Majboor
 
   
Director: Ravi Tandon
Year:  1974
Music: Laxmikant/Pyarelal
Duration: 155 minutes
Rating: 6.0
Compelled

For an Amitabh film in the mid-1970's this is a bit of a disappointment. No angry young man, no seeking revenge for the murder of his father or brother, no discovering you had a brother who is now trying to arrest you or is a crook, no spies. He just plays an ordinary man here for most of the film until he has to once again become Amitabh! But it takes a while. It is the sort of plot you can only get away with in Bollywood. Absurd, melodramatic but by the end you have bought into its sincerity. A man discovers he is dying so he frames himself for a murder so that his family can get the reward money for the killer. Ok, a little bit crazy. It gets more so. He gets convicted to hang, collapses, has surgery, is fine and realizes he will be hanged unless he finds the real killer. Presto he escapes and goes after him. I am surprised that Hollywood hasn't done a re-make.



That man is of course Amitabh Bachchan. Playing Ravi, a mild mannered travel agent who supports his mother (Sulochana), a sister in a wheel chair (Farida Jalal, who years later was to become one of the great mothers in films like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai) and a very young brother. He is the only breadwinner. At one point the police suspected him of perhaps killing a man named Surinder (Rehman) who months before he had provided an airline ticket to and then gotten a ride on a rainy night. His body was found the next day. When he finds out he has a brain tumor and likely only months to live he devises a plan to support his family. Frame himself for the killing by leaving clues and having someone (himself over the phone) finger him. The plan goes great till the operation and then oops. That takes us past the half way mark. Then this travel agent becomes Amitabh as he starts bashing his way to finding out the real killer in his bright red jump suit that is almost blinding. It gets quite fun with a crazy frantic nervous ending.



His female co-star is Parveen Babi - someone I am always glad to see in a film because she is so often in good action films for some reason. She co-starred with Amitabh a number of times - and at some point they became lovers (he was married to actress Jaya at the time - he was to have a few affairs). And then it fell apart and she went nuts and accused him of kidnapping her, threatening to kill her and planting a transmitter in her skull. But that was still years in the distance. Here she is his goody two shoes girl friend - I much prefer her when she is a little bad and has a great dance.



The best musical number has Pran as the lead - which is very strange because Pran is one of the quintessential villains in Bollywood and here he is a thief. And he gets the best musical number. But that is definitely better than the number in which the young boy sings and he is clearly being playbacked by Lata. That was creepy. Iftekhar is on hand as the cop - he almost always is or a judge and Mac Mohan as always plays a minion but a bigger role here than he usually gets. Pran got a Film Fare Award for Best Supporting actor and he is good - likeable for a change though still a crook. There are many better Amitabh films but it is still Amitabh - he is always bigger than life. It is up on YouTube.