Tag Archives: Movie Review

Movie Review: Dulha Mil Gaya (2010)

2 Replies

1.5 Stars (out of 4)

Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack at Amazon

When a character chooses to do something he or she wouldn’t normally do, that’s character development. When an outside force makes a character do something he or she wouldn’t normally do, that’s plot-driven development. By confusing the two, Dulha Mil Gaya keeps its two selfish protagonists from becoming the heroes they’re supposed to become.

Dulha Mil Gaya (“I Found a Groom”) is primarily about Shimmer and Donsai, a model and a playboy enjoying the single life in Trinidad. Shimmer (Sushmita Sen) has a wealthy but absent boyfriend she has no intention of marrying. Donsai (Fardeen Khan) is a serial heartbreaker who lives off of his recently-deceased father’s fortune.

Donsai’s lawyer finds a clause in Dad’s will stating that Donsai needs to marry a particular Punjabi girl he’s never met within 15 days or he’ll lose his money.

When Donsai and the lawyer meet the girl in Punjab, she’s shy, conservatively dressed and wearing glasses; there is undoubtedly a makeover scene in her future. The girl, Samarpreet (Ishita Sharma), consents to wed, and she and Donsai get a quickie courtroom marriage. He leaves on a “business trip,” promising to come back for her. He never does.

After three months with no contact, apart from a monthly check in the mail, Samarpreet flies to Trinidad, where she sees Donsai carousing with another woman. Distraught, she runs into Shimmer, who agrees to help, out of a small degree of compassion and a larger desire to cheat Donsai out of his yacht.

The movie proceeds as expected. Samarpreet gets madeover and reborn as Samara, and Donsai pursues her. While Samarpreet is just happy to finally have his attention, I wanted to tear my hair out. Donsai may not know he’s pursuing his wife, but the audience does. So why are we supposed to root for him to get with Samara?

When (spoiler alert) Donsai finally remembers that he ditched a wife in Punjab, it’s only because his butler finds out about it and makes him feel guilty. Donsai doesn’t independently realize that he’s a louse. Even after the predictable “happy ending”, I couldn’t help but feel that Samarpreet got cheated out of a relationship with someone who really loved her.

Shimmer’s love story is just as unsatisfying. Her boyfriend, PRG (played in an extended cameo by Shahrukh Khan), shows up for the last 50 minutes of the movie, announcing his arrival with something like, “Everyone’s been talking about me, and now I’m finally here.” We understand that casting SRK was a stunt; you don’t have to point it out to us.

PRG is a version of his “Shahrukh Khan” character: charming, brave and irresistible. Shimmer puts off committing to him until Samarpreet gives her the stock “It’s time to give up your career and start having babies” speech. As with Donsai, Shimmer wouldn’t have chosen to marry PRG unless someone else told her to.

In addition to the problem of mistaking plot development for character development, Dulha Mil Gaya stereotypes gay men with the character Lotus, Shimmer’s butler. He wears a peach-colored suit and flounces about, exaggeratedly calling everyone “darling.” It’s not until halfway through the movie that he gets to deliver dialog without affectation.

It’s a shame that the only Hindi movie I’ve seen that portrays gays as real people is Dostana, where two straight guys pretend to be gay. They do so by being themselves, but professing to prefer romantic relationships with men rather than women. You know, like real gay people.

Note: Dulha Mil Gaya‘s listed runtime of 1 hr. 48 min. is wrong. It’s more like 2 hrs. 35 min.

Worst Bollywood Movies of 2009

12 Replies

There are a number of factors I considered when selecting candidates for Worst Bollywood Movie of 2009. Movies featuring racist jokes, such as Kambakkht Ishq and All the Best, obviously made the list. Incoherent plots brought Wanted and De Dana Dan to my attention, whereas Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna ignored traditional story structure and skipped the climax all together.

Ek — The Power of One deserves mention for its ridiculous title, which translates in English to “One — The Power of One”.

