{"id":752,"date":"2006-12-11T11:22:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-11T11:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2006\/12\/review-baabul-2.html"},"modified":"2023-01-25T14:43:51","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T19:43:51","slug":"review-baabul-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2006\/12\/review-baabul-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Review : Baabul"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Baabul-Comedy-Bollywood-Indian-Cinema\/dp\/B004S9KHEI?crid=8KRANTIN5RAH&amp;keywords=baabul+hindi+movie&amp;qid=1674675717&amp;sprefix=baabul+hindi+movie%2Caps%2C130&amp;sr=8-1&amp;linkCode=li2&amp;tag=amosmovrev-20&amp;linkId=f85761816f1cea6f73181b57e5b935ce&amp;language=en_US&amp;ref_=as_li_ss_il\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?_encoding=UTF8&amp;ASIN=B004S9KHEI&amp;Format=_ML160_&amp;ID=AsinImage&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;WS=1&amp;tag=amosmovrev-20&amp;language=en_US\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;\" src=\"https:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=amosmovrev-20&amp;language=en_US&amp;l=li2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B004S9KHEI\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" \/>Rating : Above average (3.9\/5)<br \/>\nGenre : Drama<br \/>\nYear : 2006<br \/>\nRunning time : 3 hours<br \/>\nDirector : Ravi Chopra<br \/>\nCast : Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Om Puri, Rani Mukherjee, Salman Khan, John Abraham, Sharat Saxena, Rajpal Yadav, Parmeet Sethi, Aman Verma<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>BAABUL : AN EMOTIONAL FATHER-DAUGHTER WEEPIE <\/em><\/p>\n<p>To be fair, let me state that I did not like \u201cBaghbaan\u201d &#8211; I found it so insufferable that I left it mid-way. This one, although by the same director, I was rather keen to see, because the topic seemed interesting. And then there\u2019s Rani Mukherjee and Bachhan to consider \u2013 an awesome acting pair they make.<\/p>\n<p>So, see I did. And liked it. It is in parts, clich\u00e9d and trite, and with some dialogues I really wondered whether the director was regressing to his \u201cBaghbaan-ish\u201d self. Thankfully he only regressed in parts, so the movie as a whole came together without too much surplus emotion lapping at the edges.<\/p>\n<p>The <em>kahani<\/em> which is <a title=\"Review : Prem Rog\" href=\"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2005\/03\/review-prem-rog-2.html\">\u201cPrem Rog\u201d<\/a> \u2013ish in 2006, is of urban city girl Malvika (Rani), who\u2019s living life painting and selling those paintings (i.e.; successful painter). She meets richie-rich Avinash Kapoor (Salman) on a golf course (yeah she\u2019s painting there \u2013 imaginative scripting this), and of course they fall in love, marry, have a kid \u2013 the works. Avinash\u2019s dad Balraaj (Amitabh) is the Punjabi patriarch who loves his son greatly and is stricken when that son dies. Of course Malavika is in worse shape, and when Balraaj sees her condition, he resolves to help her overcome it by bringing into her life old friend Rajat (John) . . .<\/p>\n<p>Now, Rani is one of the main reasons I went to see the film, and I must say she comes through on this one. She looks beautiful, acts superbly \u2013 she might be the rare breed of Bollywood heroine with beauty and acting skills in equal proportions. Amitabh is the other star, who delivers his (sometimes corny) lines with such aplomb, that I want to get up and applaud, especially towards the end when he so forcefully advocates for the rights of fellow-man\/woman over some cold, phony rituals. And Hema Malini (as Balraj&#8217;s wife Shobhna), although I like the way she looks even at this age, can\u2019t act. She never could, could she ? \u201cSeeta aur Geeta\u201d didn\u2019t require it that much. A little whip-flicking and you were done. And now a little hand-wringing and those helpless flutters, and she thinks she\u2019s done.<\/p>\n<p>Salman brings to this film good-humor, bonhomie and some comedic moments. Rajpal Yadav is totally wasted &#8211; he&#8217;s the driver and general help of the Balraj household. Such a fantastic actor and he is forced to demean himself in these 2 bit roles. And Abraham, although he isn\u2019t the best actor in the world, seems so likeable, that he fits his part anyway. I must mention here, that it\u2019s hard to make John look bad \u2013 visually that is. But the Chopra camp sure has tried. They put him in a loud yellow (no it\u2019s not off-white) sherwani, at the shaadi and he looks like an absolute <em>bhangi<\/em>. They also put Amitabh in a pinkish sherwani (designer color blind ?) which doesn\u2019t suit him at all. Rani look gorgeous in her full-sleeved blouse-georgette sari ensemble in one of the dance sequences and Hema dances as gracefully as ever.<\/p>\n<p>The songs were OK, I thought. The one catchy number appears right at the beginning, with repartees between the father Balraj and son Avi. Also of mention is the title number \u201cKehta hai Baabul\u201d which is heard in refrains in the movie. The almost classical \u201cBawri piya ki\u201d is also very nice and filmed pretty artistically. Most of the song sequences, which were generally family affairs are filmed slickly, lots of color, glitz and glamour, gorgeous sets, beautifully choreographed moves, and those now ubiquitous long-legged, mini-skirted, foreign dancers. Johar sure made a trend with \u201cShava Shava\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Now, the story is about the value of our daughters \u2013 be they widows or not. The underlying theme is the perennial struggle of societal customs versus humanity, and how we ought to discard old traditions when they no longer make sense. And although I agree with the general theme here, and pretty much why I also liked the film, I was snorting a little at some of the chauvinistic thinking that accompanied it. Like how Balraj would think that his DIL\u2019s happiness would only be another marriage, or the assumption that the bahu would take kindly to the FIL forcing her into a marriage, ready or not. Or the notion that a woman is \u201c<em>adhuri<\/em>\u201d (incomplete) without her <em>sindoor<\/em> (check out John mumbling that mouthful).<\/p>\n<p>The direction is OK. The film tends to flag a little towards the interval, and post-interval the melancholic music tends to get you down. Although this is an entertainer, and a weepie, it tends to get \u201cstretchy\u201d as emotional films are wont to do. I am thankfull that although Chopra milks the father-daugther love for all it\u2019s worth, he\u2019s still not overdone it, Baghbaan style. This time he gets the balance almost right.<\/p>\n<p>I was told that the director initially shot a movie 5.5. hours long and then edited it to it\u2019s present length. This made me deathly afraid that I\u2019d have to endure a film of nightmarish proportions (4 hours ??), because desi directors find their footage so hard to cast-off. However this film ends at a seemly 3 hours \u2013 just enough to polish off those pakoras after the interval.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not promising that I\u2019d see this film again, but for one watch, this was worth the money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rating : Above average (3.9\/5) Genre : Drama Year : 2006 Running time : 3 hours Director : Ravi Chopra Cast : Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Om Puri, Rani Mukherjee, Salman Khan, John Abraham, Sharat Saxena, Rajpal Yadav, Parmeet Sethi, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2006\/12\/review-baabul-2.html\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":"","facebook_10233691416821117_190635594420624":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43,76,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-43","category-bollywood","category-watchable"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":2,"uagb_excerpt":"Rating : Above average (3.9\/5) Genre : Drama Year : 2006 Running time : 3 hours Director : Ravi Chopra Cast : Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Om Puri, Rani Mukherjee, Salman Khan, John Abraham, Sharat Saxena, Rajpal Yadav, Parmeet Sethi, &hellip; Continue reading &rarr;","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45CAb-c8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10369,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions\/10369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}