This 1973 Prakash Mehra movie is often cited  as the launch of  the Amitabh Bachchan angry-young-man role that was a turning point in the actor’s career as well as mainstream Hindi cinema, and coincided with a growing dissatisfaction with post-Independence government.   It’s a story of one man’s revenge for the wrongs done to […]

  Look at those two.   Don’t they look perfect?   When this movie came out in 2003, I remember reading stories that said the picture had been exceedingly well received by Indian overseas audiences, especially in the U.S., whereas response was tepid, at best, in India.    They went on to say that the […]

  Amar, Akbar, Anthony, Manmohan Desai’s 1977 movie  takes the separated-at-birth, double role device prevalent in many Hindi movies over the years and puts a twist on it.   The set-up is this:    driver Kishenlal (played by Pran), just home from having taken the fall for his boss, Robert, and gone to jail, finds […]

Black and white, and visually precious.   This 1959 film is often cited as an example of the golden age of Hindi cinema. Directed by and starring Guru Dutt, who committed suicide  in 1964 at the age of 39, the film is considered by many to be at least partially autobiographical. The movie opens with […]

I’ve no one to blame but myself.   I took this 2002 Sridevi Productions movie home because I like Nana Patekar, one of the three lead actors, and had  read, several times over, back when the movie was first released that, surprisingly,  Karisma Kapoor had done a good turn in it.   What a sorry […]

  Even 30 years since its release, Yash Chopra’s  Deewar still has a lot going for it:  classic Amitabh Bachchan as Vijay, leggy and brooding, in full angry-young-man mode, the breathy voice and soft eyes of  Shashi Kapoor as Ravi, the Dudley Doright brother of the family, compelled to pursue his bad boy brother. The […]