Ghayal Once Again

Directed by: Sunny Deol

Starring: Sunny Deol, Soha Ali Khan, Narendra Jha, Om Puri

Released: 2016

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

I freely admit I was surprised.... or better to say SHOCKED at how much I enjoyed this one and how good it was. Funny thing is I remember liking Ghayal, but before I watched the new film I had to re-read my old review and watch several scene on youtube, for I admit the film did not stay in mind too much. With memories refreshed and the mood set, I dared to follow Sunny Deol down the path he so often trips on....

What I liked about the movie was that it truly was a sequel: drawing the basics from the original, not erasing them, not altering them and most importantly not rehashing them. Ajay Mehra has the same anger that drove him through the first Ghayal for his Filmfare trophy back in 1991, he gets emotional over his family and he has also not come out of his previous ordeal unscathed or healed. Not wearing the load of troubles on his own, Sunny Deol is ably helped by four young protagonists. These young ones manage a difficult task of winning you over in a very short time and without much of an introduction. What truly made me sit with my eyes glued to the screen was everything in between the start of the mad chase through the shopping mall practically to the big "characters are related" twist. Revelation of one of the girls being Ajay´s daughter was fine with me, no matter how filmy.

However right after that there was the CGI helicopter doing very un-helicopter-y things and shit, and it nearly completely destroyed any believability factor. But truly, Ghayal Once Again is fast-paced, straightforward and thrilling. Since none of the four young people is a "hero" or "heroine", you cannot predict whether or not they will die/be captured, and the scene in which they are desperately running from the bad guys, getting injured and severely hurt in the process, taxed my nerves quite a bit. Their pain also seemed so real I kept shedding tears from scene to scene, an occurrence quite rare in "let´s beat the shit out of the evil ones" kind of films. Even Ajay Mehra himself is not above pain and injuries. It was good to see flashbacks to the original films, including the lovely Meenakshi Sheshadri, and I had to wonder why the makers did not take enough trouble to even get her to redub that one dialog which is used.

As for the rest of the cast, the ever reliable Om Puri returns, and Soha Ali Khan reminds us she exists. I was relieved that any romantic angle between her and Sunny remained unexplored, indeed the relationship is presented in a way they may truly be just very good friends. If there is anything Sunny needs to stay clear off it´s romancing anyone under the age of 45 (I Love NY still gives me creeps and nightmares). Narendra Jha as the main villain is cool, ruthless and calculative, yet not above fear and other human emotions. He does a commendable job.

I am not a huge fan of Sunny Deol, but once in a while he comes up with stuff that makes me believe he is greatly underrated today. I had little to none faith in this project, but Sunny pulled it off more than well. Ghayal Once Again easily ranks among the better, if not the best, sequels Bollywood has churned out in past ten years.

Ghayal

Directed by: Rajkumar Santoshi

Starring: Sunny Deol, Amrish Puri, Meenakshi Sheshadri, Moushmi Chatterjee, Raj Babbar, Om Puri

Released: 1990

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

Ghayal is a child of its time, a film about revenge that the bad guy brought upon himself with his own greed and ruination of our hero´s family. It can be also fitted among the then very popular slot of „innocent young man wronged by society goes bad“. While that to me personally will always be predominately Anil Kapoor´s kind of thing, Sunny Deol was the action God of the time, and those who doubt his acting abilities should watch Ghayal to know that Sunny, when he wants, can be very, very good (or put on another Santoshi´s masterpiece – Damini).

The beginning is slow, unhappening and frankly rather unrelated to the rest of the movie. We are introduced to Ajay (Sunny), an unwaxed and not-looking-like-a-tank amateur boxer (actually a pleasant relief and reminder that you don´t have to be one huge hairless pack of unnaturally looking abs to actually have the strength of ten other men – at least on the screen) with great love for his brother (Raj Babbar) and bhabhi (Moushmi Chatterjee) and running around the trees with his beautiful girlfriend Varsha (Meenakshi) to the beats of what in my childhood was known as Lambada. We finally get to the plot about thirty minutes later (those thity minutes are actually stuffed with one song after another because the makers realized there was no way they could squeeze them anywhere in the rest of the film), when Ajay´s brother goes missing.

Ajay looking for his brother uncovers some serious dirt hidden behind a good name of a millionaire Balwant Rai (Amrish Puri FTW), and after being denied any help by the corrupted police and a series of very unfortunate events he finds himself in jail for the murder of the very brother he tried to save and with his dearly beloved sister-in-law committing suicide. It is time for revenge.

