(From our issue dated 4th March, 1995)
Nadiadwala Grandson’s Andolan (UA) is the usual story about corrupt politicians and police officers and how a revolution by even a lone honest citizen can rid the society of corruption. Two brothers, brought up by a principled and honest father, adopt two different paths in life after the murder of their father. While one continues to live on the ideals of his dad, the other adopts the wrong path, making easy money by unfair means. Finally, the two come on a common platform to wipe out the villains.
The film offers nothing new by way of story or screenplay and reminds of a number of earlier hits like Deewaar. In fact, writer Anees Bazmee seems to have taken the scripting rather too lightly, not even doing justice to defining the characterisations. He, however, is in top form in the department of dialogue writing. A number of dialogues are clapworthy. Some light scenes are enjoyable. Climax is too lengthy.
Sanjay Dutt looks handsome and does a very good job. His dubbing is appropriate. Govinda is sincere but his subdued character doesn’t go too well with his bubbly image. Mamta Kulkarni is alright. Somy Ali has no scope. Ishrat Ali is fantastic, aided a great deal by sharp and sarcastic dialogues. Dalip Tahhil, Deepak Shirke and Mohan Joshi are fair. Rami Reddy is quite effective. Vikram Gokhale has done a good job. Madan Jain is nice. Asha Parekh, Vinay Sapru, Farida and the rest lend average support.
Aziz Sejawal’s direction is not very promising. He does not rise above the mediocre script except in a few scenes. There is no hit song although two numbers — ‘Dil to khoya hai’ and ‘Nazar mein tu’ — are fairly good. Song picturisations are dull. Action scenes are very well composed by Ravi Dewan. Camerawork is fantastic. Foreign locales have been beautifully captured. Production values are rich.
On the whole, Andolan has terrific initial value but not the power to sustain for a long run. Its high price will come in the way of its distributors’ and exhibitors’ earnings.
Released on 3-3-’95 at Novelty and 24 other cinemas of Bombay thru Pinky Films. Publicity & opening: excellent. ….Also released all over.
DO YOU KNOW?
* Lata Mangeshkar did not accept any remuneration for a song she rendered for B. Subhash’s VAADIYAN on 28th February because she was very impressed by the romantic and melodious duet. Raamlaxman is the film’s music director. Lata’s co-singer was Udit Narayan.
YOU ASKED IT
Why has the career span of artistes reduced these days?
– What else do you expect when the artistes have invaded the living rooms of people and can be seen all day long on one television channel or the other at the flick of a button?
What is required for a filmmaker to become a legend?
– Besides other things, what is of utmost importance is that he makes films with passion and dedication.
On what basis do new heroes get paid fantastic prices even before a single release?
– The film industry is a speculative industry. Producers, distributors and exhibitors, all play blind here.
NAXALITES BURN SCREEN PROTESTING
AGAINST OBSCENITY
About 60 members of a Naxalite group stormed into Bidhushree cinema in North Calcutta in the matinee show and set the screen ablaze after splashing kerosene on it, in protest against an obscene English film being shown there. They shouted slogans against the screening of obscene plays and films. The hall was emptied immediately. Nobody was arrested. The fire brigade personnel, who rushed to the spot, put off the fire. Damage to the property was not heavy.
3-E
Education-Entertainment-Enlightenment
Towards A Hat-Trick?
Director Shankar of the Tamil filmdom, who is only too well-known in Bollywood too, thanks to the popularity of the music of his Gentleman and Kaadhlan in Bombay, will direct Kamal Haasan in his next film. It is called Indian and is being produced by A.M. Rathnam. Paired with Kamal in this Tamil film is Manisha Koirala. It goes without saying that the music of this film will be scored by A.R. Rahman who had provided the musical score in the earlier two films too. Will music history and box-office history repeat themselves?
Busybee Bungalows
With the boom in production of TV serials, bungalows available for shootings suddenly find themselves overbooked. There is such a great demand for bungalows that hiring charges for them have shot up. In spite of that, they are all heavily booked. One more woe in the long list of woes of filmmakers!
Canada Calling
Enough of Mauritius, London and South Africa. The audience now needs a change. They’ve seen enough of the above places in our films. At least two producers are contemplating shooting portions of their films in Canada soon. The two producers are N. Chandra and Gava and the two films, Beqabu and Karobaar.
‘Mera Hindustan’: Of Contemporary India
It is after a gap of several years that Manoj Kumar has returned to his first love — making films. In a brief chat on the set of his Mera Hindustan, the veteran filmmaker said, “It is not just important to make a film, what is more important is what you are making. All these years, I was not satisfied with the subjects I came across. I have a certain commitment towards my audience and I cannot dream of cheating them. A film may or may not click at the box-office but it must, at least, be an honest attempt.” Manoj Kumar may have also made a TV serial with nationalist flavour but for the powers-that-be at Mandi House. “I realised that Mandi House is not a clean place and I did not feel like dealing with Doordarshan,” lamented the maker. Talking of Mera Hindustan, he said, it deals with contemporary India. But that does not necessarily mean, the recent communal tensions and bomb blasts that shook various parts of the country. Not wishing to reveal the story, written by Rajiv Kaul and Praful Parekh, the veteran merely said, “By contemporary, one could mean the state in which the families of martyrs of yesteryears are today.” The film stars Rishi Kapoor, Kunal Goswami, Raveena Tandon, Manisha Koirala, Pran, Amrish Puri, Beena, Anjana Mumtaz and others.
The All-Rounder Writer
With Javed Akhtar having bagged this year’s Filmfare award for best lyrics for 1942 A Love Story, he has become the first writer to have won awards in all the departments of writing. Zanjeer and Deewaar had won the awards for the best story. This was when Salim and Javed worked as a team. The duo also bagged three Filmfare awards for screenplay writing — for Zanjeer, Deewaar and Shakti. Salim Javed were also given a Filmfare award for the best dialogues for their work in Deewaar. Javed won the award for his dialogues again in Main Azad Hoon. Lyrics-writing was the only department of writing in which Javed had no Filmfare trophy. That trophy came to him last Saturday.
Man Of All Seasons
Babubhai Thiba has come a long way in the film industry. Starting out as a film journalist, he graduated to story-writing in Gujarati films. Soon he became executive producer. From there, he tried his hands at secretaryship and managed the affairs of quite a few stars. Not satisfied at remaining a secretary all his life, Babubhai produced a film too. Although it bombed, the man is keen on making another and is putting a project together. That’s not all. Thiba now also has an audio cassette duplicating plant at Goregaon in Bombay. It has a capacity of churning out 30,000 cassettes per day.
Music companies like BMB, Aftab and Royal get their cassettes duplicated at Thiba’s plant. Babubhai is not alone in the cassette duplicating enterprise. Swaraj Paneri and Sunil Khanna are his partners.
Strengeth In Length?
After Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!, there’s another film coming, which has a running time of more than 3 hours and 15 minutes. It’s Jai Vikraanta. The film has a total length of 5,837.20 metres in 21 reels. The length of HAHK..! (unabridged version) is 5,895.13 metres in 20 reels, while of the abridged version of the film, it is 5,669.58 metres.
Thinking At One’s Risk!
The owners of Mehboob Studios must be having a vague sense of humour. A notice, prominently displayed at the entrance of the studio, announces that the studio property is not for sale. It goes on to add that anybody who thinks otherwise shall do so at his own risk as to costs and consequences!! Heavens! Since when has anybody begun to have control over somebody’s thoughts? It is all very understandable that the owners are peeved at newspaper reports that the studio is up for sale, but how can one dream of setting the records straight by warning people not to think something?