What’s Your Raashee? was easily the biggest disappointment of the year, coming from Ashutosh Gowariker, the filmmaker responsible for great flicks like Lagaan, Swades and Jodhaa Akbar.

2009 was a particularly bad year for Akshay Kumar. In addition to Kambakkht Ishq and De Dana Dan, he also starred in the bland supernatural thriller 8×10 Tasveer. His two other releases during the calendar year, Blue and Chandni Chowk to China, were fine but forgettable.

Because of their spectacular misunderstanding of human emotions and dubious moral messages, I thought about giving the award to either Kal Kissne Dekha or London Dreams. Kal Kissne Dekha suggested that one’s value is dependent upon one’s ability to save lives via superhuman powers, while London Dreams excused abhorrent behavior so long as it was committed in pursuit of a selfish goal.

But the ultimate winner had to be the most annoying, most cliché-riddled movie of the year, the worst of the worst. And the winner of Worst Bollywood Movie of 2009 is: Do Knot Disturb.

Do Knot Disturb, which deserves the honor based on its stupid title alone, contains all of the bad clichés that dominate Hindi comedies at the moment. The plot is based on a series of misunderstandings which could be clarified if the characters actually had conversations with one another. The jokes are written based on volume instead of quality, under the mistaken belief that what was funny the first time is even funnier the sixth, seventh and eighth time.

Case in point, the high-pitched screaming match between characters played by Govinda and Ritesh Deshmukh. The characters get spooked by something and start shrieking in girlish voices. The gag isn’t original, but it’s not inherently annoying. But in Do Knot Disturb, the characters scream dialogue at each other in those high-pitched voices for the next ten minutes of the movie.

After one minute, the gag had already stopped being funny. After ten minutes, it was unbearable. I actually walked out of the theater and only convinced myself to return out of a sense of journalistic duty. By virtue of having watched all but one minute of the movie, I can say that Do Knot Disturb is the worst Hindi film of 2009.

Previous Worst Movies List

Movie Review: 3 Idiots (2009)

28 Replies

4 Stars (out of 4)

Buy or rent the movie at iTunes
Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack at Amazon

The comedy film genre encompasses a wide range of styles, from slapstick to romantic comedy. Hindi comedies are frequently either mindlessly wacky or overly sentimental. 3 Idiots is funny and perfectly balanced: silly but not frantic, poignant but not sappy.

The movie begins as Farhan (R. Madhavan) and Raju (Sharman Joshi) get a lead on the whereabouts of their friend, Rancho (Aamir Khan), who vanished after their college graduation ceremony, five years earlier. The source of the lead is Rancho’s old university nemesis, Chatur — known as “The Silencer” for his chronic, quiet flatulence — who’s eager to verify that he’s become a bigger success than Rancho.

As Farhan, Raju and The Silencer hit the road, the movie flashes back to their first days at a prestigious engineering school. Rancho seems to be the only freshman not afflicted by the neuroses crippling his classmates: fear of disappointing his parents (Farhan), the burden of being the family breadwinner (Raju) and greed (Silencer). Rather, Rancho is at school because he likes creating machines.

Rancho doesn’t agree with the school director’s motto: “Life is a race. If you don’t run fast, you’ll get trampled.” This earns him the respect of Farhan and Raju, and the ire of the school director, Viru (Boman Irani), nicknamed “Virus” by his students.

During a prank, Rancho meets pretty medical student Pia (Kareena Kapoor). Unfortunately for Rancho, her father is Virus. But Pia succumbs to Rancho’s charms and helps him and his friends during a crisis.

The movie transitions between flashbacks and the modern day, as Farhan and Raju close in on their missing pal’s location. The reason behind Rancho’s disappearance — which is explained halfway through the movie — isn’t the focus, the friendship is.

3 Idiots is a smart comedy. Jokes are well-written, with plenty of call-backs to prior jokes and meticulous continuity. The material is well-acted, proving why it made sense to cast 44-year-old Aamir Khan as a college freshman.

