Satte Pe Satta

Directed by: Raj N. Sippy

Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Shakti Kapoor, Sarika, Ranjeeta Kaur

Released: 1982

I first learned about the existence of Satte Pe Satta last year when a new remake of it was announced and at the time I was anything but happy about it, but quite a lot has changed since then and now I´m awaiting the film with optimism. The 1982 film starring a popular couple Amitabh-Hema was originally also a remake – of American film „Seven Brides for Seven Brothers“, and though a pleasant film, there was a lot left to be desired, which the new version may eventually draw its strength from. But before the first take of the new movie (that is going to have Sanjay Dutt and Karishma Kapoor in the lead roles) is even taken, let´s have a closer look at the classic.

Somewhere in India there is a solitary farm run by seven brothers, who definitely do not lack love for each other, but do lack basic human manners. They are dirty, unshaven, lazy, uneducated, simple..... and do not care. If not for the eldest brother Ravi (Amitabh Bachchan), who at least lacks the laziness if not other of the trades mentioned, and acts a bit like a slave driver to his siblings, else they would probably just rot on their unkempt cots. One day Ravi by a rather embarrassing mistake meets Indu (Hema Malini), a neat and clean hospital nurse, intelligent, strong willed, basically everything other people in his life (read his family) are not. He falls for her, but doesn´t leave a favourable impression on her and it takes quite a lot of courting and convincing before Indu too finds some love for him in her heart. That however without any knowledge about his family situation. 

What do you mean "use a Gillete"?

Indu is quite shocked by her six brothers-in-law, and no wonder considering one of them is Shakti Kapoor and they move about in next to nothing but some brightly colourful underwear. In the end however it´s them who get the bigger shock, when she decides to „civilize“ them.... Hema Malini is someone I am usually a bit wary about on screen, thought it´s true I´ve not seen that many of her films as yet, and I liked her as feisty Indu, except her dialogue delivery is not the best and her voice modulation neither. She is a good match for Amitabh (who is of course great) and Indu is really that one phenomenon which keeps the basic plot tight and entertaining. Her quest to make her brothers-in-law normal people who dress and wash and don´t eat with their hands was hilarious. However as the movie goes on the focus shifts to the six brothers and their little romances as well as some rather unnecessary masala plot involving an Amitabh´s duplicate and money plotting, Indu makes a quiet exit and so does most of the humour.

Indu being made to believe the guy she loves actually has a normal family.

I understand that Satte Pe Satta is one of most favourite Amitabh Bachchan movies, and no wonder, it definitely provides entertainment (by which I do not mean to say the film is brainless - „entertaining“ has become rather synonymous with „stupid“ in the past few years I feel) and delivers on most levels, yet it is definitely not a perfect film. The second half is weaker and at times on the verge of boring, resembling way too much the 80s action films that were pretty much all the same as if they have been printed by a copy machine. And somehow I don´t think I would believe that a guy, who threatened me with a knife, was only trying to help me. In the end all the brothers turn from animals to humans and all are rewarded with a nice girl to marry. The idylic family life on the farm can continue.

Some things are bound to happen if seven guys live together alone....

Parivaar

Directed by: Shashilal K. Nair

Starring: Mithun Chakraborthy, Meenakshi Sheshadri, Shakti Kapoor

Released: 1987

A film about a tightly knot family consisting of a man, two orphans, a monkey and a dog. Yes, you heard right. And if the children´s tears leave you cool, the crying dog and sobbing monkey will make up for it (maybe). But here we are running too much ahead....

Birju is an honest con artist, who is raising two children, whom he both had found as babies trown away by their parents. To earn a living for them, himself and two faithful beasts – a monkey and a German sheperd dog, he slogs day and night, but never complains, because the closeness and love between all the members of this curious parivaar makes up for all the possible hardships. Where would Birju find a time for love? However a fate brings love straight to his home. Being thrown out of the house by her in-laws because of in-suficient dowry, a young woman Anita tries to commit suicide, but is rescued by the joint effort of the two small kids and their two animal companions (let´s not question the near impossibility of the deed, after all this film is not short of miracles and WTFs).

Looking high but happy.

She finds a comforting shelter in a poor hut Birju shares with his family, and taking the matters of the house into her own hands she seems to be completely happy and satisfied in the new sorroundings short of wealth but not of love and appreciation. But nothing is permanent and soon it seems that the parivaar shall be torn apart, because the dowry Anita had lost previously, is now found, and her husband would like to claim it...

The main leads are Mithun Chakraborthy and Meenakshi Sheshadri (I wanted to see the film for her, because it´s actually pretty difficult to find her films), and even though Meenakshi has less screen-space, she and her character prove that screen-space is not everything. Except for several dubbed crying scenes and rather brow-raising rescue by the children she is pleasant to watch. She has something that makes her different from other Indian actresses, and maybe because she doesn´t remind one of Sridevi in any way she got her share of success even during the greatest Sridevi craze in the mid-80s. Her dancing is amazing and in the song Ram Bakht Hanuman she expresses so much pain she feels (both mental and physical) your heart goes out to her.

The heart-stealer!

Mithun does the usual righteous, poor and lecturing others role, which I´ve seen him doing quite a few times already. He seems to be very comfortable with these kinds of characters and so delivers a good performance without much effort. The children, especially the girl, were good. The animals are way smarter then all the other famous beasts put together (yes, even more then the pigeon from Maine Pyar Kiya or Tuffy from Hum Aapke Hain Koun!) and they handle everything from offering in a mandir to driving a car to catch the bad guys.

