JUDAII - Some thoughts
Avinash Ghirnikar
saw the film judaai over this weekend. seems to have generated a lot of
curiosity as there was a big crowd at San Jose waiting to check it out.
i think boney K and sridevi announced their marriage/baby etc. just in time
to garner even more publicity for the film. boney kapoor has gone to great
lengths to give sridevi a chance to showcase her talents. and she does ...
impressing in comedy and drama.
urmila also gives a very competent performance - i thought in the climax she
was perfect - no hamming, extremely controlled. clear indication that
rangeela was not a fluke and she is an actress of substance.
i had read somewhere that urmila insisted on being toe-to-toe with sridevi
with scenes, make-up, outfits, songs and such but she hasn't quite managed
that. sridevi gets to slap her and urmila never returns the favor ;-). and
needless to say, sridevi does look heavy as compared to the extremely lithe
urmila!
anil K is sandwiched between them - tossed around like a hot potato - again
giving a very measured performance but it's hard to notice him among the
femme fatales :-). the film essentially belongs to sridevi.
the hamming has been completely monopolized by johny lever, though he is
better here than what he was in daraar and RH. kader khan and paresh rawal
are funnier. there are almost two parallel movies - one the somewhat heavy
emotional stuff involving anil K, sridevi and urmila and another totally
riotous one involving the comics. towards the end the comics are just plain
forgotten.
the basic plot is how material greed begins to eat away at a wife (sridevi)
whose husband (anil K) refuses to compromise to get the good things in
life. some years and two kids later she is almost at the end of her
patience. ironically, the wife's savior (or so she thinks) turns out to be
this svelte woman from the US (urmila) who falls madly in love with her
husband after being saved from rape by the morally upright husband.
she offers the wife 2 crores (20 million) to get him. after some initial
trepidation the wife actually agrees to this
arrangement much to the husband's chagrin and thinks that as long as she
gets the money and lives with the extended family she will have no problems.
so she divorces the hubby, forces hubby to marry souten, but interestingly
ex-wife and two kids continue to live with the newly weds!! so what happens
in the aftermath of this rather unusual arrangement is basically the second
half of the movie.
some of the scenes are really well done. good dialogues by jainendra jain.
music is typical NS stuff - nothing much to write home about. portions have
been shot in vegas and i think the deserts of arizona or CA (someone might
correct). some of the songs are forced to just fulfill the quota of dance
moves, given that urmila and sridevi star, and that's what the audience
expects.
i for one will be surprised if this movie does not do well. i was exremely
circumspect about how the theme might be handled given what i had heard about
it as i have summarized above. but i must say some of the incidents
have been handled quite well. nowhere does the film degenerate into sheer
incredulity (especially given the theme is a little far-fetched to begin
with), in fact even keeps you interested. the audience reaction was the
best i have seen for any movie in the US.
sridevi is probably at the twilight of her career - leading-lady wise. this
movie may not turn out to be a comeback for her but at least give her
twilight some sparkle.
--
avinash
p.s.: poonam D. has a cute cameo ...
Q: can somebody please post a list of earlier films directed by raj kanwar?
Amin Meghani
In article <algE6M...@netcom.com>, a...@netcom.com (Avinash Ghirnikar) writes:
|>
|> saw the film judaai over this weekend. seems to have generated a lot of
<interesting comments snipped>
|> --
|> avinash
|>
|> p.s.: poonam D. has a cute cameo ...
|> Q: can somebody please post a list of earlier films directed by raj kanwar?
Here are some of Raj Kanwar's earlier credits:
DEEWANA (Rukhster,Divya)
LAADLA (Anil K,Sridevi,Raveena)
KARTAVYA (Sanjay Kapoor,Juhi)
JAAN (Twinkle,Ajay)
JEET (Sunny,Karishma,Salman)
--Amin
Ikram Ahmed Khan
Rakesh Patel wrote:
> 1. Sridevi is cute and capable by herself. But in scenes with Urmila,
> Sridevi is outclass by Urmila in the screen presence department.
> In terms of acting, its a wash.
Who washed whom? Sri washed Urmi or Urmi washed Sri?
Later,
Ikram.
Dev Mannemela
In article <algE6M...@netcom.com>,
Avinash Ghirnikar <a...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>i for one will be surprised if this movie does not do well. i was exremely
>circumspect about how the theme might be handled given what i had heard about
>it as i have summarized above. but i must say some of the incidents
>have been handled quite well. nowhere does the film degenerate into sheer
>incredulity (especially given the theme is a little far-fetched to begin
>with), in fact even keeps you interested. the audience reaction was the
>best i have seen for any movie in the US.
I haven't seen "Judaai" yet, but i saw the telugu original "subhalagnam" last
year. Seems like the hindi version stuck pretty closely to the telugu
one (ceomedy track et al). My reaction after seeing the telugu version
was "this is one surefire blockbuster". Although it wasn't great
technically, I think it was the perfect formula (if there ever was one)..