The material is also universal, with few regional or culture-specific jokes. Non-Hindi speakers who stumble into the theater expecting an English-language film needn’t worry about not understanding the jokes. In fact, 3 Idiots is a great Bollywood starter film.

There are a few melodramatic moments, but they’re not overdone, as in typical masala movies. Those maudlin movies are lampooned, as when a trip to Raju’s family home is shown in black & white with a dramatic score, his poor mother and unwed sister slaving over dinner next to his paralyzed father’s cot.

By skipping teary-eyed speeches in favor of funny dialogues, 3 Idiots provides better insight into the nature of friendship and the importance of following your dreams than most dramas. Yet it’s funny throughout, making 3 Idiots perhaps the best Hindi comedy I’ve ever seen.

Note: The movie’s runtime is listed as 2 hrs. 15 min. It’s actually closer to 3 hours long.

Movie Review: Rocket Singh (2009)

6 Replies

2.5 Stars (out of 4)

Buy or rent the movie at iTunes
Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack at Amazon

Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year takes the topic of ethical business practices so seriously that it occasionally strays from cineplex fare into a university lecture. With such likable characters and actors, I wish the filmmakers had had more faith that they’d made their point through their storytelling.

Ranbir Kapoor plays Harpreet Singh Bedi, a recent college graduate whose low marks don’t qualify him for law school or med school like his friends. He opts for a job in sales, where he reasons that persistence and people skills matter more than high marks.

His first job at computer sales firm At Your Service (AYS) isn’t what he expects. Despite the name, the company seems to pride itself on charging customers exorbitant fees for minimal service. Worse, they land deals with bribes, something Harpreet’s Sikh upbringing won’t allow him to do.

Harpreet’s morals get him in to trouble with his bosses and coworkers, and it looks as though his first job in sales will be his last. But when he goes out of his way to help a cute small business owner, he realizes there’s a better way to treat customers. His covert business — Rocket Sales — takes off, with a little help from a few other disgruntled AYS employees.

Rocket Singh establishes from the beginning that the movie is going to take its time telling its story. The leisurely opening credits are set against the backdrop of slowly changing shots from the interior of the apartment Harpreet shares with his grandfather. The decor is outdated, but every knickknack exemplifies the grandfather’s life’s work and shows his pride in all that he’s earned.

The movie’s best moments involve Harpreet interacting with his co-conspirators: the unchallenged computer tech who spends his days looking at bikini-clad women on the Internet, the pretty receptionist who’s only valued for her looks, the disrespected office tea server. Like Harpreet, they all represent ways in which modern corporate culture devalues individuals.

At times, Rocket Singh deals with this dehumanization with a heavy hand. Copious examples of Harpreet being put down by his boss and coworkers make the movie drag. Harpreet’s college pals ask him at one point why he doesn’t quit his job at AYS, and in truth, he probably only stays because the plot demands it. The movie’s climax is an unnecessary lecture on the importance of treating customers and employees with respect, as that’s what the whole film was about.

Movie Review: De Dana Dan (2009)

2 Replies

0.5 Stars (out of 4)

Buy or rent the movie at iTunes
Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack at Amazon

Rather than a cohesive movie, De Dana Dan is a muddle of sideplots with no connecting thread. As a result, the talents of Bollywood’s comedy all-stars are squandered in an unsatisfying waste of two hours and forty-five minutes.

De Dana Dan gets off to a bad start for those of us who don’t understand Hindi, as Akshay Kumar’s opening narration isn’t subtitled in English. What I was able to work out is that Kumar’s character, Nitin, works as an a kind of indentured servant for the overbearing Kuljeet (Archana Puran Singh). Nitin’s buddy, Ram (Sunil Shetty), is likewise paying off debts by working as a delivery man.

