Sawaal (1982)

Cast:
Earnest and boring police officer: Inspector Ravi Malhotra (Shashi Kapoor)

His innocent baby-faced girlfriend: Sonia Mehta (Poonam Dhillan)

Her effervescent brother: Vicky Mehta (Randhir Kapoor)

Vicky's fiancee: Reshmi (Swaroop Sampat)

Vicky and Sonia's mom: Anju Mehta (Waheeda Rehman)

Their evil smuggler dad: Dhanpathrai Mehta (Sanjeev Kumar)

His evil co-smuggler (and Reshmi's brother): Shamsher Singh (Prem Chopra)

A smuggler team man who wants to go straight: Madan Puri

I have never seen any actor as bored with his role as Shashi is in this movie, and it's no wonder, because his part must be unbearably dull to play. He is a "serious" police officer, who never smiles and runs around capturing bad guys and giving dialogues filled with righteous indignation.

He fights evil.

And he has a girlfriend.

And apparently a dad? (who shows up for about ten minutes as a plot device and then never appears again, in spite of being left in the hospital the last we see him?)

But essentially Shashi only plays the foil to Sanjeev Kumar's wonderful wickedness. Sanjeev even gets better theme music. And a really cool icon collection.

The other noteworthy things: Prem Chopra shows off his eyebrow skills. (And he dances a little bit. I think this is the first time I've seen the bad guy dance. Usually you can tell who's actually a good guy by whether they hop up and join the dancing. Don't let this fool you; Prem stays evil-evil-evil.)

As you might have noticed from the cast descriptions, there is a potential conflict between Ravi, the super-righteous and humorless police officer and Dhanpathrai, his super-evil prospective father-in-law. And yup, that is a problem. Eventually, Dhanpathrai realizes he has to choose between his career and his kids.

The ending seems pretty abrupt to me, like they realized nothing was going to save this and they might as well cut it short. Still, it's not that bad, and if you're a Sanjeev Kumar fan, this film might be worth watching for you -- his part is pretty cool. Or if you have an unusual love for Prem Chopra, he gets a lot of screen time. But if you're a Shashi fan, don't bother.

Fakira (1976)

I very much enjoyed this movie while I was watching it. It was fun and entertaining and I accepted what it had to offer without stopping to examine it too closely. The action starts soon and the craziness keeps going right to the very end. Sadly, once I'd finished the movie and started thinking back about some of it, I found it less satisfying.

For one thing, the romance has some creepy vibes to it. The age difference is enough that Shashi's cute romantic lines sometimes come across as a bit disturbing. Most of their scenes together are either song sequences or involve Shabana's character groveling at Shashi's feet. Also, the whole basis of their relationship is deceit, which I didn't feel was adequately worked through once things were revealed.

I feel like the other relationships were hardly given any attention either. I suppose masala films aren't known for realistic and deep relationships, but there was a lot of potential for more development here that just was not taken. Actually, in general, the characterizations seemed to be vague and ill defined.

Still, as far as action and fun and farce are concerned, it's a good choice. There were several very funny gags, (I especially liked the bomber pigeons), so if you're looking for a fun timepass (as Filmi Geek calls it), this is your movie.

Awara (1951)

My school library has a decent amount of Bollywood films, but not many oldies. That's why I was very pleased to see Awara on the shelf, and I checked it out immediately. After I watched it I glanced through a few Bollywood blogs, and I was surprised to see this listed on so few of the blogs I checked. I suppose there are reasons for it not to be a popular pick, but there are also some strong reasons to watch it. I'll just tell you two, these being:

Reason 1: Little Shashi! I make it a point never to read back covers before I watch the movie—they tend to give away too much—so I was very surprised and happy when Shashi showed up as the young Raj. He looks just like himself (i.e., adorable). He actually gets a fair amount of screen time, too, and acts extremely well. The cover informs me that this was the only child's role he ever played. See how cute he is!

Reason 2: The song at the end of this post. It's quite trippy, which is usually a plus in my book. I especially love the fallen column slide. Of course, the devils dancing in hell are quite entertaining, too. The helpful back cover informs me that this was the first dream sequence in Hindi cinema. Obviously, it caught on.

In case you were curious about what reasons would make you not want to watch the film, I'll share one of those. Prithviraj Kapoor plays Judge Raghunath, and Raj Kapoor plays his son, Raj. Judge Raghunath firmly believes that honesty is hereditary. Predictably, Raj becomes a thief, but he does inherit another characteristic of his father's—mistreating women. Judge Raghunath throws his wife out of the house while she's in labor with Raj because he suspects (falsely) that she was raped. Raj slaps his girlfriend until she falls to the ground when she tells him it's ungentlemanly to look her way when she's changing. (Both of the women seem to think they somehow deserve this treatment, too.) This made the rest of the story a bit less satisfactory.

Still, the movie has its points. I mean, it has Little Shashi! That's worth something. Also, it's a must-see if you're a fan of the Kapoor clan; it's got Prithviraj, Raj, Shashi, and Wikipedia says that "Prithiviraj's father Dewan Bashwanath Kapoor also played a cameo role in his only film appearance." I'm not quite sure, but I have a guess about who he played.