Dil To Pagal Hai (1997)

Star Power: Shahrukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Karisma Kapoor

Overall Rating: 5 out of 7 chilies

Music: 6.5 out of 7 chilies

Choreography: 5 out of 7 chilies

Summary:
Rahul (Shahrukh Khan) and Nisha (Karisma Kapoor) are best friends and the stars behind a successful dance troupe. When they finish their latest show in triumph, Rahul announces that their new show will have a new sound and a new name: Maya. Nisha and the other members of the troupe are astonished and when they ask him to explain, he says that Maya represents a kind of ideal, the kind of passionate, honest girl he has dreamed of. Nisha has a secret, however, which Rahul discovers while she is intoxicated after a party: she loves him.
    In another part of town, Pooja (Madhuri Dixit) is an orphaned young woman living with an older couple, friends of her parents. She has been brought up with their son, Ajay (Akshay Kumar) and she thinks of him as the best of friends, laughing and joking with each other all the time, even while he's off at work in England. She believes wholeheartedly in the idea of a soulmate, someone who is meant only for her, so when Ajay proposes to her on the eve of his departure, she is torn between her ideal and this man who has been so close to her all her life.
    Preparations for the new show are in full swing when an injury takes Nisha out of the show. Rahul is suddenly stuck for someone to play the lead role. A series of coincidences have brought Pooja and Rahul together briefly a few times before, but when he sees her dancing in the studio one night after everyone else has gone home, he offers her the chance to try for the part. As planning for the show continues and their relationship blossoms, they must both choose between the friends they do not want to hurt and a love they cannot deny...

Comments:
This movie is all-around fun with some big names and great music. Almost every song is catchy and memorable and the story is quite sweet, though the two soulmates didn't seem to have as much in common with each other as they did with their two friends. The choreography is very snappy, if performed in some seriously questionable clothing, especially in the song "Are re Are". All in all, very enjoyable - definitely a movie I would watch again!

Dabangg (2010)

Star Power: Salman Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Malaika Arora

Overall Rating: 4 out of 7 chilies

Music: 5 out of 7 chilies

Choreography: 4.5 out of 7 chilies

Summary:
When his mother marries again after his father's death, young Chulbul Pandey finds his home life on shaky ground. His new stepfather consistently passes over him for his stepbrother Makkhi, while Makkhi resents his new mother's favoritism of Chulbul.
 Twenty years later, Chulbul, (Salman Khan) is a tough policeman who is not above taking money under the table from petty criminals and relationships within his family are as lopsided as ever. Both brothers have fallen for local girls, Chulbul with a young woman he met on one of his police raids, Rajo, (Sonakshi Sinha) and Makkhi (Arbaaz Khan) continuing the romance he has had for many years with a poor girl called Nirmala. Rajo's father is a drunk and Rajo is devoted to his care, determined not to marry in order to take care of him. Chulbul returns home disheartened, and finds that his mother has died from a heart attack. Rajo's father sees that his daughter has a chance of a happy life with Chulbul so he decides to end it all and release her. Meanwhile, Makkhi's father is deep in debt and is looking instead for a rich girl to marry Makkhi, so in despiration, Makkhi steals the money his brother keeps in a safe in his mother's room and asks Nirmala's father to offer it as Nirmala's dowry. When Chulbul discovers what his brother has done, he crashes his brother's wedding and forces the priest to marry him and Rajo instead. Nirmala's father, embarassed, calls off the wedding. Their family now bitterly divided, Chulbul must now face off against both his brother and Chedi Singh, (Sonu Sood) a gangster with political ties who Chulbul has clashed with before. To get at Chulbul, Chedi Singh begins insidiously destroying Makkhi's life, turning the brothers even further against each other. Can Chulbul bring Chedi to justice before his family conflict ends in tragedy?

Comments:
Dabangg is pure Salman Khan, and if you don't mind over-the-top action and lots of rakish posing, this movie is a lot of fun. If the summary seems a little convoluted, it's because the plot was that way, though it's the action sequences and songs that really steal the show. The funny thing about this film is that out of the 9 or 10 central characters, only one or two are actually good people. Our hero is unabashedly corrupt, and we are meant to love him for it. Almost all of the songs are enjoyable and catchy, though the standouts for me are the item song "Munni Badnaam Hui" with Malaika Arora, and "Tere Mast Mast Do Nain".

I See You (2006)

Star Power: Arjun Rampal, Kirron Kher

Overall Rating: 5.5 out of 7 chilies

Music: 4.5 out of 7 chilies

Choreography: 4.5 out of 7 chilies


Synopsis:

Life is good for Raj Jaiswal (Arjun Rampal), the self-centered host of the London talk show "British Raj". An incorrigable flirt, Raj goes after every pretty girl he meets, but has no intention of getting married anytime soon. However, he gets the shock of his life when a girl he has never met, Shivani Dutt (Vipasha Agarwal) suddenly appears on the balcony of his new appartment claiming that the appartment is really hers. She seems surprised that he can both see and touch her and gradually he realizes that he is the only one who knows she exists. His friends worry for his sanity and his career begins to be usurped by his new co-host, but Raj continues to be fascinated by his ghostly Shivani and gradually he coaxes her to tell her sad story. She reveals to him that she was a doctor who witnessed her co-workers commiting the crime of organ trafficking and that her body is now lying in a coma in the hospital, in danger of being pulled off of life-support. Raj decides to take action and sets off to steal her body and save her life, but with the hospital staff and her family against him, and his friends still unable to believe she exists, that's going to be anything but easy...

