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Entertainer No 1

A still from Anari No 1. Click for bigger pic!

Sharmila Taliculam

It's amazing how entertaining Govinda can make a film that otherwise has nothing in it.

Anari No 1 is another one of those comedy films, that Govinda has made his forte. In the same class were Coolie No 1, Hero No 1 and Aunty No 1. Though the earlier film had Govinda team up with David Dhawan, Anari No 1 is Aruna Irani's maiden production, directed by her husband Kuku Kohli.

It was in December 1881 that Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper hit the stands, but Indian cinema has yet not exhausted its potential despite often having exhausted audiences. So you have two people who look the same out loose again. Govinda is both the rich Rahul and the poor Raja. And their respective girls are Sona (Simran) and Sapna (Raveena Tandon).

Rahul lives in a white and gold mansion with a family consisting of a step-mom, a father, a scheming uncle and aunt.

Click for bigger pic!

Aruna Irani plays the nice stepmom this time, and tries to depict that alternative maters needn't be quite the harridans they are often paired out to be. She is so loving that any bad news about Rahul can give her a heart attack. Being a good actress, she manages all right.

Anyway, the film keeps you laughing through a few comedy of errors till the Govindas find each other. The poor variety, who always dreams of becoming rich, kidnaps the rich one but his conscience gives him some trouble. So he lets the man go, which lets the villain, who suffers from no such constricting moral compunction, abduct the guy.

Many Bollywood films have this problem of trying to put too much into a film. So in a funny film, you introduce some bad guys, squeeze in plenty of violence, little children trying to play saviours, whatever. And when that happens, it gets tedious. So if the first half of the film finds you laughing, by the end you wonder if they put in clips from a tear-jerker by accident.

The best thing about the film is the perennially fresh-faced -- and toothy -- Govinda. You like the cheeriness about him as he dances to songs with ridiculous lyrics like Kurta phad ke. Even when he yearns for a mother's love, you can empathise with the feeling, however corny it may look otherwise. He does everything with enthusiasm, be it dancing, weeping or wooing.

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Over the years, his choice of couture has improved tremendously; earlier in his career, he more often than not popped up in a role looking like a refugee from the local circus. The overall improvement is gratifying.

In Anari No 1, the poor man dominates the rich one. That gives Govinda the scope to indulge in the comedy he is famous for. The rich man is subdued and staid, the type who wears natty Versace suits; and naturally, he takes the back seat.

You might think he'll unwind sometime but there's no go there. He is serious, even when he criticises the other Govinda and his friend Sattar (Satish Shah), of not conducting a kidnapping seriously. "You are so stupid," he keeps saying in disgust.

The girls provide the glamour in the film and don't have much to do other than dance and look good. Raveena does both jobs well, but acting appears beyond her, despite having spent so many years in the industry.

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Simran was first seen in ABCL's Tere Mere Sapne singing Aankh mare ho ladka. She has slimmed down since. Though she is a big name down south, she will have tougher competition in Bollywood.

For once, Kader Khan is not his usual loud self, spewing double entendre. But he can't help being himself in some scenes either. There's the bit where his character takes on that of Govinda, where he feels the latter is going around with two-timing two women. That's handled pretty well. But it is still nice that Kader Khan and Johny Lever don't have too many scenes.

The only song, worth watching -- and I don't mean hearing -- is Dhire dhire hum dono mein pyar hua hai pakka. The choreography is good and Govinda dances as only he can -- with absolute abandon. The rest of the musical stuff is best forgotten as quickly as possible.

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There is no scope for great cinematography because it is a family drama and the only locations used are five-star hotels and the white and gold bungalow we mentioned.

Though Kuku Kohli directed a hit film for Ajay Devgan (Phool Aur Kaante), he hasn't been very successful otherwise. He is pretty good at depicting relationships though, as happened in his first film, where there were pretty intense scenes between Amrish Puri and Devgan. In this film, the scenes between Aruna Irani and Govinda have the same flavour.

Kohli might not be in the big league yet, but he is a good director who needs a hit to make it. Anari No 1 isn't wonderful, but it's a simple film with no pretensions about it. It seeks to entertain and makes a decent job of it.