Mr. India
Director:
Shekhar Kapur
Year: 1987
Music: Laxmikant/Pyarelal
Duration: 179 minutes
Rating: 8.5
Mogambo Khush hua. Or Mogambo is pleased.
One of many bits that still makes this
film so well loved and a joyful experience. It has heart, it has patriotism,
it has enough kookiness to fill an oil well, a classic unforgettable villain
and it has a super hero. But mainly this is just oodles of fun as it swerves
like a bumper car on speed between action, romance, great songs, home and
heart and Sridevi's enormous bewitching eyes. When she performs Hawa Hawai*
it is all you can do not to clap and send her a fan letter. That dance and
the aftermath of her being rescued by Mr. India are 20 of the most entertaining
minutes on celluloid. Ok, so I love this film. It even has a bunch of children
and children almost always make me cringe but not here. That is how much
I like this film. It is out in Blue-ray and is lovely. India which has a
miserable record of quality DVDs and a sparsity of transferring their films
to Blue-ray has performed a service with this one. I hope they do a lot more
because their old films are vanishing - but Indian Blue-rays are crazy expensive
so far.
A plague of criminal activity has swept
over India and the police superintendent says "There is a power outside this
country funding it" and it isn't America! Usually, that is code for Pakistan
but this time one of the villains is addressed as Fu Manchu so I suspect
it is their neighbor to the north. This proxy force is headed by Mogambo.
Hail Mogambo and give the Nazi salute. Like all crazy mad men who desire
power, Mogambo has a lair that is a series of underground caverns that you
need to take a boat that leads you to this gigantic open room with semi-swastika
looking décor, men and women in splashy uniforms, a robot walking
around and big ivory throne for Mogambo to sit on and clutch the globes built
into the chair. And like all well-equipped lairs it has an acid pool to punish
those who fail or displease him. Or just for the hell of it as he randomly
picks three men to jump in and they do so willingly with a hail Mogambo.
When things go well he states with eye-bulging authority, Mogambo Khush Hua
- a quote that became famous.
Mogambo is played with a manic ferocity
by Amrish Puri with his Caesar haircut, gold braided military uniform and
eyes that scream insanity. He has a nifty plan though. Create chaos in India.
Make them turn on one another. Religion, caste, race and region. Give them
weapons. Stir up hate. Then we step in and I will be King of India. All he
needs for success is a landing place on the beach of Bombay. A place just
like Arun and his group of orphans live in. A ramshackle house full of love.
Just kick them out. Good luck with that.
Arun (Anil Kapoor) lost his parents when
very young and so has made it his mission to take in orphans and give them
his affection and a place to sleep and eat. And some how get the money to
do so. He wakes them up each morning by turning on the mini-shower above
their beds and gets them ready for school. The landlord demands the rent
or out they go - being pressured by Mogambo's swine - and so he rents out
the upstairs to a female journalist, who hates children. Seema played by
Sridevi. But more pressure is applied and the gang beat up Arun and the kids.
Next time we will kill you. And then he is told by an old professor (Ashok
Kumar - a legend in the 1950s) who had been friends with his father that
his father had been killed because men were looking for his secret formula.
Formula? Yes, to make you invisible. What? No way.
Yup. And Arun goes to his old home and
finds a bracelet that in fact does the trick. From this point on the film
goes hyper nuts as he becomes Mr. India - beloved by the country and
of course by Seema as he rights wrongs and beats the crap out of evil-doers.
It is so much fun. Sridevi has some great moments - the Hawa Hawai number
and a section when she does a Charlie Chaplin imitation and walks into a
gambling casino run by Mogambo. The white villain in this is Bob Cristo,
a legend to some degree. He was a large bald-headed Australian who always
played a villain and has some great fights on screen in many of his films.
The story is that he came to India back in the 1970s because he was a fan
of actress Parveen Babi and got a role in a film and basically never went
home. On IMDB he has over 150 credits.
* As a warning - the Hawa Hawai number
is fabulous but the back-up dancers all are in blackface - a lot of it.