Comments:

A fun, sweet film, I See You surprised me with its depth. The story is touching and the confusion surrounding Shivani's existance creates a lot of great funny scenes between Raj and his friends. You could believe the romance between the two main characters and I got completely pulled into the story. Musical numbers weren't a big factor in this film, but both the opening song, "Subah Subah", with its guest appearances from both Shahrukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan, and the fast-paced club song "Aaj Raat Aaj Raat Halo Halo" were a lot of fun. I would certainly see this film again, and I recommend it to all of you.

Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai (2000)

Star Power: Hrithik Roshan, Ameesha Patel

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 7 chilies

Music: 5 out of 7 chilies

Choreography: 4.5 out of 7 chilies


Synopsis:

Rohit (Hrithik Roshan) is a young man dreaming of making it big in the music business, but that dream seems a long way away. He and his little brother Amit are orphans living with an older couple while Amit goes to school and Rohit works a job at a car dealership. When he meets beautiful Sonia Saxena (Ameesha Patel) while waiting for traffic, he never expects to see her again, but they are soon brought together when her father, (Anupam Kher) a wealthy businessman, sends Rohit to deliver a car to her on her birthday. As time passes, Mr. Saxena sees their budding romance and tries to put a stop to it by having Rohit fired from his job, but when he sees that he will not be disuaded, he encourages Rohit to make a big step forward in his music career to impress Sonia.
Word begins to spread about his musical talent and soon things are all set for his first big concert. However, fate suddenly intervenes when, while on his way to the concert with Amit, he witnesses the murder of a police commissioner by corrupt officers who have been dealing in drugs. He tries to escape from the scene but they follow and eventually force him off a bridge into the river. Unable to swim, he drowns, leaving Sonia and Amit heartbroken behind him. Amit is stricken, unable to speak, and Sonia travels to New Zealand to try to escape her grief. In the street she catches sight of a man who looks startlingly like Rohit. Who can he be? And will anyone ever know the truth about Rohit's death?...

Comments:

This movie is the debut of both Hrithik Roshan and Ameesha Patel and, overall, it's a fairly solid outing for the both of them. The plot is fairly conventional and rather slow to get going, but there are some good twists and everything flows pretty well. Sonia and Rohit are pretty much the typical sweet young lovers, but Anupam Kher gives a good and surprising performance as Sonia's conflicted father. The music is also solid, with a few catchy numbers like the title song and "Chand Sitaare", both of which are repeated in several different incarnations throughout the film. Not a standout picture, in my opinion, but entirely watchable and enjoyable.

Kites (2010)

Star Power: Hrithik Roshan

Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 7 Chilies

Music: 3 out of 7 Chilies

Choreography: 3.5 out of 7 Chilies

Synopsis:
While unloading a train car, a group of Mexican workers come upon the unconsious body of a man shot in the back. The man, Jai (Hrithik Roshan) is nursed back to health by nearby farmers and begins a long trek across the Mexican landscape, recalling the series of events which have left him in this state.
Three months earlier, Jai was a poor dance teacher in the city of Las Vegas, conning the casinos and marrying women eager to get green cards in order to make an extra buck. One day, one of his dance students, Gina (Kangna Ranaut) follows him home and professes her love for him. He refuses and sends her home, only to find that she is the daughter of casino-owner Bob Grover, one of the richest and most well-connected men on the strip. Rethinking his refusal, Jai sets out to marry Gina for her money. Even when brutally confronted with the Grovers' mafia-like control of the city and their nonchalance to violence, he decides to keep playing along, but it is his meeting with Natasha (Barbara Mori), Gina's brother Tony's fiance, that changes everything. Natasha, (whose real name is Linda) was the last of the eleven women that Jai married, and the only one he ever really noticed. On the pretence of finalizing their divorce in secret, the two meet up and discover that they are both only marrying into the Grover family for the money and that their true love is for each other. A fight with Tony makes up their minds and they decide to flee the city together, but escape is anything but easy...

