Loafer (1973)

Sweet escapist 70's bollywood fare with a super gorgeous Mumtaz, Handsome Dharmendra and perhaps the most flamboyant use of balloons ever in a bollywood movie

Ranjit is a naughty school boy, when a prank goes wrong at school, Mohan is forced to out Ranjit as the culprit. After school the two boys are involved in a fight where Ranjit tosses Mohan off the building by accident thereby leading to Mohan's death


Mohan runs for his life and falls into the hands of Mr Sinha (K.N. Singh) a shady criminal, he promises to take care of him


Ranjit (Dharmendra) grows up as a thief under Mr Sinha's shadow, he steals but he also runs a nightclub called playboy



when a stealing operation goes wrong Ranjit realises one of his staff is dishonest, the dishonest staff turns out to be Rakesh (Roopesh Kumar) who had been sent to spy on Ranjit by Pratap (Premnath) a rival thief who is jealous of Ranjit's success. When Ranjit discovers this, he lets Pratap know he's aware of his deeds



An angry Pratap plots to kill Rakesh but his sister Anju (Mumtaz) pleads for his life and Pratap sees her as the perfect opportunity to spy on Ranjit he recruits her saying if she works for him her brother will be spared from dying


Ranjit also forms a close relationship with fruit seller Mr Gopinath (Om prakash) who had helped him during a police chase

Mr Gopinath also has a daughter Rupa (Farida Jalal) whom he had sent to Private school in Shimla, he keeps the fact that he's poor from his daughter as he had gone bankrupt after falling into depression when he had lost his son Mohan and wife


When he goes over to Shimla to see his daughter Rupa (Farida Jalal) he lies about his status and manages to woo Mr Rajandranath Mehra (Raj Mehra) his daughter's guardians while at boarding school


Back in bombay Anju realises ranjit is falling for her, she too starts falling in love with him but she's racked by endless guilt and as a result finds it hard to continue Pratap's spy work. As a result Pratap threatens her and she manages to set Ranjit up to be beaten by Pratap's men

Ranjit is beaten so hard that he ends up in hospital, when he gets well Anju tells him the truth andreveals she had only spied on him to save her brothers life, he's taken aback by her honesty and promises to help free her brother


When an Exhibition of rare jewels come to town Plans are made to rob it.

Ranjit despite strict security manages to clean the place out, police start chasing and he runs into Gopinath's house for safety, there he spots Mohan's picture, and then realises Mohan's father whom he had killed by accident aas a kid is indeeed Mr Gopinath, he's racked by guilt


Mr Gopinath on the other hand starts drinking heavily after Mr Rajendranath asks for his daughter's hand in marriage, he's afraid his status a s a poor fruit seller would be found out which would lead to his daughters being disgraced


How will he overcome this? Will he ever find out that his son Mohan was killed Ranjit? Will Panjit reveal the truth to him? What would be Mr Gopinath's reaction

Overall Loafer (Ruffian) is a sweet movie about guilt and forgiveness dipped in a mish mash of romance, action and goood ol' romance, its well worth watching and definitely entertaining. i really can't say a bad word about this film, okay there were some silly comic side plots but overall Loafer is a well packaged commercial drama with the right elements of just about everything

Mumtaz was cute in this, she gave me some serious funkalicious fashions


I really love Om Prakash he was or should i say is always adorable


I loved this retro flask thing, so sleek


Dharmendra was on major form as well, his pairing with Mumtaz made for a cute couple


Superb soundtrack by Laxmikant Pyarelal all the songs on here are winners which makes me think if i had to pick my all time favourite music directors Laxmikant Pyarelal will be in my top 5. There's the seductive 'Motiyon ka ladki hoon main', the melodious 'main tere ishq main' which just makes you appreciate Lata's voice enough to even drown in it, another romantic one number by Mohammed Rafi 'aaj mausam bada' and Asha sizzles on the funky 'kahan hai woh' with so many colourful ballons, something tells me the art director for this dance sequence must have had a huge balloon fetish

Padma Khanna putting many a Cheerleader to shame with her balloon pom poms



Another favorite of mine is the beaiutiful 'Koi Shahiri babu' with some Male impersonator action going on very much like that in the 'didi tera devar deewana' song in 'Hum Aapke Hain Koun'





Total Score: 7/10 ( a highly enjoyable escapist fare)

