Wednesday 7 July 2010

Mast Kalandar (1991)

The lovely Roti kapada aur Rum came up with the idea of dedicating a whole week to trashy films, luckily for her, i have seen a good deal of trash and now seems like the perfect opportunity to let some of them loose

Raisaheb's (Shammi Kapoor) disapproval of his son's (Anil Dhawan) wife Sheetal (Nandita Thakur) leads to a breakdown in their communication

Years go by and Rai Saheb is missing his son, he also feels remorseful on how he had treated his son's wife. Too late for Rai Saheb though as his son is now dead, Sheetal his son's wife unable to raise their child Guddu on her own decides to leave him with Rai Saheb who's wealthy & thereby able to provide better

Upon hearing the news of his grandson arriving an overjoyed Rai Saheb is eager to pick them but his Personal assistant Prem (Prem Chopra)volunteers

Prem however has plans of his own, himself along with Raja Saheb (Amrish Puri) plan on inheriting Rai Saheb's property thus news of his Grandson arriving is bad news for them, they hire some Goondas (Henchmen) to bump them off, but unluckily for them Guddu escapes alive but the poor boy loses his mother thereby making him an orphan

Rai Saheb is disheartend at the thought of his lost grandson, he places adverts in the newspapapers, promising a substantial amount to whoever finds or knows of Guddu's whereabouts. Shankar (Dharmendra) an opportunist sees this as a chance to make a quick buck

Shankar dresses up and pretends to be the child (seriously???) while Preeti (Dimple Kapadia) pretends to be the mother
Shankar as the missing child
Preeti as the mother

But of course they fail at their attempt

Guddu later buddies up with Shankar who in turn becomes his guardian, Shankar realises he just might be the missing grandson of Rai Saheb. He takes him over to Rai saheb's house, unluckily Rai Saheb is not home & Guddu's locket which stands as proof gets left behind

When Rai Saheb out of frustration (Rai Saab what's the rush) decides to will all his property over to Prem his Personal assistant, the necklace magically falls down from the ceiling thereby giving Rai Saheb hope that his grandson is still alive

Prem and his aide Raja Saheb must now prevent Rai saheb from willing the entire estate to Guddu, even if it means killing him

Will they succeed in their venture? Watch Mast Kalandar if you dare to find out

Overall a major disappointment and complete trash is what this film was, I would have cried if I had spent my money on this dvd, luckily for me though, i rented it. The acting, editing, cinematography as well as dvd quality was BAD, if all that wasn't enough Eros had the guts to snip out the one juicy song making the film EXTRA trashy. Watch this only if you're a hardcore fan of any of the leads here, just so you can claim you've seen all their movies, otherwise this movie is pure unadulterated big Trash

Rum wants us to shame our favourite stars and it pains me Dharmendra had to be the one i shame in this film, he just looked tired and overworked and given his friendship with the director Rahul Rawail, I can only imagine he did this as a favour of sorts. Dimple Kapadia too was wasted and didn't even get the chance to do much

Shakti kapoor tries seducing Pinku
Pinku flirts with Dharmendra
Pinku in his carrot coloured mohawk
The only saving grace in this movie in my opinion is Anupam Kher, in fact he's the major reason i watched this, his character of Pinku is said to be Bollywood's first openly gay character, Amrish Puri plays his accepting father (well he sees his son flirt with men openly and never tells him off).
Of course he camps it up, but Anupham kher really nailed his performance as Pinku, well, not all gay men fall into this effeminate stereotype but Anupam kher makes it so real that i actually see some of my gay friends in him, anyway see him in all his awesomeness below


Very average Soundtrack from my favourite music directors Laxmikant Pyarelal in this one, there's the hilarious 'chor chor chor', the quite sweet 'jag ja ke soja' and the only one i really liked was a parody of 'ek do teen' with Anupam Kher trying to seduce Prem Chopra, it surely doesn't get trashier than this


Paisa Vasool Rating: 3.5/10


17 comments:

Sharmi Adhikary said...

I don't believe it. Did i just read this or what??? Trashy is an understatement. Dharmendra as the kid...yuck!!! What a waste of my favourite Shammi Kapoor :(
I think i had seen this film when i was too young to differentiate between good cinema and crap. Anupam Kher as Pinku reminded me. Still the memory is quite vague and I intend to keep it so ;)
Funny post though :)

"THE BARD WHO DOESNT HAVE TO TRY TOO HARD" said...

omg..tis sounds so filmy 2d core ;)..plz review something better :D

Rum said...

YAYYY FOR SHAME! I think I'll have to see this for Dharam aping about as a kid, and of course to revel in Pinku and that batshit carrot hair Anupam has! I think he played a gay uncle in some David Dhawan film with Karisma and Salman, and he was pretty camp but somewhat respectful of how he played it! But this looks fabulous and I definitely applaud your reluctant shaming of Dharam!

sunheriyaadein said...

