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

Damini (1993)

This movie has been sitting on my shelf for ages, and what a beautiful movie it turned out to be when i finally sat down to watch it, a wonderful film on being true to yourself and doing the right thing, all delivered in a non preachy manner

The film starts with this quote by Mahatma Gandhi


Damini (Meenakshi Sheshadri) is a honest good natured girl who lives with her family. While performing at a charity gig alongside Aamir Khan (as himself in a special appearance). Shekhar (Rishi kapoor) the son of a wealthy industrialist who's an audience at the show is smitten by her


Shekhar tracks Damini down and proposes, Damini is taken a back by his advances as she comes from a much poorer family as well as Shekhar's quick marriage proposal.Shekhar's Parents aren't too keen on Damini as she's from a lower ecomomic background but Damini's charming honest nature wins them over and she and Shekhar get married


During Holi festival Shekhar's junior brother Rakesh along with his friends rape the family maid servant 'Urmi'. Damini witnesses the event and runs to get Shekahr to help but by then Rakesh and his friends had gang raped her. I f all their wickendess wasn't enough, they went ahead and dumped her body by the road side


When police come to investigate the matter Damini is told by her in-laws to deny she witnessed the event, they ask her to help protect their family's honour


Damini begins to feel uneasy about the whole issue, she's racked by immense guilt and feels its up to her to get Urmi justice. She confesses the truth to Inspector Ratan (Vijayendra Ghatge) and agrees to testify in court much to the anger of her in-laws who feel she's betraying them



The family are tried to court and The Gupta's appoint Barrister Chhada (Amrish Puri in a swish hairdo) to defend them. Barrister Indrajeet Chhada who is defending the Gupta's comes up with a plan to silence Damini by proving her mentally unstable to the Judge



He does this by various witnesses including her in-laws and her own father, as a result Damini is sentenced to a mental asylum for 2 weeks, there she's administered severe head shocks which starts making her mentally retarded



Damini manages to escape from the mental asylum, while on the run for her life she meets retired disillusioned lawyer Govind. She tells him her story and urges him to take up her case and get Urmi Justice


He agrees and thus commences a big court room showdown

Will Damini get Justice for urmi? Will she be proved as mentally stable? watch Damini for the answers

Damini wthout doubt has to be one of the top drama's produced in 90's bollywood, great direction, great cast and a great story, the film also deals with mutiple issues such as the lengths people would go to protect their honour, maniplulative/exploitative media, corrupt cops and the politics of rape.


This film really had me involved and i kept thinking what would i have done had i been in her shoes, would i have gone with the easy way out and agreed with my in-laws or would i fight for the truth, these are not easy questions and we see Damini's anguish over these not so easy choices. Damini also makes a point of the outspoken woman, who dares speak against the 'patriarchal powers' that be, being punished for daring to make her voice heard.

This film would have scored much higher with me if the director had been a bit more careful with his screenplay for example during Damini's trial her lawyer doesn't object to the intrusive questions Barrister Chhada asks her, the courtroom scenes were sometimes treated as a joke with both lawyers calling each other up but of course i'm sure Rajkumar Santoshi had to strike a right balance between making a powerful drama that would also be commercially successful, and i shall not hold him up for that

Great performance from Meenakshi Sheshadri, i think this is her best ever role, her portrayal of Damini was just right, so much passion, so much guilt, you feel every bit of her anguish/inner turmoil on what choice she should make.


