Daraar

Directed by: Abbas-Mustan

Starring: Rishi Kapoor, Juhi Chawla, Arbaaz Khan

Released: 1996

Verdict: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - good – great – amazing

A very good thriller, Daraar is actually just one of the three (or perhaps more?) Hindi remakes of successful Hollywood film „Sleeping with the enemy“, that had Julia Roberts as the main lead. I have not seen the third one (Agnisakshi – that is promising to be a real thrill ride by just having Manisha Koirala and Nana Patekar) as yet, and so I have only Daraar and Yaraana (1995) to compare. Daraar is easily superior as a movie overall, although both films have painfully unnecessary humour subplots and Rishi Kapoor in his acursed awkward 90s phase as a very unlikely hero. Other than that a several more plot holes the Abbas-Mustan duo did a good job with the movie.

When awkward looking Rishi, playing a bohemian and popular artist (as he often did in films where he was named a hero but was pretty much just a prop) spots a beautiful, fresh Juhi Chawla running with her little lamb among the green hills, he immediately falls in love. After a time full of her rejections, because she obviously is not excited about a man in her life, and Johnny Lever tomfoolery, she finally accepts Rishi and the two start planning a wedding. But then it turns out that Juhi has a dark secret – she is already married. 

"I married Khan. How can I go for the Kapoor now?"

Indeed! Much before Rishi it was a debuting Arbaaz Khan who flew into her life in a helicopter and absolutely enchanted her with wild dance moves on a sunny beach and later among casino roulettes. So much she married him. But soon after moving into his house, which is cut off from most of the world, one gets a hint that something may not be completely OK with the guy.

Not only he hates untidiness, but he quickly turns out to be obsessive, possessive and jealous sadist, who beats his wife should anyone even see her through a window. And so Juhi finds herself locked in a perfectly tidy and neat house with nothing but perfectly positioned pillows on the sofa. And to her utter horror her neighbour, a doctor completely ignorant about how mental that guy next door actually is, comes for a visit. This results in her being yet again severely beaten – and doctor killed. 

Husband of the year.

Scared for her life Juhi manages to run away, even successfully faking her own death so she has certainty her psycho husband will not look for her. But as soon as she can breathe in peace, she meets Rishi.... who paints a portrait of her..... and it is published in the newspaper....

Juhi was really amazing in the second half (as in the first Rishi and his dream-sequencing took most of the time), and unlike in Darr where I found her innocent damsel in distress disappointing, she actually does something for herself. She is both vulnerable and powerful, and yeah, she looks gorgeous. Her portrayal of the abused woman, who simply decides that enough is enough, is extremely sensitive and believable. She breaks your heart pleading with her husband as he prepares to give her a beating, you fear for her in her plight, and you are proud of her once she faces him, tired of endless running. Her pairing with Rishi is plain weird, but in the end ALL 90s actresses with Rishi are weird. Arbaaz was a damn psycho. He just looked menacing and creepy, and as long as he didn´t speak I thought him brilliant. His dialogue delivery though....ouch. The guy is just so emotion-less.

The ending however takes away from the movie. So after EVERYTHING he did she is all bonkers about saving him? Ok OK OK. So we just POSSIBLY MAYBE could explain that one. But he suddenly turns a good guy? That absolutely didn´t fit. In this one aspect I found Yaraana´s ending much more satisfying and plausible - with the heroine herself actually stabbing Raj Babbar and than laughing and crying at the same time (of course Rishi Kapoor had to be the one to finish him off completely, as that apparently was a man´s job).

Raja Hindustani

Directed by: Dharmesh Darshan

Starring: Aamir Khan, Karishma Kapoor, Suresh Oberoi

Released: 1996

Verdict: destroy every copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable - good – great – amazing

When I think about it, it was not really Devdas, that was my first brush with Bollywood, but Raja Hindustani. A friend of mineshowed me a youtube video – for laughs, commenting on it as the song progressed. A seriously depressed guy singing his heart out while object of his desire sits all quiet with eyes bulging wide to the point of scary, a weird man dressed as a woman, a woman with so much paint on her face and drinking from the bottle being disturbing, and finally big finale with the girl falling into the boy´s arms and her father being apparently displeased. My friend thought the song was the movie´s finale. How wrong was she, unfamiliar with Bollywood ways back then. The song was Pardesi Pardesi and it signified only the beggining of the all the troubles for the on-screen couple.

Rich and beautiful Aarti (Karishma Kapoor who got rid of her mad curls and shaped her wild eyebrows which she sported in the early 90s) makes a sentimental trip to a small city of Palanketh, a place where her parents first met, before leading a loving marriage and having Aarti. Sadly Aarti´s mother died and her father married for a second time – a much westernized (read BAD) and greedy woman, who´s fake affection for her step-daughter is so obvious it hurts. In Palanketh Aarti, accompanied by a sibling duo of brother and sister who, for the sake of laughs, switched personalities and visage, meets a poor taxi driver Raja (Aamir Khan). Raja is not only poor though. He is honest, hard-working and obviously the director´s vision of a true Hindustani, unpolished and uneducated but with high principles of morality at heart. Principles so high I actually took offense because it bordered on completely sexist.

Mr. Morality has problems with guys liking her in dresses but standing under the same tree in a rain is obviously a completely moral opportunity to get seriously cozy.

A woman he has no relation to apparently cannot wear a western (read BAD) dress of her liking, because some other uneducated men make remarks about her then. She naturally gets angry, but apparently doesn´t learn her lesson, and instead of dismissing the taxi driver, she not only falls in love with him, but actually leaves her loving father for this man, whom she only knows for a few days, and who is an utter mismatch to who she is. I could never understand why would Aarti sacrifice everything she had – not only status and riches, but her own family and even education and ambitions – for a man who refuses to change in the slightest because of her. I foud Raja extremely selfish and Aarti lost her appeal once she actually took his side, leaving heartbroken father behind.

Although at this moment she apparently realized she really screwed her life up.

Once Aarti and Raja get married, their love story actually becomes hardly bearable. Raja turns out to be proud, uncompromising, even to the point of abusive (and later in the film he goes totally bonkers), while Aarti considers an occasional dance to a catchy song a solution for all marital problems. However evil plotting westernized step-mother initiates the „happy“ couple´s split up (by pointing out the obvious – Aarti is a sophisticated and naive girl and her husband a jerk who clings to his pride more than to his love) and while Raja returns to Palanketh to grow a beard Aarti gives birth to his child. By this point the film went pretty much insane with Raja stealing the baby (because obviously he on his own in his chhota hut can give his son a better upbringing than his mother in a bungalow) and fighting a bunch of goons while still holding the baby, throwing it into the air and stuff while beating everybody up. And finale? The insane dude forgives his weeping wife because everybody gathers around and sings.

"Kaun kambakht bardasht karnay ko peeta hai?"

"Sorry. Wrong film, wrong year. Wrong Khan."

Raja Hindustani is just horrible. Aamir Khan actually gives a good performance, but Raja is just too awful as a character, Karishma Kapoor, who created sensation with this movie, is objectively speaking very weak in this movie. I like Karishma, but a great part of her films never did her justice, and she has very few performances that could be really praised. I believe that it was really her looks and style, so different from any other heroine till then, what caused the rapture and gave her a real standing among the A-listers.

The plus point would be some of the songs, and in a strange, twisted way, the movie is actually enjoyable – if you deliberately decide to turn off your brain. At the same time it is one of those movies that can only do Bollywood more harm than good when shown to a person unfamiliar with Indian cinema.

Marital advice for women: "Hubby snooty? Shake yout booty! In Ooty."