and a small army of goons arrive to kill them both.  There's a fight and Ravi is shot, but he manages to kill Narendra with a sword before falling off a cliff to his apparent death; there's no way that anyone could have survived a fall from that height, so that must be the end of him.

Kajal returns to the family home and tells Laxmi what happened, then Dhirendra arrives and reveals his true colors.  He's furious about the death of his son, and practically destroys the house while pursuing the women, but they escape and, with the help of family lawyer Sharma (Alok Nath) they find a new home in the city.

Life in the city is hard for a pair of widowed women, even if they have money.  Kajal has resigned herself to a life of quiet misery when brash and rebellious rich kid Raja (Shah Rukh Khan) literally runs into them, almost knocking Laxmi over.  Kajal immediately berates him, and he watches her in stunned silence as the police arrive to take him away.  

Raja is smitten, and begins stalking Kajal in earnest, buying her flowers, carving her name into his own arm, following her home on Holi to . . . honestly I'm not sure what he was trying to achieve in that scene, but Kajal was having none of it.  He also tells his stern and materialistic father Ramakant (Dalip Tahil) about the woman he wants to marry.  Ramakant is furious; marrying a widow would be a stain on the family's honor, so he sends thugs to Kajal's home, intending toi drive them away.  Raja arrives just in time and beats the goons up, and while that doesn't impress Kajal, it does impress Laxmi; she urges Kajal to marry the young man in order to secure a protector, and after some heavy guilt tripping Kajal agrees.

After the wedding Raja turns out to be a better man than expected.  He tells Kajal that he knows she still loves her late husband, and promises not to touch her until and unless she feels something for him.  Then he gives her space, focusing instead on providing a comfortable life for his new family, opening a garage with the help of his layabout friends.

After Raja is hurt in a car accident, Kajal realizes that she feels something for him after all, and once again everyone is happy.  And that's when Dhirendra returns to ask Sharma to help him access the family's money.  After Sharma refuses, Dhirendra suspects that the women are alive and well and somewhere in the city, so he sends more goons to find them.  meanwhile, Raja saves a mysterious man from muggers, takes him to the hospital, and checks in on him frequently.  The men quickly become close, but Raja doesn't realize that this mysterious bearded and sweaterless man is actually Ravi.

This is pretty standard late eighties/early nineties Bollywood melodrama, with quick courtships and sudden twists of fate and characters turning out to not be dead after all and noble self sacrifices, though directly confronting the taboos around widows remarrying is a bit unusual.  Ultimately, though, the movie is going to succeed or fail based on the performances.

Rishi Kapoor is always solid, and he's clearly in his element here.  Amrish Puri is also doing what he does best, alternating between chewing the scenery and gently nibbling the doorframes; Dhirendra is a Shakespearean villain as written, so that's how he plays him.  And Divya Bharti is beautiful and charming and stuck in a role which is largely just reacting to one tragedy after another.  All too often, the role of a woman in early nineties Bollywood is to suffer nobly, and Bharti sadly died the next year, just as the industry was starting to open up and let women be fun from time to time.

And then there's Shah Rukh Khan.  He's very stagey in this, playing to the people in the back of the theater, but he also gives Raja some of the same menacing intensity that he would later bring to the villainous roles that would make him a star; Raja even has the same giggle as Rahul does in Darr.  After the wedding he settles down a bit into pleasant leading man, and during the final scenes he throws focus to Bharti and Kapoor, since they have the heavier dramatic beats.  The real difference between this and Khan's later roles is that Raja outright wins every fight he's in, rather than making use of Khan's signature "get beaten to a bloody pulp" move.

Deewana is very much a product of its time, but it's a fascinating time, with Khan at the beginning of his film career while Kapoor was about to transition away from romantic roles, and Bharti's promising career would be cut short by tragedy within a year.  It's a snowglobe of Bollywood history, a singular moment in time.  And a decently entertaining melodrama.