Once past the long start, the movie keeps an even pace and brings one happening after another without wasting the time anywhere (least of all on Sunny-Meenakshi love story). Action is good and even though there will always be liberties taken in films, it is not the typical Bollywood over the top beat up. Ghayal, in many ways, feels realistic, although, as many other movies of its kind, could be viewed as way too optimistic about reformation of the criminals and keeping the righteousness in mind, that actually has to be pretty messed up due to serious reasons. Same kind of doubt needs to be given to honest policeman Om Puri, who is apparently a great investigator, yet has a shock of his life when he realizes there might be bugs in how the system works. I could have enjoyed more of bonding between the prisoners, who later do not hesitate to give their lives for what, quite frankly, is not at all their thing.

Still, Ghayal is a good action flick and Sunny Deol in the lead delivers a fine performance, not short of his trademark abuses. There is intensity to his dialogues and his body language says everything. Meenakshi Sheshadri is completely wasted, even Moushmi Chatterjee as Sunny´s sister-in-law has a better, more complex role. Meenakshi is in the film just for Sunny to have a girlfriend (like the right Bollywood hero does) and the songs, but not even her wonderful dancing skills are used. Pity. I suppose Rajkumar Santoshi just really wanted her in the film, after all, didn´t he have that infamous obsession with her for years? I can´t say I blame him....

Darr

Directed by: Yash Chopra

Starring: Shahrukh Khan, Sunny Deol, Juhi Chawla, Anupam Kherr

Released: 1993

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

C-c-c-c-could somebody make Shahrukh Khan to play more villains? Don´t get me wrong, I usually adore his lover-boy image. But he is also the only one, who can play a villain and you´ll still end up rooting for him! Except for one case, but that´s not what we´re dealing with right now.

What we are dealing with is a girl named Kiran, who has (at least I think so) just finished her university studies. She is all that you can expect from a typical Bollywood heroine of the 80s/early 90s: wonderfully beautiful, angelic, nature-loving and sweet, and she wisely leaves all the action to her lover, army officer Sunil. He is all that you can expect from Sunny Deol: muscular, Rambo-ish, muscular, macho and muscular. And to make it all more obvious, his entry to the film is on BIG scale. He, completely single-handed, kills a group of terrorists (who really need a lesson on how to shoot a person who is completely uncovered with a machine gun) to save a little girl, while the rest of his team only joins him so they can raise a big „Hurray!“ when he hugs the child. The sheer naivity and the stolen music make that whole sequence one of the most ridiculous action scenes I´ve witnessed. But then again, this is SUNNY DEOL and we all know that he doesn´t need a commando behind him to annihilate a bunch of childish terrorists.

The presence of the guys in the background indicates there is nobody left to kill on board.

But even Sunny sometimes needs a breather so he takes a leave for few days and together with Kiran they enjoy some quality romance time together, dreaming about their future house that just might have magical door leading straight to the Swiss Alps. And from time to time Sunil, like any other guy, thinks it is funny to either 1. fake his own death or 2. to scare Kiran to death with fake murder attempts. But their personal paradise, just like any other paradise, does have a snake. Kiran gets startled by weird phone calls and even night encounters during which an unknown person is aiming a flashlight to her face, while stammering her name and something about loving her. And he also plays a harmonica under her windows. Yes! That is where our dearly loved villain SRK steps in and makes all the bubble-gum fluffiness interesting.

Perfectly beautiful. I expected talking animals to appear any second.

So who is this only interesting character of the film? Since Yash Chopra was always quite lazy when it come to names, he is called Rahul. He loves K-k-k-kiran, but has always been too shy to tell her when they were in college. So now he calls her every day several times to tell her, plus to make bigger impact he is haunting her steps, threatens Sunil, projects her photos on the walls of his room, tells stories about her to his dead mother and let´s not forget he carves her name into his own chest with a knife. I´m not a psychologist, but is Yash Chopra trying to imply that Rahul is mentally disturbed? Maybe he really is. And maybe he will befriend Sunil to get closer to Kiran. Maybe he will be helluva mad if Sunil marries Kiran. Maybe he will decide to kill Sunil. Maybe he will kill some more people in the process. And God only knows - maybe he will dream of having his own song with Kiran in the Swiss Alps.

"I´m too sexy for my shirt."

The film terribly drags at times and it would have been better if it lasted 2 hours instead of 3. It attempts to bring together romance and thriller, but only the thriller part somehow works – and that only because of Shahrukh Khan. Sure, we all loved Amrish Puri whenever he turned out to be bad (which was like 99,5% of the films he did), but did you actually want him to throw those kids into the acidic bath under his feet? No. But with Rahul you want Sunil to remain lying dead in the woods and you want Kiran to realize Shahrukh Khan is much more loveable then Sunny Deol. Plus even though they are paired as a jodi in only one, dream sequence song, Juhi has better chemistry with Shahrukh then with Sunny in the whole film. Sadly the filmmakers did not emphatize with my sentiments and we were forced to witness Sunil literally rise from the dead, without any information whatsoever to localize kidnapped Kiran, then swimming (!) several hours to reach the boat and finally killing Shahrukh, while Juhi is screaming “Kill him! Kill him!” (that alone indicates something is just wrong with the film – and it the look on Shahrukh´s face will break your heart).