I almost closed the window without even reading it when I saw that this was a 1991 film but then spotted my beloved Shammi Kapoor in the second screen-cap and I ended up reading the entire thing. What a waste of character. And Dharmendra at this age as the missing child!!! This is unbelievable. Hats off to you for being able to put up with such a movie and having the patience to write about it too.
But I do agree, it's fun at times to watch such movies. This reminded me so much of Spy in Rome.
Trashy and crap as it is, I really enjoyed reading your review....hee hee. Thanks

sophy said...

Dharmendra during his Z movie phase. I saw bits of "yeh inteqaam loonga" and there too he was way too old for that cringe worthy performance.

sophy said...

Dimple is 22 years younger than Dharam. Maybe pages of a "going-back-in-time" script got mixed in with this in the dusty script repository.

Anonymous said...

Eeeeh. This sounds even worse than some of that really crappy stuff that Dharmendra did in what sophy calls his Z movie phase. The only movies of his I recall from that phase are Zalzala (horrible takeoff on MacKenna's Gold) and Sitamgar - the latter at least had a very lovely song, Mausam Pyaar Ka.

bollyviewer said...

I am SO GLAD I never saw this. :) I have seen some of his 80s films, and they were bad enough! There are times when I am glad that DoorDarshan had such a strict no-80s-films rule (except for art-house fare) during the 80s. And since I rarely watched new movies then (no video player at home, no going to cinema halls), I still remember Garam Dharam in all his 60s and 70s glory. In his defence, one must say that if Kishore Kumar could get away with playing a child (Half Ticket), I don't see why Dharam shouldn't give it a shot!

harvey said...

O you poor thing!
Going through this awful film!
It must have hurt like hell. I'm just too impatient with films like this. I just turn it off. No, no amount of solidarity is going to make me watch things like this.
When the film was released much was written about the so-called 'first openly gay character' of Hindi cinema.

bollywooddeewana said...

Sharmi Indeed trash is an understatement, Pinku was the highlight of this film for me

@ The Bard don't worry i'll be back to the classics soon :0)

@ Lol Rum i think the film you're talking about is Dulhan hum la jayenge

@ Thanks Sunehrii indeed sometimes trash is the way to go but this one was way beyond trash

@ Sophy i have Main Inteqaam Loonga i'm yet to watch that, but it looks decent compaed to this. And you hve indeed termed this phase of Dharmendra's career rightly

@ Dustedoff I've been dying to watch ZALZALA, i'm familiar with the title track, its such an ear worm and as for Sitamgar its one i have to check it has some lovely songs

@ Bollyviewer Indeed the 60's and 70's were his best days but since i'm a super fan i'll watch him in most things, i actually like his 80's films though not on thesame level as those of the 60's and 70's the 90's were his worst decade

@ Harvey You know i sit through this sort of trashy films just to put the info out there for people who might be curious about the movie, if i had read a review of it i would have avoided it, but then Pinku would have been a major reason to watch it, Anupam Kher really nailed it

Nasir said...

I would simply like to miss the Nineties as far as Dharmendra is concerned. The same way, I had no courage to watch Shammi Kapoor post his Manoranjan period. Of course, there might have been a good movie or two of both these favourite actors of mine during that period. But I would not like too tarnish my memories of them with trashy films. No doubt, there was a time when sometimes even seven of Dharmendra's movies used to be exhibited in movie-halls. Out of them only a few managed to cling to the cinegoers.

Kudos BD for the courage of dabbling with the review of Mast Kalandar.

AMODINI said...

Whew ! Missed this one - I don't think I could have tolerated Kher in the ghastly orange wig anyway !

GKK said...

most of you are getting the whole picture wrong.Please bollywooddewaana, try to restore parity.Dharmendra was not portrayed as the missing kid,Please get your facts right.He was the one protecting the missing kid from the "Goondas".it would be better if you look through your review and discover the missing link.
No doubt, this is one of dharmendras badly made films of the 90's, even at that, it is utterly wrong for someone above to hint that dharmendra's post 70's phase i.e 80's and 90's is zero (z-phase)..That is wrong and i guess u have not seen enough dharmendra's films of the 80's, because infact, he did feature in very good films with classic performances.
Let us refrain from unknowningly spurting out "mere opinions".
This film no doubt his Tardy, but i dont know why the indian channel, zee cinema is extremely in love with this flick.Infact, i just watched it this morning for the umpteenth time.Guess its the Dharam magic, cus i really love that guy!!

bollywooddeewana said...

@ Nasir I can definitely understand you not wanting to tarnish those golden olden memories, as much as i love Dharmendra his 90's films apart froma few are very off putting

@ Lol Amodini In my opinion Pinku was actually one of the best things about this film

@ Gkk Thanks for all the kind comments you've left in previous posts. I didn't say he was the missing kid, there was a scene where he dressed up to pretend, that was what i meant, i didn't mean he was the missing kid and regarding Dharmendra's films and some not been able to enjoy his latter work, i guess it all boils down to taste, i love his 80's stuff but the 80's are widely regarded by many 9not me though) as a bad decade for hindi cinema

GKK said...

okay, i get you..

one love brother, you are simply the best!!!!....

bollywooddeewana said...

vah!! Cheers GKK :0)

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