>p.s.: poonam D. has a cute cameo ...
The cameo was done by Suhasini Maniratnam in the telugu (and tamil) versions..
>Q: can somebody please post a list of earlier films directed by raj kanwar?
didn't he do "Laadla" (another remake) ?
dev
--
Dev Mannemela de...@spimageworks.com
Sony Pictures Imageworks 310.840.8143 (O)
Rakesh Patel
I just saw this movies. Here are my thoughts...
1. Sridevi is cute and capable by herself. But in scenes with Urmila,
Sridevi is outclass by Urmila in the screen presence department.
In terms of acting, its a wash.
2. Anil - adequate.
3. Johnny Lever, Paresh Raval, Kadar Khan. HILARIOUS! I want to see
a movie with these three guys plus Shakti Kapoor. Maybe something
ala "Its a mad, mad, mad, world". That woman, who played Lever's
wife is pretty funny also.
4. First half of the movie is good. Then its a gradual decline, and
falls flat at the end.
5. A couple of good songs. Others are nothing special.
6. Great clothes for the ladies.
Rakesh
Meenakshi Abbi
Ikram Ahmed Khan wrote:
>
> Rakesh Patel wrote:
> > 1. Sridevi is cute and capable by herself. But in scenes with Urmila,
> > Sridevi is outclass by Urmila in the screen presence department.
> > In terms of acting, its a wash.
>
>
> Later,
Ikram,
I don;t know what RAkesh intended to say.. but in my opinion,
Sri outshone Urmila in every scene. She was amazing.
This was my first Sri movie on the big screen and
I was impressed.. Next to her.. Urmila was nothing... though as
I said before, I think I have to watch it again to give
Urmila another chance.. but Sri Devi was awesome in this movie.
Madhuri and Sri Devi are the only actresses with such screen presence..
they just make you go wow when they come on the screen.
Meenakshi
Rakesh Patel
In article <331F4C...@raleigh.ibm.com>,
Ikram Ahmed Khan <iak...@raleigh.ibm.com> wrote:
>Rakesh Patel wrote:
>> 1. Sridevi is cute and capable by herself. But in scenes with Urmila,
>> Sridevi is outclass by Urmila in the screen presence department.
>> In terms of acting, its a wash.
>
>Who washed whom? Sri washed Urmi or Urmi washed Sri?
>
Now that would be a GOOD movie! But what I meant was there no
significant difference between the two in regards to acting in this
movie.
Rakesh
Ikram Ahmed Khan
Rakesh Patel wrote:
> Ikram Ahmed Khan <iak...@raleigh.ibm.com> wrote:
> >Rakesh Patel wrote:
> >> 1. Sridevi is cute and capable by herself. But in scenes with Urmila,
> >> Sridevi is outclass by Urmila in the screen presence department.
> >> In terms of acting, its a wash.
> >
> >Who washed whom? Sri washed Urmi or Urmi washed Sri?
> >
>
> Now that would be a GOOD movie!
>;)
> But what I meant was there no
> significant difference between the two in regards to acting in this
> movie.
A few things about this movie...
As both Avinash and Dev stated, the treatment of the material is
amazing!! I personally would list this movie along with 'Anari' with
Venky and KK, as presenting intrinsically bad matter, in a surprisingly
effective way.
However, in relating this to the Nadeem Shravan sucks! thread,
the song pyaar pyaar karte karte is a copy of an RDB number {from
Sanam Teri Qasam??} and has to be the song with the most weird
picturization that I have ever seen! I still don't quite know whether
that was a dream song or whether that was AnilKaps, Urmi and Sree on
their honeymoon ( I don't think so). I don't think I have *ever* seen
one hero and two heroines, with everybody being happy, like in this
song pic....{ Q for everybody: Was there ever a song pic - with one
guy and two gals on the scene at the same time, with there being
no one-way love-story kinda deal??}
Also who was the Reshma-like voice in that other song??
{Reshma sang that 'lambi judaai' song in SGhai's 'Hero'}
Was this the one copied from NFAK's song??
Urmi's role is much shorter than Sreedevi's, but she was very
self-assured in that role... Both of them got what they
wanted from this movie, I thought.
Johny Lever was hilarious. His take-off on Govinda, in the
first 'abba dabba chappa'{I say, but that was funny!! :)} sequence
was too good. So was his imitation of Dharam {and incidentally
that is why I call Dharam a 'ham' of the first order :)}.
Paresh Rawal, was kept, just to ask Sree the pertinent qs, at the
right time, tho' :( And, those who think that dialogues were
by Kader Khan - they weren't, it is Jainendra Jain, that one has
to thank for 'abba dabba chappa'.. :)
A definite reco for seeing this one, if one still watches the
new movies....
Later,
Ikram.
>
> Rakesh