Nitin’s girlfriend, Anjali (Katrina Kaif), and Ram’s girlfriend, Manpreet (Sameera Reddy), are sick of waiting for their guys to raise enough cash to marry them. So Nitin and Ram concoct a scheme to kidnap Kuljeet’s beloved dog and demand a ransom for his return. Of course, things don’t go as planned.

Meanwhile, a conman named Chadda (Paresh Rawal) tries to arrange a marriage between his son, Nonny (played by Chunky Pandey, who’s only 12 years younger than Rawal), and Anjali. Chadda plans to use her dowry money to pay off his debts. When Anjali lies to Nonny that she’s pregnant with someone else’s child, the conmen target Manpreet and her family instead.

The rest of the movie contains seemingly infinite cases of mistaken identity among the innumerable characters, some of whom — like Neha Dhupia’s dancer/thief — exist only to add to the confusion, not to further the plot. Granted, what passes for plot in De Dana Dan is little more than characters running, shouting, hiding from each other and falling on each other in compromising positions.

De Dana Dan is convoluted and irritating, rather than complex and interesting, and the final product is boring and empty. The romances between the penniless guys and their wealthy girlfriends feel hollow, since both couples are prepared to break up if the dog-napping scheme fails.

Paresh Rawal does his best as the movie’s lead actor (despite Kumar’s and Kaif’s prominence on the movie posters), but there’s ultimately no one to root for in this film.

The movie also contributes to a distressing trend I’ve written about before: the seeming acceptability of violence against women in Hindi cinema. Early in De Dana Dan, Anjali’s father slaps her hard enough to knock her over. Then he slaps her mother and threatens to break their legs if they defy him.

As the movie progresses, Anjali’s father assumes a supposedly comic role, accidentally groping a woman and chasing after the wrong guy. But how can the audience think him funny when he’s been established as an abusive husband and father?

I accept that physical punishment within families could be viewed differently in India than it is in The United States (although spanking your toddler and slapping your adult daughter’s face are on opposite ends of the corporal punishment spectrum). But I can’t imagine that abuse is so widely accepted that it’s considered funny.

Movie Review: Tum Mile (2009)

1 Reply

tummile2 Stars (out of 4)

Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack at Amazon

It’s unfortunate that Tum Mile — a rare Bollywood disaster movie — was released on the same weekend in the U.S. as the Hollywood disaster epic, 2012. Scenes of catastrophe take a backseat to romance in Tum Mile, and the characters never really seem to be in mortal danger. It’s the obvious second choice for theater-goers looking for thrills.

The action in Tum Mile takes place on July 26, 2005, the day historic rainfall swamped Mumbai, causing mass strandings and over 1000 deaths. Think of the destruction Hurricane Katrina caused to New Orleans about one month later — only in a city with 28 times more people than pre-Katrina New Orleans.

Lead characters Akshay (Emraan Hashmi) and Sanjana (Soha Ali Khan) meet unexpectedly on a plane bound for Mumbai. They used to be lovers, but they haven’t spoken in several years, since a painful breakup. They exchange business cards upon landing and go their separate ways, as the rain begins to fall.

The bulk of the film consists of flashbacks chronicling the couple’s initial meeting, obstacles to their relationship and their eventual breakup. It’s more detailed than is necessary to show that Akshay and Sanjana still harbor feelings for each other.

In fact, the excess of backstory has the effect of making Akshay an unsympathetic hero. While dating, Akshay first resents Sanjana for financing his floundering art career. When he follows her advice and gets an office job, he resents her for making him abandon his art.

At one point, Sanjana asks, “Why does he have to make it so hard for me to love him?”. Khan plays Sanjana as understanding and self-confident, and it’s hard to believe that she’d still have feelings for him after so many years.

The present-day story arc kicks in when Mumbai’s streets start to flood, and Akshay gets a sense that Sanjana is in danger. He sets out to search for her in the rain. On foot. In a city of 14 million people.

Miraculously, he finds her after she’s escaped from a flooding car — not that the audience actually gets to see her escape. One minute she’s in a flooding car, and the next minute, she’s walking through the flooding streets. Rule #1 of disaster movies: show the escape.

