Mann

Directed by: Indra Kumar

Starring: Aamir Khan, Manisha Koirala, Anil Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore

Released: 1999

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

I sincerely, honestly believe that the ONLY thing that ever made indra Kumar´s films work was Madhuri Dixit. Apart from Dil, which I consider a good film, even if flawed, Beta and Raja were only bearable because of her awesomeness and talent, and everything after that I have seen of his work just plain sucks. Mann is no different.

I write poetry in my spare time. Love me.

There is so much wrong with the plot! A severely mopy Sati Savitri Manisha falls in love with a cheater and a liar because he loves his grandmom. Because him being able to appreciate the old lady equals, in Manisha´s eyes, to being a good person. In fact, the character played by Aamir Khan is repulsive, unlikeable asshole and womanizer, who enjoys being creepy. The lengths he goes to while „wooing“ women would get him a restraining order in real life. Yet she falls in love with him, is jealous of girls he pays attention to, even though she has rejected him before. By the time the movie reached the interval I was ripping my hair out of frustration and sheer disbelief. Then the asshole-ish hero turns good and full of izzat overnight. How am I supposed to buy that?

"What the..."

"Do I turn you on?"

"Totally!"

In the second half of the film we are served a completely different story. That of selfless love and that you should look around before crossing the road. Manisha´s face is all swollen throughout and her glycerin-tears-stained cheeks can only be equaled by Jaya Bachchan´s from Kabhi Khusi Kabhi Ghum. Because our heroine lost both her legs! From extreme „hilarity“ the movie sinks into extreme depression, and everything is so theatrical you just wonder what has the director do to make all these good actors act so terribly. 

So hot.

I was irked by so many things in the story, but the greatest outrage was perhaps when Manisha admits to the headmistress of the orphanage (where she had grown up) that she doesn´t want to marry the cheerful and genuinely nice Anil Kapoor (whom I did not expect in the least to show up), because she loves the womanizing stalker. She is then lectured on how she has no right whatsoever to follow her heart and be actually honest with her fiancé, because, you know, there is a chance he just might turn into a lunatic and go crazy because of that. And also: certainly, if she dares to refuse him, nobody will ever marry a girl from an orphanage again. Like WTF.

"Was my moustache not pervy enough for you, biatch?"

Aamir Khan is at his annoying worst (I think I read he regretted doing the film? It would definitely make sense.) Manisha looks disturbingly ill, I had to wonder whether she had some issues with her health off screen. Comedy has never been her forte, and her tragedy is too overdone in this. Anil Kapoor comes and goes, with the only sane character to play, but being himself more than anything. Sharmila Tagore cast as Aamir Khan´s grandmother felt so wrong! The fabulous actress, who was in her fifties at the time, is unrecognizable under a deck up of at least 80 year old woman, who appears very briefly only to pile on some more depression by dying in the second half.

"I am a Cinderella waiting for a Prince."

"But when he brings a shoe he won´t recognize you since you have no legs now."

"You lil shit!"

Logic has never really had place in Indra Kumar´s universe, while annoying over the top comedy thrived. Mann, which also stole a song or two from vintage European hits (here is one and here is another) is a confused movie trying to go from comedy into a tragic romance, much like Dil, but comedy is lame and tragic romance frustrating. The first half, made up of every wrong cliché, made me uncomfortable, the second half with its mopier than mopy ridiculousness made me roll my eyes till they almost stuck on the other part of my head.

"Good luck and break a leg, like you broke my heart."

(note on captions: Sorry for lame jokes. I don´t  mind Anil´s stache. The Cinderella comment was indeed made in the film. Except the ending. Of course.)

Sirf Tum

Directed by: Agathiyan

Starring: Sanjay Kapoor, Priya Gill, Mohnish Bell, Salman Khan, Jackie Shroff, Sushmita Sen

Released: 1999

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

There is a guy called Deepak. He is nice, well-mannered, well-dressed, honest, pleasant, honourable, in other words he has not one single flaw. From time to time he meets a new person – for example on a train – and he notes down the person´s name and date of birth. Why? Because he is so, so good and nice that he likes to post birthday cards to these people he´ll probably never meet again. Once he finds a lady´s purse and as a true gentleman sends it by the post to the owner, who obviously had been robbed. Apart from her address he also gets to know her birth date. Which means one more card to be send every year. He doesn´t mind though. The young woman, or rather girl, Aarti who was overjoyed to see her lost purse once again, starts regularly corresponding with him and both fall in love with each other through letters. However they decide (for whatever reason I don´t get) that they will not exchange pictures, because „our love will reach from the heart to eyes“ or some nonsense like that. I would like to note that I am a great romantic and don´t believe that appearance is the most important thing in a relationship, but some beliefs are.... way too naive.

To make sure she recognizes him, when they would finally agree to meet, she makes him a rather ugly sweater (I suspect she is a Rishi Kapoor fan). He is supposed to wear it when the big day comes.

Must say that I for one would not give my address to this guy.

But then Deepak decides to leave his job in... where ever he was... because some workers refused to work and thought they´d beat him instead, and move to Delhi. Here he meets new friends (aka Jackie Shroff being wasted and Mohnish Bell being sleazy) and his beautiful employee (aka Sushmita Sen being annoyingly childish). But when she reveals she has feeling for him some time later he decides to leave his profitable job, because his heart belongs to Aarti. Meanwhile she refuses to marry a handsome, good and rich boy (aka Salman Khan being Prem – literally) and to escape from future suggestions she finds this the best time to meet Deepak. BUT here comes the catch – he didn´t send her his new address (WTF) and neither of them has ever seen each other (I knew this was going to cause some minor problems). So even while she is sobbing at the backseat of a rickshaw, she wouldn´t recognize him even if he was driving it (hint, hint)....

