This is a big old fat slab of Bollywood that was left out in the sun too long and curdled. It has it all from orphans to alcoholics, domestic abuse to a trumpet playing mad man, ghastly fashions to break dancing to a mother with a machine gun. It comes from the same production team and composer who gave the world Disco Dancer and The Adventures of Tarzan. Two films that are so much cheesy fun that Kraft should sponsor them. This doesn't rise to those heights of wonderment but not for lack of trying. Director Babbar Subhash and composer Babbi Lahiri spin out a tale so weighted down with sodden tear filled melodrama that I felt like I was on the Titanic going down. Now melodrama and Bollywood go hand in hand like a marriage but marriages can go bad and this begins to stink of trying too hard. But it takes a while to get to that point and then makes a great save at the end.


Shyam (Satish Kaul) and his wife Sita (Sarala Yeolekar) go off to another town to perform at a theater. They leave behind their small children Radhu and Ramu. The rent is due and the landlord wants his money. The performance goes fine but in the front row A.M. Singh (Amrish Puri - one of the great bulging eyes over the top villains of all time) is fantasizing about Sita and practically rubbing his joy stick. He is an ex-Maharaja and has a home just slightly smaller than the Taj Mahal but with a lot more land. He invites them back to his place to sing - they decline and so he has his men kidnap the whole band. And kill everyone but Sita. The man likes his music. He then picks up his trumpet and dances wildly around the room blowing his horn and trying to molest Sita. Back home the next day the landlord literally picks the children up and throws them into the street with the admonition that their father should not have bought them Halwa, an Indian sweet.


Homeless, they are near starvation when they sing the Halwa song and a Halwa seller gives them some - and a man throws some money at them. Brother, Radhu yells, we are saved - we can make money!! And they do and suddenly they are adults - Radhu is Smita Patil and Ramu is Mithun Chakraborty - two very famous actors in Bollywood. Mithun made a number of nationalistic action films that were big hits (but also Disco Dancer) and Smita made a name for herself not in Bollywood so much but in Parallel Cinema - ie no music - though she was to go back and forth. They start to make it big in the music business and Ramu becomes an idol and changes his name to Romeo. And you might ask - what about poor old mom. She is alive and has escaped into the jungle and lives there but she swears "Like Draupadi, I won't comb my hair until I can wet it in your blood". Chariots of Fire music breaks out so you know she is serious. Draupadi is a character from the Mahabharata. Later we get a lot of Maricone and then Star Wars music. All no doubt licensed.


So far so good. Then it goes off the track - Radhu marries their friend Resham (Shakti Kapoor) who beats the crap out of her, Romeo turns to drink because he can't stop it, he meets a female singer named Janita (Mandakini) and we are doing A Star is Born. Nothing bores me more than actors doing their drunk impersonations and we get an hour of it. Please get to the end. And that is pretty great - mom shows up and picks up a machine gun and blasts away saving Janita and while performing in the theater full of people Singh sends in his men on motorcycles to kidnap Janita and it is a fight fest and hundreds of people panicking.


The music from Babbi is similar to Disco Dancer and Tarzan (both which we hear a snatch of) - very poppy, disco flavored and fairly forgettable - but they put on a big show around them full of background dancers in incredibly tasteless outfits and Mithun doing his idea of dancing. It is hard to describe his style - part Michael Jackson but a lot faster and part like we do in our room when no one is around. It is kind of amazing because no male Bollywood stars really danced back then - they move sometimes, swing their hips, do a few steps - but other then Shammi in the 60's basically no one else really danced till Hrithik Roshan showed up. So his dancing may be strange and bewildering but at least he tries.