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Old wine in a recycled bottle

A still from Rajaji. Click for bigger pic!

Sharmila Taliculam

You haven't seen Govinda's last few movies? Never fear, just drop into the theatre and spend some time and money on Rajaji. You'll see them all. You might even get to see a rehash of a much older movie as a bonus.

So Rajaji doesn't boast of anything other than the comedy that Govinda is known to offer. Only this time it's drab and bores you mindless.

The storyline has Govinda playing a brat (Rajaji) who thinks being rich is his destiny and who has no qualms about filching a grand from his dad's pockets. He adores the thought of failure, and joyously distributes sweets to the villagers and the local cattle when he scores the lowest of marks in his college.

His father (Kader Khan) suffers palpitations every time he hears of some prank the brat has played but is too indulgent to do anything too serious about it other than try to drill some of his principles and values into the dumb cluck.

But the mother (Aruna Irani) is made of sterner stuff and she finally gives her boy the heave-ho. But momma has to contend with an uncle (Satish Kaushik), who backs the brat every time.

Click for bigger pic!

Rajaji decides to go to Bombay to earn pots of money, being under the impression that the city's roads are paved with gold. His disillusionment is terrible when he finds that Bombayites have to work about as hard as anyone he'd left behind in the village. He decides that the easy way out is to marry a millionaire's daughter. So when a girl manages to mash up a car when he is around, the hero decides that anything that tumbles out of such a swank car ought to be pretty well padded about the pockets too.

But -- we simplistically assume you haven't guessed that yet -- the girl, Payal (Raveena Tandon), is actually a gardener's daughter who just had rich friends teaching her how to drive when the mishap occurred. Now no questions about what the rich girl's pa said about how the gardener's gal produced that pile of twisted metal.

Anyway, the yokel gets about wooing the girl in the hairiest manner possible and yet manages to snag her, suggesting that it isn't only in the greenhouse that gardeners grow their vegetables. Meanwhile, Rajaji is so eager to marry the girl that he doesn't entertain the thought that his swain could be poor.

Till the day of the marriage that is. If that scenario resembles something that Rakesh Roshan did long ago in Kaamchor, blame in on the persistence of memory. And if the drunken husband scene makes you think of the same film, comfort yourself that you at least get to see what the modern bride and groom ought to wear. If comfort it is.

The tale isn't original, the treatment is shabby. You wonder what makes Govinda keep regurgitating old wine in recycled bottles. Also, why does he have to keep hamming though he's such a fine actor otherwise.

Click for bigger pic!

Particularly revolting were the visuals. Govinda wears these funny-looking kurtas with gaudy blazers over it and gaudier trousers. The temporary class he'd developed in clothing appears to be just that -- temporary.

This film has been produced and directed by Vimal Kumar who must have thought he could weave the David Dhawan-Govinda kind of magic. He's failed miserably. The result is overdone, overstuffed and replete with overacting.

The songs are no big deal and the choreography is typical of the stuff Chinni Prakash comes up with -- exaggerated movements and jerky steps. One ghastly scene, during the song Raja chalo akele mein, baj gaya tabla tabele mein, you have bulls with blue, green and pink horns. Best forgotten, but for the fact that you aren't quite used to forgetting bulls with the above-mentioned accoutrements in shades of blue, green and pink.

Satish Kaushik grates on your nerves as the annoying uncle while Mohan Joshi looks rather pathetic as the gardener. Kader Khan and Aruna Irani look completely bored playing the parents. But can you blame them? How often have they done much the same thing?

If you are a die-hard Govinda fan, go right ahead, this one might even make you begin to wonder if you picked your heroes wrong. Putting that differently, we'd say we can't really forgive Govinda for this particular outing.