Loafer is available on Youtube with English Subtitles

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Laadla (1994)

Long before Meryl Streep played Miranda Prestley in Devil wears Prada there was Sridevi as a no nonsense woman in this moderately entertaining drama

Sheetal Jetley (Sridevi) is a high powered, high achiever, she hates being second in life, the top is the utmost position for her and she strives for this always, She runs her father's company Sheetal's textiles making it the Number 1


One day she comes across Raju (Anil Kapoor), the two are involved in an arguement culminating in him telling her that women should be coy and men be bold


A rival company fronted by Suryadev (Prem Chopra) his son (Monish Behl) and his brother (Paresh Rawal) are jealous of Sheetal's success in leading her father's company to the top, they hatch a plan to get her married to Monish so that they can merge and then eventually take over the company, Sheetal gives them the cold shoulder,this makes them vengeful

Raju saves Sheetal's Dad from villains one day and as a reward he's employed by Sheetal's dad as Chief mechanic in Sheetal Textile Industries, while there Raju he meets and falls for Kaajal (Raveena Tandon)


Raju also gathers a huge following and the workers soon start protesting against the demands of Sheetal. When Raju challenges her ego in front of the workers Sheetal is gutted and plans to avenge his actions by marrying him out of spite, even though she knows he's in love with Kaajal

She manipulates his crippled mother Farida Jalal to get him married to her only, she also bullies her into making Raju come live with her at her place

Raju is releuctant about leaving his mother but she insists and he gets married to her and he promises to come back after teaching her a lesson

When they get married she begins torturing Raj by refusing to have sex with him, she also keeps him as her subordinate, through all this she begins breaking Raju's assertive personality

Meanwhile Mr Bhandari (Shakti Kapoor) who despises Sheila's manipulative ways makes allies with Suryadev's company, together they plan on defaming Sheetal Industries thereby knocking it off the top

Would they be successful? How much more of Sheila's manipulation would Raju be able to take? What would be the end of Sheila, would she die a filmi type bad girl death or would she li=ve to realise the errors(?) of her ways? Watch Laadla to find out

This is without doubt one of Sridevi's finest roles, given the rampant and in fact very true complaints of the lack of strong female characters in bollywood films, Sheetal's role in Laadla (Darling) was a very interesting one, albeit the fact that her character was cast in a negative light, Sridevi shines and gives and excellent performance as Sheetal.


The downsides and in fact the major reason why this interesting drama loses points with me is the fact that Sheetal's egomaniac, inconsiderate attitude was attributed to her education in a western country, in that sense the west is painted as an evil place and in the end when she finally realises the error of her ways she's starts dressing in a Sari (wrong, very wrong). I thought such moral lines were something movies like Jab Jab phool Khile in the '60s sought to convey, and surely film director's in the '90's would have been way enlightened than use such moral codes. At the heart of the film is that which Raju's character had coveyed to Sheetal that men should be bold and women coy (definitely not one i agree with)

A great point akbarnali an imdb commenter makes about Sridevi's role as Sheetal in Laadla is that it paved the way for the bollywood anti-heroine such as that of Kajol in Gupt, Manisha in Dil se & Yugpurush, Juhi Chawla in Arjun Pandit etc

Sridevi was stylish though and she looked fierce in her corporate skirt suits and bobbed hair with bangs

Very Coco Channelesque with the pearls and all


Gotta love that fringe

And of course this film is famous for Sridevi's 'understand, You better understand' dialogue after which she clicks her fingers, you can see it here around the 2.28 mark

'Understand, you better understand'

The music by Anand Milind is good among my favourites are the very 90's romance sounds of 'Meri Dhadkan suno' the infectious 'Ladki hai kya' the heavy rhythms of 'Mere Ghulam' the sentimental 'Teri Ungli Pakadke' which celebrtaes the joy of motherhood and the atypical Sridevi Anil Kapoor seductive song 'Dhak Dhak Dil Dhadak'


Total Score: 6/10 ( An enjoyable even if somewhat flawed moral drama)

Laadla is available with English Subtitles on Youtube in 17 parts

Edited to add
Laadla is a remake of a 1992 Telugu movie called Gharaana Mogudu

Also the late Divya Bharati is said to have been playing the role of Sheetal until her sad and untimely death caused Sridevi to replace her, below is some of the scene's Divya shot, what an awesome actress she is, I wonder what this film would have been like with her as Sheetal