Comments:
"It always rains in Vegas." This utterly absurd statement about a desert city in which the average rainfall per month is never more than half an inch and which boasts about having more than 300 sunny days per year is just a small indication of just how silly, confusing and terrible this movie was. After watching this film, my family and I sat down and had a good long laugh about all the stupid things in this movie which made absolutely no sense. Here's an example, just to give you an idea: about half-way through the film, Jai and Linda are on the run and the bad guys are about to catch up to them in the middle of the desert when they run across a bunch of people taking off in hot air ballons. They suddenly decide to make their escape by jumping on to one of these ballons as it lifts off into the air and they leap in from their moving truck, taking control from the passengers, who only speak Chinese. Their truck then crashes into another car and explodes, the smoke cloud screening their escape. Now, let's think about this. For one thing, I don't think you could find a slower, more highly visible and vulnerable means of escape than a hot air balloon - one shot in the canvas and you come right back down to earth, and the smoke cloud would hide them for all of, what, thirty seconds? All the bad guys had to do was walk around it and our heros would still be there, twenty feet away, slowly drifting skyward. But no, in the next scene Tony gets a call saying they've gotten away (temporarily, of course). Also, one has to wonder how a pair of Chinese tourists who don't speak a word of English managed to arrange to be part of a ballooning group and then got sent up alone. Unless these are ballooning experts from Szechuan, it really doesn't make a lot of sense. The movie is filled with silly and annoying moments like this and the continuity is not helped by the choppy narrative style, which switches back and forth between the present, Jai's flashbacks and flashbacks within the flashbacks. Clearly a lot of money was spent making this film, with lots of high-speed chases, explosions, gunfire and Hrithik himself, but in the end you can't help feeling that it was all kind of wasted. The music is basically a non-factor - there's not much of it and it's not particularly remarkable. Kites, (a title which, by the way, has no explanation in the story, except for a non-sequitur voice-over in the beginnning) basically tries to capture the feeling of about fifty different movies - Bonnie and Clyde, Ocean's Eleven, Dhoom, etc. - but ends up so confused that it's worse than all of them. "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" - so please, by all means, leave this movie there.

Jeevan Mrityu (1970)

Star Power: Dharmendra, Raakhee Gulzar, Ajit

Overall Rating: 5 out of 7 chilies

Music: 4.5 out of 7 chilies

Choreography: 4 out of 7 chilies

Synopsis:
Ashok Tandon (Dharmendra) is released from prison after serving his term and tries his best to pick up the pieces of the life he left behind seven years before. But he finds that much of the world he remembers has changed: his mother has died, his friend has moved away and the woman he loved has disappeared. While on the way to try to find the house of a friend, he is robbed by a thief who is then hit by a train, convincing the rest of the world that he is dead. Ashok begs a place to sleep for the night in the back yard of a wealthy man's home and while there, manages to avert a robbery planned by the wealthy man's nephews. Out of gratitude, the wealthy man invites Ashok in and coerces him into relating the sad story of how his life had gone so wrong, a tale of betrayal, wrongful accusations and lost love. The story is not over, however, and with the rich man behind him Ashok sets out to seek justice and revenge...

Comments:
This is a good, solid film out of vintage Bollywood. The plot is based off of the famous novel The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, and the movie really does a good job of adapting it to the world of 1970s India. Dharmendra gives another great performance, both as Ashok and the many disguised aliases which he adopts over the course of the film - he's so believeable it can be hard to realize it's really him! There isn't much music here - only two songs: "Jhilmil Sitaron Ka" and "Zamane Mein Aji", but they're both thoroughly enjoyable numbers.

Kisna: The Warrior Poet (2005)

Star Power: Vivek Oberoi, Sushmita Sen (Cameo in Item Song)

Overall Rating: 3 out of 7 chilies

Music: 5.5 out of 7 chilies

Choreography: 5.5 out of 7 chilies

Synopsis:
When a famous wealthy British woman comes to tour India, she surprises everyone by deciding to make her first stop a little-known mountain province. Though usually reluctant to discuss her past, that evening she begins to explain the story of her life.
More than 50 years earlier, Katherine (Antonia Bernath) is the daughter of a strict provincial governor growing up on the eve of Indian independance. When nationalists attack her family and burn her home, Katherine seeks the help of a childhood friend, a young man named Kisna (Vivek Oberoi). Leaving behind his fiancee, Lakshmi (Isha Sharvani), he agrees to help guide her to safety, evading both the radical nationalists and the brutal Prince Raghuraj (Rajat Kapoor), who wants Katherine for himself. As the two cross India looking for refuge, Katherine realizes her love for her protector, and Kisna finds himself torn between the promises he has made...

Comments:
Another historical film in the vein of Lagaan and Mughal-e-Azam, Kisna: The Warrior Poet unfortunately lacks many of the qualities which made those other films great. Perhaps the greatest testament to this film's blandness is the fact that it took me several weeks just to get through it. The characters are all pretty flat, with Katherine one of the worst offenders. She is first gratingly cheerful and then mournfully lovestruck, and spends most of the film waiting for Kisna to save her from some predicament. After the first twenty minutes, the film bcomes one long chase which does nothing if not prove the fact that the world is a very small place, as one group of bad guys or another seems to catch up to Kisna and Katherine just about every few minutes. The music is really very good, but even songs like "Woh Kisna Hai" or "Chilman Uthegi Nahin" with great choreography and beautiful melodies can't really save this film. I have to admit, the part of the film I enjoyed the most was probably the short sequence surrounding the latter of those two songs, featuring Sushmita Sen as the dancer Naima Begum, but that was only perhaps twenty minutes out of the total 171 minute running time.