One ring to rule them all.

 Despite the title, Jab Harry Met Sejal (2017) has nothing to do with When Harry Met Sally.  If anything, it owes a debt to It Happened One Night, because this is a Bollywood road trip movie.  It's a popular formula; two people are forced by strange circumstances to travel together, usually across India or Europe as represented by one ton in Switzerland.  At first they don't get along, then they do get along, then they're in love and it's time to return home and face whatever obstacles are keeping them apart, whether that means a violent fiance with gang connections or an angry father played by Amrish Puri.  But what if nobody was standing between them?

Harinder Singh Nehra (Shah Rukh Khan) was once a farmer in a small village in Punjab, but now he's Harry, a tour guide making a circuit of the stately capitals of Europe.  It is immediately clear from the opening montage that beneath his practiced patter and massive reserves of personal charm, Harry is absolutely miserable, but he carries on, spending his time between trips with his only friend Mayank (Aru Krishansh Verma), as well as a rotating cast of short term girlfriends.

After sending the latest tour group on their way home, Harry is stopped by Sejal (Anushka Sharma), one of the group members.  She explains that she became engaged to her boyfriend Rupen (Kavi Shastri) on the trip, and she has lost the ring.  It's a treasured heirloom in Rupen's family, they've already fought, and she has to find it soon.

Harry does not want to help; he's supposed to be enjoying some time off, and he's been fired before for romancing the clients so he doesn't want to risk anything.  Sejal is really bossy though, and her parents pulled some strings with the tour company, so Harry is on ringfinding duty for the time being.

So Harry and Sejal retrace the tour, starting in Amsterdam and moving on to Prague and beyond.  And they argue a lot, but they've both got excellent "antagonistic banter which grows progressively more flirtatious as time goes on " skills, and after a run-in with some gangsters in Prague they start to open up to one another.

Sejal can tell that Harry is lonely, and invites him to consider her his girlfriend while they're looking for the ring together.  Harry knows that's a terrible idea, and tells her so, but Sejal assures him that she's not the kind of girl who would leave her fiance for a tourist guide.  Then she dares him to turn on the charm while reenacting the moment she thinks she lost the ring, not reckoning with the fact that Harry is played by Shah Rukh Freaking Khan, with all the prodigious charm reserves that implies.  

The adventures continue.  At this point Harry is in love with Sejal but determined to control his emotions, and Sejal is starting to realize that she loves Harry as well.  They have a run in with a different set of gangsters, led by Gas (Chandan Roy Sanyal), during which Sejal finds the ring.  And decides not to tell Harry about it, instead dragging him to Frankfurt so they can represent the groom's side at Mayank's wedding.  Mayank and his new German wife Irina (Evelyn Sharma) notice the obvious chemistry between the two, but Harry and Sejal explain that they're both happier than they've ever been, but it's not real and every vacation ends.

And that seems to be that.  After one last fight, Sejal reveals the ring, Harry books her a flight, and she goes home to get married, while Harry goes back to work.  Will they see each other again?  Will they get a chance to declare their feelings?  This is a Bollywood romance, so the answer is obviously yes, but probably not in the way you're expecting.

Amrish Puri isn't in this movie.  There's no angry father with a small army of thugs, and no physically imposing boyfriend to stand in the way.  (Rupen is kind of a jerk, but in an ordinary way, and he barely gets any screentime.)  Harry and Sejal can't be together because Harry and Sejal don't want to admit their feelings, because they're afraid. Once again this is a problem that can be solved by five minutes of conversation, so the solution is to have that five minutes of conversation.  Then kiss.  And then an awkward thumbs up.

The plotline here is classic Bollywood, but the presentation isn't.  This is a romance and a moody character piece, and Shah Rukh gives an unusually nuanced and restrained performance.  Harry and Sejal aren't looking for love, they're just looking for a way home.  And eventually they find it.

It's been a long road.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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