This is just so wrong :-(

And just as his character is the only interesting one, Shahrukh´s is the only performance worth some serious praise. Sunny Deol comes off as stiff and cold, way too perfect to be real and way too macho to be loved. Juhi is one of the actresses who cannot act bad. Not ever. But her roles in the commercial cinema were never powerful, meaty ones and as Kiran all she has to do is to be scared and beautiful. She does both superbly, but there is nothing more to her. Special mention goes to Anupam Kherr in his comical role as Kiran´s cricket-obssessed brother. In this film he is genuinly funny without embarassing himself (which is always a relief in Bollywood films).

Not a bad watch, but no Magnum Opus either. After viewing you might feel a sudden urge to pack and immediately go to Swiss Alps.

Yamla Pagla Deewana

Directed by: Samir Karnik

Starring: Sunny Deol, Bobby Deol, Dharmendra, Anupam Kher

Released: 2011

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

Somewhere in Vancouver, Canada, there lives a rather happy NRI going by the name of Paramveer Singh (Sunny Deol). His family includes a blonde, non-Indian wife, two little sons and old mother. Paramveer dreams of going back to his homeland, but his wife Mary is completely opposed to the idea, being completely convinced that all Indians are crazy (unfortunately the events that are about to happen will do anything but prove her wrong). And so Paramveer is left with his dreams and spends his days going to job and grocery shopping for his family. If somebody happens to have a brilliant idea of robbing him, he simply beats them up without a wink, then he buys the latest Punjab newspaper for his Maa and peacefully goes his way. But nothing lasts forever and one day the family learns, that Paramveer´s father (Dharmendra), who run away thirty years later after a fight with his wife and took his second son, a mere baby, with him, managed to bring little Gajodhar (Bobby Deol) to his own image AKA the two of them lie and loot and nobody is safe before them. Th grief-stricken Maa pleads Paramveer to take a trip to India and bring her husband and son to her, because after 30 years...well, she kinda misses them and believes once they come they will turn into angels. Paramveer, as a good son, does exactly what she asks and leaves at once to India.

And he is lucky – as soon as he sets his foot into the city of Banares, he becomes a victim to one of his brother´s deceptions (and it makes him happy!) and soon he finds also his rather drunken father in the company of a girl more then half his age (and it makes him even more happy!). The father does not want to confirm Paramveer´s identity, because he brought his little „Goju“ in belief he is a single-child and his mother had run away from them. But after Paramveer saves his skin more then once he accepts him to accompany him for a time. Meanwhile Goju has other troubles altogether. He is in love. After much thinking and many unsuccessful attempts at not making a complete fool of himself he finally wins over the girl he loves. Unfortunatelly she has five rather strickt brothers who immediatelly drag her home and are planning to wed her to the first NRI who would be willing. Goju is uhappy. But what would be the family for, right?

Deol & Deol

Yamla Pagla Deewana is basically from the same mould as Dabangg, but then it went a different way. It too has a nice desi touch and smells of the wonderful 90´s masala, but in the end the feeling one has is that the three Deols just really wanted to act together – even if for the heck of it. It would be futile to search for any message or a deep thought, you wouldn´t find one. It is a light comedy that simply happens and doesn´t ask for more then your laugh. Dharmendra, Bobby and Sunny all are basically playing caricatures of their most famous characters, especially Sunny, an honest guy with pure heart who will beat anyone up for his family and doesn´t even have to lift his hand (literally) and Dharmendra as a light-hearted Casanova with a weak spot for alcohol. The first half of the film concetrates on Paramveer looking for his father and brother and then his attempts to get closer to them. However the comical scenes could be counted on the fingers of one hand and it all rather drags at times too – contrary to the second half!

Deol and . . . eeeeeh . . . Deol.

That is where the fun really begins. The story turns almost grotesque and even finds a way how to quite seemlessly bring all the characters into one place. While in the first half the footage all belongs to the three Deols, in the second we have not only five Punjab brothers (one better – or worse? - then the other) and after a while even Paramveer´s blonde wife and two kids! Among the brothers Anupam Kher excells and every single of his appearances is hilarious. Of course we get to see some fighting scenes faithful to „Sunny Deol“ style and who would even dare to doubt it will all end well and Anupam Kher will not shoot anyone, nah?

I wouldn´t recommend the films to the Bollywood begginers, because there are some jokes related to several famous movies (Raja Hindustani and Sholay immediatelly come to mind), and also not everybody is ready for Johnny Lever (even though I must say he was not as half as crazy/funny/annoying as he usually is, and in fact I quite welcomed his appearance from purely sentimental reasons).

Music is nothing special, very forgettable and except for Chadha de rang the songs are not even visually pleasing.

If you´re a Deol fan – you are going to love it.