Akshay and his buddy, Vic, take shelter with Sanjana on a stalled bus to wait for the waters to recede. A tree falls on the bus, threatening to roll the bus on its side, blocking the main doors. Everyone on the bus panics as though death is imminent, though an inconvenient escape via the rear exit or windows seems the worst likely outcome of a tipped bus.

While floods are unquestionably deadly, the “danger” in Tum Mile never feels very dangerous. In Titanic — a movie that clearly inspired Tum Mile, right down to the scenes of the male lead painting the female protagonist’s portrait — the ship is in danger of sinking to the bottom of the ocean. The prospect of a bus rolling on its side in four feet of water on a city street isn’t nearly as terrifying.

Movie Review: Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani (2009)

9 Replies

ajabpremki3 Stars (out of 4)

Buy or rent the movie at iTunes
Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack at Amazon

Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani is the next step in the transformation of Bollywood slapstick comedies into an internationally-viable form of entertainment: it’s actually funny.

Ranbir Kapoor plays Prem, president of The Happy Club, a sort of fraternity that’s a pretext for Prem and his friends to goof around, funded by money gently extorted from their parents. The club’s mission is to make people happy and unite separated lovers, and the group occasionally acts on its mission statement.

It’s during one of the attempts to unite two lovers — by way of kidnapping — that Prem meets Jenny (Katrina Kaif), a pretty girl destined to become the love of his life. There are obstacles to their union, including the fact that jobless Prem isn’t prime marriage material, nor is he the only one trying to win her heart. Plus, he’s too petrified to tell Jenny how he feels about her.

Ranbir Kapoor is the reason APKGK succeeds. Had Prem been played by frequent Hindi comedy leads Akshay Kumar or Salman Khan (who has a cameo that acknowledges his real-life romance with Kaif), Prem would get his way by slapping any friends or enemies who object to his plans. Because Kumar and Khan have muscular physiques, directors feel the need to put those muscles to use, even when it’s not funny or appropriate.

Tall and lanky, Kapoor makes Prem relatable. He gets his way by outsmarting his opponents and convincing his friends to help him; he’s not a bully. When watching comedies starring Kumar or Khan, I often wonder why their on-screen pals stick around, since they get thrashed as much as the bad guys.

APKGK relies on well-written jokes instead of crude sound effects like flatulence or slide whistles (one of my least favorite Bollywood gimmicks). By keeping the effects to a minimum, it forces the actors to make the situation funny, rather than relying on an auditory cue to alert the audience when something is supposed to be funny.

The movie has two faults that plague modern Bollywood comedies. First, it doesn’t know when to end a joke. The climactic showdown with the requisite gangsters is twice as long as it should be. Seeing someone lifted up by a jet of steam can be funny the first time; by the fourth time, it’s boring.

APKGK‘s second problem is more troubling, especially for international audiences. During a scene in which Jenny is being pressured to marry a lout named Tony, the prospective groom’s father says to Jenny, in essence, “Either you marry Tony willingly, or he’ll take you to his bedroom and make you his wife.”

Whoa! When did this stop being a comedy? Surely, the filmmakers intended only for the scene to make it clear that Prem needs to rescue Jenny ASAP, but the statement is so disgusting  and out of proportion that it stops the flow of the movie completely.

While I don’t think any topic is off-limits in comedy, rape references in comedies should at least acknowledge the immorality of the act. The threat of rape is used so casually in APKGK (as it also was in Wanted) that it almost comes across as a viable way of making women compliant. International movie-goers (like me) may wonder if such threats are considered acceptable in India.

Movie Review: London Dreams (2009)

2 Replies

londondreamsZero Stars (out of 4)

Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack at Amazon

2008’s Rock On!! is a great Hindi film about a rock band and the tensions that develop between band members. Though London Dreams is also about problems within a rock band, it’s every bit as bad as Rock On!! is good: shallow and lacking an understanding of human emotions.

