Saturday, June 11, 2011

Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin - Dare I Call It A Bollywood Classic?

Last evening (Friday), I finished work at around 9.30 pm, took a shower, poured myself a drink and switched on the TV to unwind a bit. I prefer watching English movies and was hoping there would be a good action movie, recent release but the channels were predictably boring and were showing the same movies for the 10th to 100th time. While surfing channels, I realised that Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin (henceforth referred to as DHKMN) was just starting off (the opening credits were rolling). I decided to stick with it, thinking that I have always missed the beginning and I could at least watch the comedy part.

After the first 5 minutes or so, the song Galyan Sankali Sonyachi started and I started humming along as the thought passed through my mind that 'Thank God, Hindi movies seem to be less prone to breaking into songs these days'. Then Aamir Khan enters the scene, does a comedy sequence where he argues with the bus conductor, Pooja Bhatt takes his seat and the movies takes off.... 

My memory of the movies of that period is the endlessly crass stuff that used to be overbearing on any one angle - action meant extreme violence and rape scenes, family dramas killed it with complications and comedy was just too stretched out. The reason why I would like to call DHKMN a classic is that it has all the elements that make it a good Bollywood picture
- Great chemistry between Aamir and Pooja Bhatt (she looks very brash and cute despite the horrible hairstyle)
- Super soundtrack composed by Nadeem Shravan - dil hai ke manta nahin, adain bhi hai, sapnon ke saudagar, dil tujhpe aagaya. I must confess that towards the end I got a little tired of them bursting into song once too many times but the songs made up. Click on this link for the soundtrack
- Good comedy by all the characters. Personally I am very happy that Anupam Kher was fairly restrained in terms of length of his scenes
- The storyline is not very different and quite predictable but at least it is fairly fast paced and does not prolong any scene

I'm kinda thinking of stuff to add here but nothing is coming to my mind so thats it folks. Don't break a sweat but watch it again if you get a chance. Cheers.

For the DVD, click on Dil Hai Ke Manta Nahin

2 comments:

Devendra said...

I like your take on what goes wrong in so many movies of that era. I especially cringe in some of those movies when Johny Lever takes over and the stretched out "comedy" scene starts to wear me down. Damn those eyeballs. I also noticed the other day that Anupam Kher is a great actor if given the right material. I have seen him be over the top and annoying but I really enjoyed him as the Dad in Bend It Like Bekham - which is not a Hindi Film but showed how talented he really is. Anyways, I will be sure to check out this classic very soon. Thanks for the review!

Pravin Mathew said...

Another movie where Anupam Kher has acted vey well is 'A Wednesday".