Salman Khan being wasted.

Jackie Shroff being wasted.

Sushmita Sen being pretty much wasted too.

Sirf Tum is a feel good film. If you do not demand a visually pleasing hero, that is. If you do, don´t even try to watch this one. Sanjay Kapoor was not blessed with either looks or charisma. His acting skills too leave much to be desired. However he is one of those actors, that are actually so non-interesting you cannot hate them. The non-existent screen presence gives you a chance to imagine whomever you want to in Sanjay´s place, which at times is almost necessary. The film, however, is taking place in some weird alternative reality, where Sanjay Kapoor is the handsomest and most desirable man alive and women cannot stop themselves from throwing themselves at him at any occassion. From horny co-workers to illiterate Malayam girls and of course beautiful employees. The only one who doesn´t give a damn about him when meeting him is ironically Aarti.

Sorry Sanjay. Only Rishi can pull off a sweater like this.

I´ve never seen Priya Gill before and she was good here, though it is not the same level of „good“ you associate with actresses like Juhi Chawla or Kareena Kapoor. Her character annoyed the heck out of me though. There was nothing likeable about her, no warmth and her tears did not move me. In fact the way she scolded the very much helpful Deepak (of course not knowing who he was till he revealed that hideous sweater) was nothing else but bitchy. On the other hand, much more famous Sushmita Sen did not really take an opportunity to shine either, and ended up looking immature and pathetic.

Best performances are actually given by two cameo artists! Jackie Shroff, having about 5 minutes of screen time, completely overpowered Sanjay. Salman Khan appearing in his favourite avatar of „Prem“ is very good and one wished to see more.

The film moves slowly, has hummable but forgettable songs and gets way too boring at times. A decent watch for the undemanding. In fact, I even wonder how I managed to write a review this long. Most interesting thing about it is that after I have written it I noticed my program automatically changed the title to Sirf Rum.

Why? Why couldn´t he look like Salman?

Biwi no. 1

Director: David Dhawan

Starring: Salman Khan, Karishma Kapoor, Sushmita Sen, Anil Kapoor

Released: 1999

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

I could hardly believe that a movie like Biwi no. 1 could actually be such a hit. In fact Biwi no. 1 is one of the most atrocious Bollywood movies I have seen and with its cringeworthiness triumphs even over a „gem“ like Raja Hindustani. The not-so-original story goes as follows – Prem (who else then Salman Khan with this name, right?) runs a successful family company, is seemingly happily married to Pooja (Karishma Kapoor), who manages to cook, worship, clean, take care of two children, mother-in-law and a dog, and still looks absolutely glamorous. However the marital bliss bores Prem to death and as soon as opportunity arises he starts romancing one of his company´s models Rupali (Sushmita Sen). Rupali does not cook, does not clean and she only takes care of herself, but hey – she is sexy and instead of a saree she wears mini skirts. And since her dream has always been to marry a rich guy, she soon accepts Prem romancing her. By the way – he somehow forgets to tell her he is already married.

The two lovers take a trip to Switzerland (as if there were no other countries in Europe) but all the privacy is lost when they run into Prem´s friend Lakhan (played by Anil Kapoor which results into a vain but constant expectation of him bursting into a notorious song starting with „ram pam pam ram pam pam rampa papam pam pam. . .) and his wife Lovelee (aka Tabu being wasted) and they keep running into them all the more they try to avoid them. Inevitably Rupali learns about Pooja´s existence but Prem quickly comes up with another lie about his marriage being arranged and his wife being mad. Rupali believes it without questioning. Some time after their return Pooja, the biwi no. 1, learns about this biwi no. 2, thanks to her dog, who tracks Prem down to Rupali´s house because he knows it is not appropriate for his Master to spent Karwachauth with some other woman. After this Pooja asks her husband to choose between his mistress and his wife, but only ends up heart-broken as he moves in with Rupali. 

It is really not as it looks like.

Time to turn B.I.T.C.H

What follows is Pooja´s war – even though I stayed unsure if she started it to get her husband back or to make his life hell. There is nothing inovative in the steps she takes against him and most of them are in the end more awkward then funny. As expected I was on her „side“ while watching Prem cheating, but as soon as she herself turns into. . .well . . . a bitch, she lost all my sympathy. In fact, Rupali seemed more appealing at times. The only thing that I appreciated was that the movie did not presented Rupali as being an evil person. All the characters, though, are acting somehow dumb and leave the viewer completely confused everytime. As much as one protests whenever a hero chooses the traditional Indian girl (traditional being the most important part) over a western wanna-be, it wouldn´t be as bad here, since the hero and heroine are already married and have family. But instead we are given the revelation that only if the wife too starts showing some serious skin and doing sexy photoshoots she can win her hubby back. And still – nothing is working (not even the emotional blackmailing of their two children, who do not hesitate to call upon the divine Big B himself to support their cause). Only after Rupali is deceived by Lakhan and leaves Prem he goes back to his family.

Emotional blackmailer no. 1

Emotional blackmailer no. 2

Emotional blackmailer no. 3

It is a film where everybody lies to everybody, nobody really bothers to understand the other, and all except the dog have no idea what to do. All the characters (except the dog again) end up being very unlikeable and one really does not care for them at all. Some atrocious acting involved. While Karishma and Anil Kapoor are stricktly OK, Sushmita Sen leaves no impression, Tabu is wasted and Salman Khan should be banned from ever trying to cry on screen. Saif Ali Khan in a cameo has no chance of saving anything. The children are extremely annoying – and the same word can be used for the musical score. There is not one memorable or even hummable song, and lyrics like „Ishq sona hai, ishq chandi hai, sona, sona, sona, sona“ are everything but golden.

Watch only if you are a MASSIVE Karishma Kapoor fan or are in a masochistic mood.