London Dreams is about Arjun, a Punjabi boy who dreams of becoming a great musician. However, his family hates music, blaming that particular form of entertainment for the death of Arjun’s grandfather.

When Arjun’s father dies — an event Arjun interprets as divine confirmation of his musical destiny — the boy moves to London with his uncle. Arjun runs away in the airport and buys his way into a music school with pocket change. (What? It could happen.)

As an adult, Arjun (Ajay Devgan) is so singularly focused on his goal of headlining Wembley Stadium that he won’t let anything distract him, going to far as to whip himself with a belt to suppress his sexual urges for his backup dancer, Priya (Asin Thottumkal). Arjun’s band, London Dreams, takes England by storm, even though their music is mediocre.

Arjun’s childhood friend, Mannu (Salman Khan), leaves his life of philandering in Punjab to live with his pal in London. For kicks, Arjun invites Mannu to perform on stage with London Dreams.

There’s a freak confetti accident during the performance, and Arjun gestures to Mannu to take over as frontman. Turns out, slacker Mannu is a more charismatic singer than Arjun. Mannu gets all of the accolades, as well as Priya’s affections, and Arjun sets about trying to destroy his best friend and take back the spotlight for himself.

Overall, London Dreams is a sloppy movie. The same footage is used for concerts that are supposed to take place separately in London, Paris and Rome; try to spot the girl in the blue basketball jersey in the crowd at all three concerts.

Worse, the band members barely even pretend to play their instruments. The old, mohawked drummer never comes within an inch of the cymbals he’s supposed to be playing. Heck, he’s not even an official member of the band, which consists of two singers, two guitarists and a backup dancer. It’s impossible for them to produce the music that makes up the movie’s soundtrack; it should have also been impossible for Mannu to auto-tune his own voice without the aid of a microphone and computer.

Trumping all of the movie’s other problems, the lead characters in London Dreams are deplorable. Arjun is a sociopath, and Mannu’s alternately a promiscuous lout and a simpleton. Their relationship with each other doesn’t develop, and Arjun never faces any consequences for being a terrible person.

Skip London Dreams and rent Rock On!! If nothing else, the music’s better.

Movie Review: Aladin (2009)

3 Replies

AladinPoster3 Stars (out of 4)

Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack at Amazon

There aren’t many kid-friendly Bollywood movies released in the United States, and those that have opened here, like Saawariya and Roadside Romeo, have disappointed. Aladin is a delightful update of the classic fairytale that will amuse the whole family.

In this live action version of the story — which differs significantly from the animated Disney film — Aladin (Ritesh Deshmukh) is a lonely college student. His parents died under mysterious circumstances when he was young, and he lives alone in the book-littered home of his deceased grandfather. Fellow students tease him because of his name, demanding that he produce a genie from a lamp like the fairytale dictates.

Aladin’s crush on Jasmine (Jacqueline Fernandez), an American exchange student, appears destined to go unrequited until she buys him a lamp from the “Ancient Thing Store” as a birthday gift. He’s goaded into rubbing the lamp which, naturally, contains a genie.

The genie, named Genius (Amitabh Bachchan) is close to retirement and is eager for Aladin to use his three wishes before his genie contract gets renewed for another million years. The duo sets about trying to woo Jasmine on Aladin’s behalf. But Genius doesn’t know that Aladin is in danger from an evil ex-genie named Ring Master (Sanjay Dutt), who’s eager to regain his powers and take over the world.

One of Aladin‘s best features is that it looks terrific. The fictional town of Khwaish is a perfect fantasy city: narrow cobblestoned streets that wind uphill through buildings made of sand-colored bricks. Dance numbers are colorful and the special effects are relatively seamless.

As for the characters and plot, writer-director-producer Sujoy Ghosh keeps the story true to tradition, while giving it his own spin. Deshmukh does a great job as Aladin, a likable guy with such simple desires that he’s incapable of misusing his new-found power.