Yo, problem?

The story itself is interesting enough and has substance, but could have been handled better, and the film overall suffers - from being an 80s film! Too many unnecessary scenes and subplots. Too many scenes in serious need of being shorter. Too many illogical things. Too many miracles. Some really WTF stuff (like when the monkey at the end turning into Hannuman and jumping all around, setting the place on fire). 

Hmm. Seems legit.

No disrespect to hinduism, but there was some serious and less then impressive overuse of godly interventions. And let-us-put-this-crap-into-it-as-well-it-will-be-rocking-like-hell ending action scene, in which for whatever reason is always the WHOLE cast including the two kids, the monkey and the dog.... the latter two save everybody´s sitting parts.

You shall not pass.

You shall not pass.

You shall not pass.

You guys watch too much Lord of the Rings!

Bol Radha Bol

Directed by: David Dhawan

Starring: Rishi Kapoor, Juhi Chawla, Kader Khan, Shakti Kapoor, Alo Nath, Mohnish Behl

Released: 1992

The Kapoor Khazana month is on the track and it gives me a perfect excuse to put up several reviews I have been too lazy to write so far. Let this be the first one then!

I would like to make it clear that I do not hate Rishi Kapoor. I really don´t, even though you can (and will) see me making fun of him most of the time. I find him hilarious to watch and there is something about him that I just cannot take seriously, even if he´s playing emotional scenes and serious roles. Sorry, Rishi-ji. But in this you opted for a role of a romantic lover AND a rocking super-talented musician.

Juhi. Something easy on the eyes first.

Rishi, hidden in the film under the name of Kishen Malhotra, is a grown-up man with the mind of a teenager (why Rishi, why?). All he does all day long is fantasizing about his Radha, aka some girl who´ll return his love. There seem to be no special requirements for the girl, as he throws himself on every single one. And if none is in sight, he recites his pick up lines to his dog. After making an enemy in one of his collegues (the dog discovered he steals from Kishen´s company.) he sets up happily to open a factory in the country, that has been closed down for years, an obviously all the workers had to wait till he comes and tell them to repair everything (sometimes the villagers are so dumb, nah?). Not surprisingly Rishi finds his Radha among them – the beautiful Juhi Chawla, who obviously thinks his wardrobe full of those famous knitted sweaters is cute. Some singing and several English lessons bear their fruit and we have a romance blooming. But as soon as the factory is set up and Radha agrees to marry Kishen, he has to return home to inform his mother about everything. He only arrives there to find out his mother died. And not only that. He finds out somebody else is pretending to be him!

There are TWO of them? Somebody save me...

How is it possible? The impostor looks exactly the same! Kishen is thus thrown out of the house, only to be left wondering, who is the other one and what in the world is happening! While trying to figure that out, Radha is dying of longing for her lover, and in the end she decides to travel to the city herself. After coming to Kishen´s house, she finds his double drinking and being merry with girls. Thankfully a bit later she bumps into the real Kishen. Together they are searching for the truth, find out the real identity of the impostor. And then they work out the plan of how to outsmart him.

Bol Radha Bol is a decent flick, during which I had several really good laughs, some of them definitely not for the right reasons. As you might have already noticed, I found Rishi being ridiculous in his role (yet again). There is no doubt he is a very good actor with a likeable factor, but well, his looks and choice of roles betrayed him. He was in the „cursed“ state for an actor during this time – too old to be romancing young girls and too young to play their father. His pairing with Juhi hence doesn´t look convincing, though they do not look as bad together as Rishi/Madhuri or the example worst of them all Rishi/Divya Bharti. Rishi doesn´t look good neither as an immature good guy Kishen, nor as a drunken imposter playing saxophone. He does master the double role brilliantly for sure, but did not make me believe him a single word.

"Oh no! When I think that impostor is wearing my coolest sweaters right now!"

Juhi on the other hand was as perfect as one could wish. As a simple village belle with feisty nature she was just lovely to look at, and even after getting a sexy make-over in the second part there was still beautiful innocence to her. Her comic timing was spot on as always. Her real partner in terms of comedy was none other then Shakti Kapoor in one of his completely insane over-the-top roles, doing things, faces and sounds nobody else could ever pull off, unless making everyone think he has just escaped the mental asylum. Another one given supposedly comic scenes was Kader Khan, sadly he fails to impress and his part in the film doesn´t make sense at all. I have to note that this is possibly the first film that has ever presented me with evil Alokh Nath!

As perverse as it may sound, these two are the best thing about the film.

One scene which I found nearly unwatchable was when Rishi´s real dog (cause even it has a double!) finally finds its Master and Rishi beats it up, thinking the dog betrayed him earlier. After realizing his mistake, Rishi encourages the dog to fight its double. Seeing the two dogs biting each other did not give me any pleasure or satisfaction, and Juhi cheering during all that made it even more wrong (remind me of Darr, when she was screaming „Kill him, kill him“ from the top of her lungs, while Sunny Deol beated the heck out of Shahrukh Khan. That too was wrong, even if for another reason :) ).

Music doesn´t make the film stand out either, in fact the song in the club, after Rishi discovers his double´s identity, is pretty much awful – which covers everything from melody, lyrics, costumes and choreography. The title song is lovely, giving us a pleasant glimpse of lovely Juhi in traditional Indian attire, but is not ground-breaking either.

In the end I know there are other films out there, which do make Juhi even lovelier and funnier, which make Alokh Nath a good human being, which make club scenes rocking, which make Rishi Kapoor less ridiculous. 

"What does RIDICULOUS mean?"