Rumour has it that she quit the film industry as her performance of Damini didn't get her a filmfare best actress award, my dear Meenakshi forget about those award shows what matters is the appreciation and love of the fans. And might i add Meenakshi is such a fabulous intense dancer (check her out doing some traditional Indian dances in the clip below), its no wonder she currently teaches dance lessons in Plano, Texas where she now lives with her husband and kids. For more on what Meenakshi has been up to check out Nicki's great Fan Post



Good performances from Amrish Puri and Sunny Deol as well, who knew Amrish was a computer game freak, he was so funny and over the top as usual, he never bores me


Sunny Deol was loud and his dialogues from this film are said to have been the rage at the time of its release, but since i don't speak hindi i couldn't understand what the fuss was all about, but he delivered his dialogues with much gusto and passion


And of course Rishi shows us his amazing Jumper collection as well


Brilliant songs from Nadeem-Shravan as well, from the melodious 'gawah hain chand tare' which was lifted from the famous African song 'Malaika' (listen to a version of the song by 70's group Boney M. here) 'bin saajan jhoola' where Aamir khan makes a guest appearance and then my favourite has to be 'jab se tumko dekha' with lovely vocals from Kumar Sanu and Sadhana Sargam




Total Score: 7/10 (A highly engaging wonderful drama)

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Shakti (1982)

Having heard & knowing of Shakti (Power) for such a long time as the first and only movie featuring two great bollywood legends Dilip Kumar & Amitabh Bachchan, i knew i had to check it out. I finally got the chance to see it, and it definitely did not disappoint, the movie is similar to Deewar in some aspects but i think i prefer Shakti more. The film was awarded the 1983 Filmfare best movie of the year award

Inspector Ashwini Kumar is an extremely hardworking man who takes his job very seriously, he has a wife Sheetal ( Raakhee) and a son Vijay(Amitabh Bachchan). One day he arrests a notorious and highly wanted criminal Yashwant (Goga Kapoor), J.K Verma (Amrish Puri) who is Yashwants partner in crime is unhappy about this and plots to kidnap Ashwini's son Vijay threatening only to release him if his dad agrees to release yashwant in return



Ashwini refuses to release Yashwant even when J.K Verma threatens to kill his son. His wife thinks he's crazy for doing this, but for Ashwini work and family should not and do not intersect. Vijay manages to escape from J.K Verma's den, and his parents are delighted to have him back, but he remains cold towards his dad, as he feels his dad chose his job over him, this creates a wall between him and his dad

Vijay grows up to be a lonely unemployed young man with this chip on his shoulder. One day he meets Roma (Smita Patil) and the two fall in love over time, Vijay also finds solace in his relationship with her. Vijay who had been jobless for a long time, finally gets a job at a hotel run by K.D. Narang (Kulbushan Kharbanda) a smuggler. Ashwini is unhappy about Vijay's employer being a smuggler and gives him an ultimatum to either leave the job or leave the house, Vijay refuses to leave his job and moves out of the family home


Vijay gets involved in K.D Narang's work, and when his dad who is on a quest to arrest him for his dodgy work disrupts J.K Verma's business, J.K plots to murder Ashwinwi


Will J.k succeed in his attempts? Will Vijay and his father ever be reconciled with one another?

Shakti is a very nice drama which gives a great insight on the psychology of relationships, this movie is quite similar to Deewar in some ways as in both movies the choice of family over occupation arises, however Shakti takes this even further with an added dimension on the psychology of relationships. For example Vijay becomes cold due to his fathers decision to choose his job over him, his father loves him dearly but his inabbility to express this is the major strain in their relationship and then the mother who is caught between her husband and son also trying to negotiate and mediate between these relationships. If you're into the psychology of relationships, Shakti is a great study in this.

The dialogues are superb and the performances are great all around and at times when Dilip Kumar and Amitabh Bachchan had heated conversations/confrontations, I could almost feel the testosterone boiling over the screen but Raakhee usually steps in and cools things down.

No one outdid each other here, both were great and Raakhee bridges the gap appropriately (as the poster at the top of this post even suggests). A very young and cute Anil Kapoor also makes a cameo appearance

The film, also like Deewar only had 3 songs composed by the legend that is R.D. Burman all the songs are beautiful and fitted nicely into the plot but my favorite has to be 'Jaane kaise kab' which captures the Amitabh & Smita pairing in a very sensual and erotic mood, especially in the last 40 secs in the clip below, the fire in the background adds to the intensity




Total Score: 8/10 ( a powerful and highly engaging drama)

Shakti is available in 17 parts with English Subtitles on Youtube