Ring Master is also a fitting villain. His motives are clear, and he’s got a group of creepy circus-inspired henchmen to help him, including a lion tamer, a firebreather and, inexplicably, a Star Trek Klingon.

The writing in Aladin is solid, especially for a Bollywood comedy (see my review of Deshmukh’s other recent film, Do Knot Disturb). Several scenes are laugh-out-loud funny, and there are no extraneous plot threads or characters.

For parents of children who don’t understand Hindi, Aladin is a good introduction to movies with English subtitles, even if it is long at 2 hrs. 12 min. The story is familiar, so all that’s required is that the child be old enough to read English with some speed: third or fourth grade, perhaps. There’s no objectionable material, and no “gross” kissing (this is Bollywood, after all).

One note to parents who themselves aren’t familiar with Bollywood films: it’s worth telling kids that Amitabh Bachchan, who plays the genie, is one of the coolest guys in Indian cinema. He was an action star when he was younger and has always been a lady’s man. It’s the only way to explain why a man old enough to be a grandfather is rapping about “shorties.”

Movie Review: All The Best (2009)

10 Replies

allthebest1 Star (out of 4)

Buy the DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack at Amazon

For the first two hours, All The Best is a tolerable if uninspired slapstick comedy. But, due to the movie’s racist final scene, it’s not worth watching.

The movie focuses on aspiring rock star Vir (Fardeen Khan), who lives off of the largess of his globe-trotting step-brother, Dharam (Sanjay Dutt). In order to get a larger monthly allowance from Dharam, Vir tells his brother that his girlfriend, Vidya (Mugdha Godse), is actually his wife.

Since the two brothers rarely see each other, the lie goes unchallenged until Dharam lands in town for a layover on his way to the small African country of Lesotho. The layover turns into an extended stay when the country experiences a military coup.

Vir turns to his best friend, Prem (Ajay Devgan), for help. Since this is a comedy, all of Prem’s ideas to deceive Dharam make things worse, especially when Dharam mistakes Prem’s wife, Jhanvi (Bipasha Basu), for Vir’s pretend wife, Vidya.

The bulk of the humor centers on mistaken identities and the friends’ attempts to keep the truth from hot-tempered Dharam. Basu and Ashwini Kalsekar, who plays Vir’s maid, Mary, are the most successful at generating laughs.

But All The Best falls back on the same cliche seen in many recent Bollywood comedies: gangsters. If one were to form an impression of modern India based solely on Hindi cinema, India would seem as overrun with gangsters as Chicago was in the 1920s, only with the gangsters more inept and less threatening than their American predecessors.

The most pathetically unfunny of the bunch is Topu (Johny Lever), the mute gang leader. He communicates with his lackeys by banging a spoon against a glass, as though he were trying to get a newly-married couple to kiss at their wedding reception. It’s the stupidest gimmick since the mute villain in Karzzzz, who communicated via a musical keypad on his wrist.

Such lame gimmicks might be forgivable, if not for the movie’s final scene, involving several characters from Lesotho. They speak in something that’s supposed to sound like Swahili, even though Swahili isn’t an official language of Lesotho. I can’t prove it, but I’m guessing the filmmakers didn’t spring to hire an actual Swahili translator, and that the words are just gibberish that’s supposed to sound “African.” [Update: A kind Access Bollywood reader, Samuel, let me know that the language is in fact Swahili.]

If that weren’t insulting enough, three of the characters are Indian actors — including Bipasha Basu — in blackface make up. Coming just a few weeks after American musician Harry Connick Jr. took an Australian comedy troupe to task for the same offense, All The Best‘s racist attempt at humor comes off as particularly crude.

For Indian cinema to be taken seriously in the rest of the world, it needs to drop these outdated, racist jokes. Bollywood’s top stars need to lead the way. Bipasha Basu should have refused to perform the scene in blackface, just as Akshay Kumar should’ve said no to his blackface scene in Kambakkht Ishq.