Gupt
Director: Rajiv Rai
Music: Viju Shah, Lyrics: Anand Bakshi
Year: 1997
Running Time: 165 minutes
Like a lonely mockingbird, the film begins
with the mournful call of “Gupt, Gupt, Gupt” – but in fact it should have
warned us with “dumb, dumb, dumb”. While watching this one, it almost feels
as if your feet are trapped in their sheets and there is no way to free them.
It purports to be a murder mystery, but the only mystery is how could such
an idiotic script be written. It has more clichés than a passel of
Perry Mason shows with none of the fun. With 165 minutes of running time
there should be time to insert a few scenes that would make this film a little
more palatable – but the director seems to prefer endless scenes of suspects
being beaten up.
Bobby Deol runs into two new girls on the same day at school. One is an old
friend from his childhood, Kajol, and they immediately get a hankering for
one another. Then there is also Manisha Koirala who sets her heart on Bobby
as well and gets daddy to help out by going to Bobby’s stepfather – who is
the Governor of the province – and asking for a marriage match. A short time
later at a large function the father announces the engagement – much to Bobby’s
surprise. One might have thought the stepfather might have mentioned this
small matter to Bobby in the meantime but he must have been too busy – but
then the dramatic scene that follows could not have occurred. Bobby blows
up and threatens the Governor and later that night the stepfather gets murdered.
There are loads of suspects, but Bobby is the main one – especially as he
of course walks in right after the murder and puts his hands on the murder
weapon – don’t people watch enough TV to know not to do this. At his trial,
his defense lawyer actually pleads to the court that Bobby is guilty and
should be punished – and no one seems to find this a little irregular. I
wonder if he still sent a bill. So up the river Bobby goes where he beats
up a few tough prisoners and the warden before he escapes through the sewers.
He hooks up with Kajol and starts looking for the real killer. Subtlety is
not his modus operandi as he basically beats them up or drops them out of
windows until he finally believes in their innocence. Uproariously, they
all end up in the hospital in beds next to each other – yuck, yuck, yuck.
The numbers of suspects dwindle but Bobby still finds time to do a few dance
numbers, as he remains one step ahead of the law. Deol is unfortunately not
very graceful in either his dance routines or his action scenes and his curly
unmanageable hair has a distinctly annoying 70’s retro flavor to it.
Kajol is as good as she can be especially considering the awful short skirts
they put her in and Manisha looks a good deal more plumper than she would
a year later in the far superior film, Dil Se. There are six songs but only
the second one has much going for it. The others are tepid though the last
two have an interesting look to the sets and cinematography.
My rating for this film: 4.0