Ghulam (1998)

Sure, its formulaic, but personally I think there is an element of spoof in it. Look at some of the dance routines. Especially the one where they are in a log cabin. They are not taking themselves too seriously here. And it does have a charm about it. My favorite song in it is the one about going to Chandala. And the scene where he enters her window about 16 stories up - it is completely ludicrous but is hugely entertaining and I feel for the right reasons.

Amir Khan also appeared earlier in "andaaz apna apna" which was very much a comedy, allthough it did tend to veer to much towards farce at times.

Although there was some sort of an action story and a moral theme to it, i think much of it was meant to be a light comedy romance, and those parts of the film worked quite nicely.

Sure its not a particularly memorable film and isnt ground breaking cinema, but its not actually a bad film, as long as you arent expecting too much out of it. And its quite watchable.

Fmovies: Siddharth "Siddhu "Marathe (Aamir Khan) is a Mumbai tapori, a boxing champion. His brother, Jaidev "Jai" (Rajit Kapur), is the accounts manager and right hand man for Raunak "Ronnie" Singh (Sharat Saxena), a former boxing champion who ostensibly runs a travel agency but in reality rules the local community by terrorising people and stealing money from innocent merchants. Other than his boxing practice, Siddhu leads a relatively aimless and wanderlust life. In his spare time, he hangs out with friends, occasionally stealing money from rich people. Siddhu is financially dependent on his elder brother Jai, who lives in Raunak Singh's house but occasionally visits Siddhu and tops up his finances.

Fantastic movie -- amir khan is super and fantastic >i advise with watchin this movie

Ghulam fmovies. Ghulam is truly a masterpiece with an excellent theme by Vikram Bhatt.Definitely it is his best directorial venture.The plot of the movie taken from ON THE WATER FRONT fits very well to the culture of Subcontinent,beautifully reflects the hardships & attitude of the society in big cities and also shows the right way to fight against injustice & cruelty.The sole of the film is Aamir Khan's stunning performance.The way he has portrayed the character of Sidhu a confused,tipori is awesome.This performance has for sure declared Aamir Khan as the best actor in history of Indian cinema.Rani Mukherji looked very fresh and beautiful, the only flaw of the film is her dubbed voice which was needless.SharatSexana in the role of Ronak Singh is excellent.Music is very good.All the songs are good with "ab naam mohabbat ke ilzam " & "aati kya khandala" stand out.Overall it is an excellent film.I have seen this film 18 times till date and i recommend it to every movie lover.

Siddhu is a small time felon in Bombay who's morals can be summarised as `every man for himself'. His lawyer has faith he can change and is trying to help him by keeping him out of jail for petty offences. Siddhu's brother works for Ronny, an ex-boxer who now runs organised crime in the area. As a result Siddhu gets some muscle work for Ronny. One day Ronny's thugs are beating up some shopkeepers for money by Siddhu's house. Afterwards Siddhu meets the eldest, Hari, and befriends him. However Hari is responsible for causing Ronny trouble and hence Siddhu unwittingly helps Ronny to kill him.

I have only seen a handful of Bollywood films of these I have loved one (Lagaan) and been indifferent to the majority. I find that they have all the flaws of Hollywood exploitation movies without many of the production values. Ghulam (The Slave) is a fine example of the standard Bollywood formula - songs, pretty girls, manly heroes, hairy villains, overacting and dramatic music and direction. As such it is OK but I'm not a fan of these standard formulae. I'd rather have them with at least a bit of a new spin. However this film doesn't want to do that and gives it to us straight. The plot is a basic `do the right thing' film that borrows heavily from `On the Waterfront' in many different ways.

The action scenes suggest a Bollywood Jackie Chan but they lack any of his flair and imagination. The love interest is dropped into the film so heavily that it hits with a heavy clang - the first hour is basically just that, it isn't integrated into the film so much as just added on. It does allow about 5 songs to occur that don't fit with the tone of the film. I'm a little biased because I always struggle to tell one from the other with these things. I know that they films are meant to be whole adventures for an audience but it just felt pretty disjointed to me.

The direction is typically hilarious - rushing cameras etc that really play to the traditional Bollywood clichés. The sound effects sound too fake and don't match the action and the different in sound quality between dialogue and singing is so noticeable that it bothered me. I know that the singing is mostly done by other people in a studio but can't they at least try and match them up in terms of quality at least.

The acting is also very clichéd. Khan was a good hero in Lagaan but he was helped by the more professional feel of that film. Here he fits with the mood of the film in that he just overacts where needed - tears, anger, frustration etc, all emotions are on his sleeve for all to see. The villains are typically bad and gruff and overact like the best of them. Meanwhile love interest Mukherjee (Alisha) is suitably air brushed, pretty and shot with a constant breeze in her hair and soft focus lens!

Considering people make a big deal of Bollywood movies being a big culture. To me this just smacked of American influence. Chicago Bulls tee-shirts, T2 posters etc all clutter the sets. Meanwhile the plot borrows from lots of American films. Like I said the plot itself is just On the Waterfront without the subtext or drama. They take it and just throw out anything of value and add songs! Even the boxing scene sees the opponent being a mickey-take of BRITISH boxer Prince Naseem Hamed. Even the climax is a mix between a wild west stand-off and a Rocky movie! Does no one else see the influence of American culture in this film? It's not a bad thing but why pretend that B

Amir plays the role of a confused, frustrated and sensitive "gunda" who lives with the evil but surprisingly knows the difference between right and wrong. His conscious is alive maybe because of something he saw happening to his dad when he was young. It casted a lasting effect on him and it stayed with him all his life. His brother also realizes the difference between the right and the wrong but readily accepts the wrong because he doesn't mind taking shortcuts in life. Excellent performances by Amir Khan and Rani both. The real hero, however, is Ronnie. He gave the best performance of his life. Every single dialog of his is nothing less than Gabbar's from Sholay. Not only does this movie have some great acting, but some excellent screenplay, dialogs, direction, storyline, and songs! One of my favorite Hindi movies of all time. Rating: ****

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